‘Sundown’ Review – A Vampire Siege Film Drained by Heavy Exposition and an Inconsistent Script [Beyond Fest]

On its fanged face, Rebekah McKendry’s Sundown sounds like a certified banger. A vampire story about three generations of women fighting back against the monsters, and dripping with bloody practical effects? What’s not to like? Plenty, it turns out, as the film delivers the creature-feature goods but has little support from a script that struggles mightily to sink its claws in.

Penned by Joshua Hull and David Ian McKendry (co-writers on McKendry’s Glorious), Sundown sets on a small town choked by the snowy chill of winter. While working her shift at the diner, Kay (Summer H. Howell) and her mother, Valerie (Camille Sullivan), are pulled away by estranged grandmother, Donna (Olwen Fouéré), for urgent business. Turns out, Donna and the ex-boyfriend of Kay’s murdered sister have captured a man who they believe to be the killer. They plan for all of them to find out the truth together…by any means necessary. But when the man turns out to be a bloodsucking vampire with help on the way, the family finds themselves in a fight for survival.

I’m generally a fan of McKendry’s work. The filmmaker traffics in tales packed with quirky humor and splattered with guts. All the Creatures Were Stirring is one of the strangest horror anthologies I’ve seen (complimentary). Glorious is a wild cosmic horror film that somehow gets more insane with every second. Sundown, however, is a departure for the filmmaker, with a script geared toward a more serious tone. And that’s where some of the film’s struggles begin.

From the moment we meet Donna, she demands your attention. Tough as nails and just as sharp-edged, Fouéré brings her usual magnetism to the screen. The actor is a joy to watch as she takes charge and cracks jokes, the type who sees little issue with kidnapping and torture. That’s in direct contrast to Sullivan’s Valerie. Not only do we learn her daughter was murdered, but she lost an election because of Donna’s “crazy” drive to find the young woman’s killer. Now, all she can do is scream and yell at her mother. I can’t really blame her, but their interactions are grating, to say the least…unpleasant to watch at their worst. And they occur frequently.

It doesn’t help that most of the dialogue hinges on exposition. Characters consistently explain the moment, rather than living in it. Nearly every scene contains an info dump or reference to the past, whether it’s Valerie recounting her election or Donna reminding her of everything she’s done to find her granddaughter’s killer. It plays like a Netflix movie that insists we’re constantly reminded of what’s going on and why, and it’s obnoxious. What should be emotional scenes that burrow deeper into the hearts of the three women instead come off as cold. Especially disappointing, considering Howell, Sullivan, and Fouéré are all excellent performers and are doing their best here. But, aside from Fouéré, they don’t get many opportunities to shine.