David Harrison and his family are invited to the town of Purgatory, a town that doesn’t seem to appear on any maps, to assist with the setting up of a plant that will synthesise blood. What David doesn’t know is that the town is a haven for vampires, run by Count Mardulak, who wants them to live off the fake plasma and live in harmony with humans.

At the same time, Robert Van Helsing, an ancestor of the vampire hunter, turns up in town to kill the Count, and Shane, who runs the plant, wants to win his old conquest back, who just happens to be David’s wife.

Another vampire, Jefferson, and Shane organise an insurrection, backed with wooden bullets to take over the town and return to the old ways and a final battle ensues between the vampires who like the new way of living and those who don’t.

Made in 1989, due to the collapse of Vestron, Sundown didn’t really get any kind of decent release and therefore struggled to find an audience, and it has remained an undiscovered movie for most. But with a fresh Blu-Ray release and some fun extras included, horror fans are now able to see Anthony Hickox’s follow-up to Waxwork.

It’s a horror-comedy-western that is more than happy to poke fun at itself – watching Bruce Campbell hamming it up as a Van Helsing ancestor is amusing – and at the lore in general, taking stabs at using sunblock to protect themselves from the sun, using wooden bullets, and a few other jabs here and there. The whole thing is very much fang-in-cheek and has an impressive cast, so if you missed this the first time around, or if you’ve never even heard of it, it’s an entertaining enough flick to catch up with, especially if you’re a fan of director Anthony Hickox’s other genre fare, including Waxwork and Hellraiser 3.

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is released on Blu-ray as part of the Vestron Collector’s Series on November 15th. You can read our interview with director Anthony Hickox here.