AT DAWN THEY SLEEP

I'll be quite honest with you and say that when I went to play this DVD that I had very, very low expectations. I was fully prepared for yet another shot-on-video piece of garbage that I would tire of very quickly. To my pleasant surprise, At Dawn They Sleep actually turned out to be a very entertaining movie!

The story tells of two young thugs who fall prey to some female vampires and find themselves transformed into bloodsucking creatures. Finding themselves in this immortal state, they decide to exact revenge on their enemies and to explore the full possibilities of their new existence. However, when one of them joins forces with the Prince of Darkness, things take a sinister and ugly turn…

The film suffers from the usual pitfalls of low-budget filmmaking, but on the whole is a hugely enjoyable little movie. Director and star Brian Paulin manages to inject some original ideas into the somewhat overworked and stale vampire genre. The concept of the vampires emerging from chrysalis-like cocoons is a new one, and not something I have seen before in this genre - so it was quite refreshing to see some new ideas up there on the screen.

There are certain moments in the film where there is plainly just too much dialogue, but these were few and far between, and Paulin, for the most part, drives the film along at a decent pace. Although I also have to say that there were a couple of points in the film that seemed a bit muddled and left me scratching my head in puzzlement.

However, despite its shortcomings, Brian Paulin and company should congratulate themselves on coming up with something reasonably fresh and unique on such a restricted budget. Brian Paulin is definitely someone to watch - and with a decent-sized budget I think he could deliver something truly remarkable.

At Dawn They Sleep certainly has more than its fair share of grue and gore (and pretty well executed too) - with an interesting nod to Raimi's The Evil Dead towards the end. There are also plentiful displays of naked female flesh, which I'm sure will please hormonally challenged males everywhere! All-in-all, I'd say this is a winner and deserves to stand out from the crowd.

Video Outlaw present the movie full-frame, which looks just right, and is actually of surprisingly good quality. Colours are vibrant and the blacks are solid, with no obvious transfer defects. The audio is a standard stereo affair, but the soundmix is good and the dialogue is clear at all times. The disc also carries a commentary, behind-the-scenes featurettes, outtakes, photo galleries, a short film called Damnation (which is basically an extended version of the film's finale) and a host of trailers for other releases. Overall it's a solid package and good value for money.

Review by C J Otter