(Currently out of print, but soon to be re-released by Troma - try www.gemmvideos.com)
When a group of teenagers return home from a concert, they find an entire city of reasons to be afraid of the dark...After he witnesses his friends slaughtered in a convenience store by a nomadic vampire, Todd (Gary Miller) goes on a quest armed with a shotgun, a machete, a chainsaw, and a 2-liter bottle of holy water, to rid the world of the undead. What happens next is not for the squeamish.
"Darkness" is a grim, dark, brooding film with lots of gore, great soundtrack music, and enough mayhem to choke a small army. The good thing is that it tries to be a scary film; no humor, no quirky one-liners to lighten up the scenery, just scene after scene of creative camera angles, good makeup effects (for a $6000 budget, damn right they are!), very little dialogue, and dark atmosphere. All the classics are put to a good use as influences- "Near Dark", "Night of the Living Dead", and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", and just wait until you see the ending. You want to see a 10-minute acid flashback scene done by Lucio Fulci? You won't believe this one. "Darkness" has been out of print for close to 10 years, (It was first released by Film Threat video back in 1994) and is available in DVD form overseas. (Xploited: www.xploitedcinema.com). A classic of the underground genre, if there ever was one. - Greg Dellaria