YMMV / Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Did Jefferson always despise Mardulak's vision and join his group to be The Mole? Or did he start out legitimately seeking redemption before succumbing to his bloodlust and turning against the others?
• Complete Monster: Ethan Jefferson is a psychotic vampire supremacist. Viewing Mardulak and his repentant vampires as "domesticated abominations", Jefferson hatches a plan to wipe out the entire town using special wooden bullets and an army of crooks he's converted into vampires, who he doesn't care if they live or die. In the process, he condones Shane's desire to rape and claim his old flame as his own. After Jefferson's attack kills much of the town and results in the deaths of many of his men, Jefferson takes one of Mardulak's friends hostage to force them to stand down, only to try and execute them all anyway. Jefferson embodies everything Mardulak seeks to get away from, and enjoys every second of it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Mort, the Grumpy Old Man and Retired Monster played by M. Emmet Walsh, is considered a highlight of the film by both its fans and its critics for his Hidden Depths and The Big Guy feats in the climax.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Some fans think Dan, Mardulak's head bodyguard, looks like he might have only been wounded in the arm in his apparent death scene.
  • There are some fans who think that a few of the minor townspeople outside of the identified survivors (such as a cowboy last seen fighting alongside Ramon in the blood plant shootout) and Ramon himself may have survived offscreen or only been wounded.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A horror setting with a Big Bad Friend named Shane, who claims to be the father of one of the protagonists two children. Are we talking about Sundown: The Vampire In Retreat or The Walking Dead?
• Too Cool to Live: In the climax, Ramon and Nigel both go down almost immediately after performing feats of coolness (fighting with a chainsaw and beating up the thuggish Bailey, respectively) that are better than anything some of the main characters do in that fight. Some of Mardulak's Red Shirt bodyguards, who show up as The Cavalry in a limousine, armed to the teeth, also count.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is a B-Movie through and through, but many of the actors playing the redemption-seeking vampires, particularly David Carradine as their leader, put on genuinely moving and nuanced performances.
  • On the flip side, Bruce Campbell does the same thing in less-than-nuanced performance, playing up Van Helsing's cluelessness for all it's worth, which, when paired with Carradine's moving performance as Mardulak, only elevates the film even higher.