A small town is attacked by a horde of flesh eating vampires while one of the only survivors goes in search of more survivors to help him fight against the crazy blood sucking freaks and their leader Liven, the head vampire.
I had the pleasure of watching Darkness: The Vampire Version when it was first put on VHS on the shelves of the movie store I worked at in 1998 and it blew me away, so much that I looked for years for a copy, but it was so underground. At that time there wasn't any way to just jump on the internet and look it up, so I suffered for so many years until it finally came out on DVD recently, and by that time I actually found Leif Jonker, the gifted writer, director, producer, editor, effects artist, cinematographer, and soundtrack composer of this great movie. I mean damn do you know ANYONE that would put so much dedication into a film? That's a lot of stones to cast into such a big pond and Leif makes a movie that is so inspiring it's insane.
Anyways Leif and I had a few talks and he's a great guy, really down to earth, easy to talk to, and by talking to this guy you'd never think he was so twisted and sick minded, haha.
First of all let me tell you what I don't like in this movie because the list is very small.
I have to admit I'm not too happy with the acting job of the majority of the characters, although I think there's only two or three people in the entire movie that are older than 21, seriously, so I suppose for as young as the actors were and the fact that it was most of their first roles they did alright. Secondly, in some of the scenes the wind blowing around distorts the sound though if you consider a lot of the movie *so I'm told* was done on camcorder then that's understandable. Lastly I really didn't like that the majority of the movie was teenage vampires running after their victims but hey, I'm sure most of them weren't old enough to drive and I guess that's ok, haha. And with that let me reiterate, Vampires CAN run, Zombie's CANT. And that's it for what I didn't like much.. Now onto what I liked.
 
This movie was gore PACKED. Quentin Tarantino should have taken some lessons from the effects crew in Darkness, I mean blood spray everywhere! And for such a low budgeted movie this does impress with the kinda gore and guts that are inspiring to many. This movie has such a high kill count that it's uncanny. I mean dead bodies everywhere, lots of Vampire killings and what not, this movie is PACKED full of kill scenes. My personal favorite is a kill scene at a carwash, it was the main scene that stood out in my mind all these years since I watched the movie on VHS other than the insanely cool ending, and that my friends, the ending, WOW. The ending of this movie is splattacular! Of course I don't want to ruin it for all of you so I wont say what happens, you'll just have to watch for yourself but trust me, you'll be pleased if you're a true horror fan. The thing I liked most of all was the soundtrack, personally. Lots of metal music to go along with all the frantic running and killing, it really worked well. Great job Leif!
For Gore and Splatter fans this movie is right up your alley, I can not stress the fact that this movie is blood packed and impressive, especially for what was spent on making it. Can you believe they sold blood to plasma centers to fund part of this movie? That's true dedication.
Now for you movie watchers that always analyze everything you watch, this movie might not be for you because it is lowly budgeted, but for the rest of the world rejoice! Leif Jonker's Darkness: The Vampire Version is an inspiration to all budding independent horror movie directors.
For true indie horror film fans this movie is truly badass and is pretty damn impressive, I recommend this movie no matter what people might think. I thought it was badass in 1998 as much as I do today, and considering it's in better quality now, I'm all about it.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Leif Jonker's Darkness
MOVIE YEAR: 1993
DIRECTOR: Leif Jonker
WRITING CREDITS: Leif Jonker
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Gary Miller, Michael Gisick, Cena Donham
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 84 min
RATING: 9/10
Darkness: The Vampire Version Website/IMDB Click here
Darkness: The Vampire Version Trailer Click here
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