I came across this shot on 8mm classic gorefest on Film Threat Video under the title “Darkness” at a record store back in 93-ish. I never expected a DVD release, let alone a 2 Disc Special Edition with more than you could possible expect from a film of this nature. You’re the man Barrel Entertainment.

Here we have a very impressive Indie blood-soaker that truly kicks ass with vampire’s that have a fever for flesh like hyper zombies. A nomadic vampire rolls in to lay waste to a small town by killing and ripping apart his victims who then become blood thirsty vamp-ritic zombies that also kill and feed on the living.

With his family slaughtered Tobe takes on the roll as hero. Armed with a shot gun, machete, holy water and a couple of friends, Tobe is out to hunt him down and save the day. But there are a lot of vamp-ritic-zombies to get though first as many people die and buckets of blood spraying gore are spilled. The acting is straight forward amateur but not terrible while the film is professionally shot with Leif Jonker making his directorial debut. The meat lies in the very passable gore galore by Gary Miller of Ferox F/x, complimented with a cool eerie mostly synth score mixed with a little heavy metal.

The interesting thing is this gore-blast was made for $5000 as a way to try and raise money to do a film. But instead it became a underground classic. First there was the video version “Darkness” that was fixed up a little and re-released as “Darkness: The Vampire Version”. Now this DVD offers the second re-edited version or Definitive Director’s Cut, which has been beefed up even more with slicker editing, shortened slightly and presented in 1.78:1 widescreen with extra scenes including even more gore, with of course the ending that rivals “The Devil’s Rain” ‘75 only much bloodier. This really should been seen by gorehounds.

Drenched with bloody Xtras including Featurettes, Commentaries, Interviews, The Original Video Version, Deleted Scenes, and so on and so on. And I do mean so on and so on with roughly 4 hrs and 50 minutes worth.