This movie is so completely awful it's difficult to know where to start! Firstly, 'El Mariachi' is namedropped on the DVD cover and we are led to believe this is a similar looooow budget effort. But in the commentary track the directors Kel Dolen and David Allen let slip it cost a million dollars! Now, by Hollywood standards that is low, but I wouldn't exactly call that a shoestring budget! 'Pi', 'Man Bites Dog' and 'Laws Of Gravity' are three movies that immediately spring to mind that show what can be done with very little money but TALENT and drive, and closer to home Peter Jackson's 'Bad Taste' was a cheap but original and entertaining horror movie that I really enjoyed. So there's no excuse for why 'Reign In Darkness' is so absolutely terrible! I can't think of anything good to say about this. The script stinks, there are no real characters with any substance or funny lines or any real logic behind it. The digital photography is passable I suppose but the acting stinks and the fake American accents are laughable. I couldn't help but wonder why Dolen and Allen made such an unoriginal and uninspired wanna-be mainstream movie in the first place. Why bother trying to compete with Hollywood product like 'Blade' when instead they could attempt something totally extreme and unlike anything Hollywood already produces? Someone like say, the astonishing Takashi Miike would be a more fruitful inspiration rather than this third-rate John Woo schtick. Surely being outside the mainstream allows you to be MORE creative and adventurous, not less! Maybe they were treating this is a show reel and are angling for a mainstream Hollywood career. If that's the case I wish them luck (because they're really gonna need it!), but otherwise I'm baffled about where they are coming from. Perhaps their constant references to Lucas and Spielberg on the DVD commentary says it all. I would say 'Reign In Darkness' is the worst Australian vampire movie of all time, but I've seen 'Bloodlust', and that, believe or not makes this look like 'The Matrix'! Even so this is one of the poorest Australia movies I've seen in many years, and is to be avoided like the plague!
