This Darkness: The Vampire Virus (2003 Video) User Reviews

interesting twist on vampyre theme

[mysticalgirl · 4/10 · 7 August 2007]

not your typical vamp story, not bram stoker or anne rice here. a truly original vampyre story. these vampyres are genetic mutants who the sunlight don't bother. they are pure evil to.

the film is not perfect. many of the actors are clearly amateurs. the two leads who play van helsing and rally the vampyre chick are pretty good though. the film is intensely violent which may disturb some people. also it is loaded with scientific detail that many will find hard to understand and may get bored with. i was sold on the clever storyline and the couple good performances. no telling how successful this film could be if they had a bigger budget and it got mass distribution

A Long and Winding Brood of a Vampire Movie

[ebert311-1 · 2/10 · 11 June 2010]

After dusting off this video from my collection, I rewatched it again and noticed that on a second viewing, it didn't get any better. As all of the other reviews mention, this story was a twist on the classic vampire story we all know and love. The twist was actually good, but there were some bad points that kinda ruined the movie for me.

First the good. The plot was fairly good and the way it was told was pretty interesting. From the first snapshots on the beach to the final showdown, there seemed to be plenty of interesting locations and characters. A lot of people complained about the low lighting, but I didn't really think it was that bad. The acting was all over the place. Some characters were believable and others were the actual walking dead.

Now, the bad. The storytelling was good, but long. Too long. We stayed too long on the initial lecture and several other key points. Instead of building character relationships (so we would care if they died or not), we got a lot of technical jargon talk that could put anyone to sleep. The attempts at comedy were uneven. It was obvious that the writer of the movie was Dr. Van because he was trying way to hard to be witty. It would have been more realistic of the students were more witty than the teacher. Finally, there was gaps in the storytelling that should have been addressed (if we are going to watch a movie that is over 80 minutes long).

I went to IMDb to see if he filmed another movie and it seemed that this was his only one. He did take the time to respond to some of the criticism here and I really appreciate that. I wish we could see more from him to see how he could have advanced as a filmmaker. I also wanted to see if some of the actors (nearly all of the main characters) were in other productions because I wanted to see more of them. Unfortunately, it seems that this is a one and out type deal. To me, this is the saddest thing about the movie.

This movie isn't great or even good. But it's not the worst low rate movie I've seen. It had martial arts in it that was believable for goodness sakes!! I give it a 2 but it's with affection.

Could have been better

[henrytj · 4/10 · 8 April 2009]

An interesting concept vampirism having something to do with a virus.(but done several times by now) Overall the movie is too long and drags a bit. The editing could have been tighter. I am sorry to hear about the problem with the credits. Maybe the movie was rushed to market. The lighting was too dark in places. But the worst technical problem is the audio. The level was good enough to hear the dialog, but many of the interiors have a echo sound to them, which is very distracting. Either they were not careful in the recording, or the sound mixing could have been better. Also too much background noise got through. The should have gotten someone to do sound effects for the martial arts scenes. The tinny clank of swords hitting together was not the sound of an epic battle. Especially in the combat scenes the editing needed to be tighter.

Also the acting was a bit flat. I am sorry, but when I see that the same person writes and stars in a movie, in my experience it is a red flag.

But it was a good effort so I gave it a 4.

two hours of biology jargon and vampires, more the former than the latter

[FieCrier · 4 October 2006]

This is the second longest shot-on-video vampire movie distributed by Brain Damage Films I've seen, falling behind Strange Things Happen at Sundown (2003) (V); as with that one I eventually had to hit the forward scan button, I just had to: honest. Brain Damage - they're not kidding!

Anyway, it suffers from widely varying quality of video. Overall, it's underlit. Some consumer videocameras simply aren't made to shoot in low light or at nighttime, rendering a lot of the picture a fuzzy black. For some reason, even some of the well-lit scenes are dim, such as some of the beach scenes; I don't know why that is - poor white balance?

After some deaths in the opening scene, we're returned to two days earlier (it must have been more than that?). Dr. Van Helsing ("Van" or "Dr. V.") is lecturing a class about DNA. He's doing some kind of research that the school and the government is interested in, but he's dodging their investigations. Another doctor that he brings in on the project becomes a love interest, and a mysterious student auditing the class becomes a lust interest.

Meanwhile, there's also a young kid who wants to earn enough money to buy a surfboard, whose friend gets eaten in a public restroom by some goth vampires who aren't afraid of the light or the diseases you might catch by licking the floor of a public restroom clean.

Add to that the drama of who got credited and who didn't, and the mystery of why none of them added the credits to the IMDb themselves, and you've got two hours of video. In fairness, I did laugh at some of the stuff I was supposed to laugh at, and the director can handle a butterfly knife pretty well (though seeing the same routine twice was a bit much).

Quite easily the worst movie I have ever had the misfortune to see.

[Spider-man_2099 · 1/10 · 30 July 2005]

Allow me to start this review by saying this: I love vampire movies. They can suck (har har pun intended), and I'll still love them because vampires are just cool in movies. Van Helsing, considered by many to be a steaming pile of crap, was enjoyable to me because of the fact that there were vampires. You may ask: "What does that have to do with this movie?" The answer is that I intend to inform you of how horrible this movie truly is, that even a sucker (harharhar) for vampire movies like me can despise a movie like this so much.

The movie stars Van Helsing, a college professor guy who isn't at all convincing. He's a terrible actor, like everyone else in this movie, and he wrote it, to add salt to the wound. I honestly to not mean to offend him, and I'm sure everyone had fun making this movie, but watching it was actually painful. I'm not sure why I watched the whole thing; perhaps it was a morbid fascination, like watching an impending train crash: it's horrible, but you can't manage to force yourself to look away. Its main fault is that it's just so ****ing boring, and its plot is so damn ridiculous, even for a science fiction horror movie.

But, I digress. By the way, Van Helsing has sex with his mom. Of course, he doesn't know it's her at the time; he just thinks it's one of his students (which is still illegal and all, but not as disgusting and creepy).

If I were Van Helsing, I would at least pull an Oedipus myself when I found out I had done something so gross. It would've made for one entertaining thing if he just made some comment on it, but no. The point isn't even brought up at all, by any of the characters. It's as if the writer didn't even think of it. I would've at least had another character laugh at him and say "Ha ha, you had sex with your mom," which would be mildly humorous (although blatantly immature). I'm probably running out of room, so a few more words to dissuade you from ever seeing this film: there's a vampire ninja fight with an old man. It would be funny, but the filmmakers expect us to take it seriously. It's not even worth watching the movie to see how bad it is. Stay far, far away from it if you value your time at all.

I will say one thing positive about the movie: the guy who plays Van Helsing is pretty slick with that knife of his. There's like, a minute long segment where he swings around his knife and actually does some pretty nifty tricks. It would be boring in any other movie, but here, sadly, it was the highlight.

A river (of blood) runs thru it

[kdill-3 · 2/10 · 12 March 2009]

What's with the murky video in the beginning and sporadically throughout the movie? It's like someone put muddy water on the camera lens.

The violence and nudity might turn some people off but, that, along with the mostly bad acting is what makes a good cult movie I suppose.

My favorite line is delivered by Tarquin the Vampire, "Alas, your breed is dumb." Okay, no one should ever say "alas" in a movie line unless they're English and living in the 18th century.

The acting by the Van Helsing character and bad girl "Rally" isn't bad. I also liked Master Little played by Ron Little. Wicked martial arts! Don't take it too seriously and you'll enjoy it.

Creationist vampires

[gacsogergely · 2/10 · 31 March 2022]

This overlong trash does not worth your viewing. It is one, though major thing that the movie couldn't decide what Van Helsing is doing: Researching immortality by making vmapire who don't suck blood, or create an antivirus?

Who is VH working for? An investor, or the government, or just doing a uni-research?

The motivation of the King Vampire is also unintelligible. Despite the overlong mid-school level expositions we have no idea why Mr. Vampire needs the help of VH to create a Queen. There's also a throwaway plotline about the vampires dying due to virus-incompatibility...

Also like 40 mminutes runtime could have been cut and we'd've lost nothing.

Or how about not deciding what teeth the vmapires have? Or the nonsensical dojo-fillers. Or the question wether vmapires can be seen in the mirror. Or the 24/12 hours deadline to a project which is half a year plus behind its scedual.

But my "fav" part is, where the movie goes straight into preaching Jesus, and even says dinosaurs lived the same time as humans. I wonder when will I instantly recognise religious cinema. Religious cinema is NEVER good.

Thank you for an awesome movie!

[quintias · 9/10 · 4 March 2007]

The title says it all.

I'm not a film critic nor will I act like the rest of the snobbish people commenting on this movie.

Obviously this movie didn't have a multi-million dollar budget, but the plot was very well done, the acting was awesome and the cinematography was great! It looked like you all had a lot of fun making this movie! I voted 9 out of 10 as the sound was strong on only one channel instead of both, but I imagine this might have been an error in the recording of the DVD.

I'll definitely be checking out other movies produced by Brain Damage Films!

Dylan O'Leary, cast and crew, I thank you!

Dracula is alive and living in a trailer park in Pensacola

[rooprect · 7/10 · 26 September 2020]

"This Darkness" is a low budget flick with a priceless script. It's peppered with hilarious, sneaky zingers such as:

VAMPIRE: "I WILL CRUCIFY YOUR SOUL!" Van Helsing: "Now... is that the standard crucifixion with ropes, or is it the nasty kind with the nails and the kicking and scratching? Because I really don't think I can handle that."

If that tickled your funnybone, then you can expect many more, such as:

COP: (reading Van Helsing his rights) "Doctor Abraham Vincent Victor Van Helsing..." Van Helsing: "You forgot 'Freiderick' " COP: "I'll arrest him later ...you have the right to remain silent."

In a parallel universe, this movie is like "Young Frankenstein" meets "Angel Heart" meets "Crouching Tiger." Unfortunately in this universe, due to its low budget, this movie comes across as something closer to your home movies on a worn out VHS. But if you enjoy watching low budget, indie productions for the sake of art, not technical polish, you should give this flick a spin.

It's a vampire flick. It has blood. It has hot chicks, and occasionally some of them get kinda naked. That's all you need to know about the plot of this movie, or any vampire flick really. What won me over was the cheeky humor as in the 2 examples I gave you. The story itself is pretty creative too (loved the DNA 'G-sequence' reference to biblical prophecy). If you can overlook the low-grade late-90s video quality, the occasional continuity error (like Van Helsing's eyeglasses disappearing and reappearing on his face), and the fact that the high tech bio laboratory is quite clearly the back kitchen of a restaurant, then you'll have a great time.

There are even some artistically impressive highlights, such as a vampire killing a victim underwater (I've never seen that done before), some cool 90s indie-metal tunes on the soundtrack, an awesome massacre scene at a rock concert (complete with a dude doing a stage dive into the crowd only to realize it's a crowd of vampires. Check out his slo-mo reaction), and the best part which deserves a paragraph unto itself...

The fight scenes. This is where low-budgetness works to this film's tremendous advantage. No CGI crap, no Hollywood stunt doubles and no trick swords, the fight scenes and the martial arts action are 100% authentic. Choreographed and staged by Ron Little and the gang at Ron Little Martial Arts (who seem to make up half the cast of this flick), the kicks, flips, spins, stick fights, staff fights and sword fights are the real deal. The camera generously shows us long fight sequences without all the disorienting Hollywood cuts & edits, and at least once or twice I wondered if someone got seriously hurt on set. In today's day & age of computerized action fakery, these old school authentic fight scenes alone are worth the price of admission.

Like I said, don't expect cameras on par with today's zillion dollar high tech. Expect something closer to a VHS home movie, edited on a 90s Macintosh. But if that doesn't scare you off, give it a shot. Pay attention to the script because some of the gags are fast but priceless. Oh, and the 1st gym scene (where our hero shows off his martial arts--uh--expertise) had me howling so hard I had to rewind and watch it again. I would love to see this movie remade, word for word, scene for scene, actor for actor, but with a million dollar budget. A great example of a diamond in the rough. (But golly it sure is rough.)

Apologies

[druid8 · 10/10 · 18 September 2006]

As the maker of "This Darkness," I admit we neglected 3 very important acknowledgments in our end credits. The omissions were over-sights that could not be corrected once committed, nor did the parties involved --- who saw the movie --- mention it at the time. On behalf of the excellent cast and crew of the film, I extend them an apology. Obviously, some criticisms posted here are harsh in light of their credit being accidentally. Our production values were negligible and our "special effects" were quite special indeed, but the plot is very strong and the cinematography by John McLeod is superb. We hope you, the reader, enjoy "This Darkness" and the efforts of those who worked their butts off for free. Thank you, Dylan O'Leary, Director.

I sense one crucial point about this film is being overlooked...

[Manningmilt1 · 7/10 · 6 November 2006]

I sense out there a mix of confusion and varying degrees of personal taste in the reactions to this film. Yes, there are vampire stereotypes. Yes, there are scientific stereotypes covered here. Even martial arts stereotypes. All well and good, and sure, not all perfectly done. However, I sense one crucial point about this film is being overlooked...the cultural significance of its location. The film is set in Pensacola, Florida, and does not try to avoid saying so. That's a bold move in the film world today, and a rare treat for fans of indy films. And indeed, it may not be the last. Pensacola is world renowned as a Navy town, an aviation town, a lumber town, and sometimes even as a hotbed for political controversy. Rarely is it seen as a growing film town. But that's all changing now. More film companies are coming in to shoot. And more native Pensacolians are discovering the power of cinema for themselves. This film is part of a growing trend of Pensacola-based indy films, and more are on the way. Pensacola is making a big noise in the global film community, and by and by, the world is taking more notice. Watch and listen, world. The Pensacolians are coming. Like a virus.

Remarkable

[TdSmth5 · 9/10 · 2 January 2007]

Yes, this is an ultra-low budget movie. So the acting isn't award winning material and at times the action is slow-paced because the filmmakers are shooting longer sequences and not a million instants that then get edited into a movie. This film makes up for that with an outstanding script that takes vampirism seriously, explains it and develops a full plot out of it. Aside from the vampire story, we get detailed genetics info, legal and law enforcement, martial arts action, philosophical musings, and some good metal music. Kudos go to Dylan O'Leary, the director/writer/main actor. It is beyond me how this man could have fulfilled all these roles and do them so well. I think to appreciate this movie, you have to be well-versed in all sorts of themes to see that the writer did a lot of research and knows about all these things. There are some great camera work, too, interesting camera angles and one underwater vampire attack- something I haven't seen before, but which pays homage to the underwater zombie attack in Fulci's Zombi. The casting is good, in so far as the sexy female is sexy indeed. The main vampire also looks perfect for the role. The female victim looks vulnerable. My only complaint is that for a low budget horror flick, there should have been more nudity. If you want to see an original vampire movie with a great story, this flick is for you. I'm looking forward to seeing future projects by Mr. O'Leary.

screw jobs

[averageloser · 25 November 2005]

The worst thing about this film is not who is listed in the credits, but rather who is blacklisted from the credits. A certain lady broke her back working on this god awful movie and all she got for it was a kick in the ass. A woman we will call Mandy from a radio station we will call BK101 did a ton of work and wasn't even mentioned. She rounded up a venue, got the word out to all the kids to show up, and even produced a banner advertising the radio station that figured prominently in the film. After all that work she got 1/1000 of a second screen time and that's it. No thank you, no year's supply of turtle wax, nothing. Her husband, a man we will call Roy, is in the film. That is something he will have to live with I guess.