NOW ON TUBI! Showing a lot of low-brow know-how is the punk vampire flick The After Dark, directed by Tom Devlin, the B-movie baron of the Nevada desert. Our heavily tattooed narrator, Volsung (Lars Frederiksen), informs us that two warring factions of vampires secretly rule the night. There’s the ruling party, The Vanished, led by Vigo (David Heath). The Vanished is steeped in tradition to the point of being seen as stuffy and rigid. This led to an off-shoot clan, The Lobos. Instead of suit jackets and lace, the Lobos clad themselves in studded black leather and denim. Led by renegade vampire Dax (Nicholas Cvjetkovich), the Lobos are more punk and in-your-face than their aristocratic counterparts.
Beth (Ashley Ballou), a relatively new vampire, is already getting tired of having to dress up to eat rats at a dinner table with The Vanished. Also, Vigo is starting to make lecherous demands of her. She reluctantly accepts his assignment to see what is going on at The After Dark club. But once Beth gets a taste of what vampiric freedom tastes like with the Lobos, she doesn’t know if she could ever go back to the stale, boring Vanished. Of course, being tempted by Jack (Danny Sexton), whom she met while disposing of an unhoused person who was dinner, further fuels Beth’s desire to switch allegiances. But Vigo won’t take clan jumping lying down, though, as he dispatches Christopher (Paul London), Havok (Steve Hansen), and other vampires to resolve matters permanently.
This is the second time Devlin has appeared in my office as I reviewed his debut, Teddy Told Me To. At that time, I took him to task for aiming too low with his filmmaking ambitions. It baffled me why anyone would imitate the direct-to-video horror fare of the last century, covering everything with cheese on purpose. However, seeing that The After Dark is the fourth such feature released by Devlin’s Plan 10, I am beginning to see the appeal. Yes, we have more tongues in cheeks here than at prom, but you can really feel everyone is having fun on both sides of the screen.
“…once Beth gets a taste of what vampiric freedom tastes like with the Lobos, she doesn’t know if she could ever go back to the stale, boring Vanished.”
Screenwriters Josh Cornell and Lola Devlin have created a stripped-down coaster of a screenplay, with all the dragging bits snipped off. Even the outdated gratuitous nudity is used sparingly while still fulfilling the direct-to-video requirements of scooping out boobs for the perpetually adolescent. So yes, it’s crap, but it is highly effective and streamlined. I still hope Plan 10 starts aiming higher one day.
There are a lot of wrestlers throughout The After Dark, which is the crucial seasoning on top of all the extra cheese. Heath is a brilliant pick for the big bad, as he wrestled as a vampire for years under the moniker Grengal. He makes for a good vampire, especially when that extra scary makeup by Heather Henry is slapped on. Both Cvjetkovich and London are wrestlers as well, which means some decent heavy-duty fight sequences. Frederiksen is interesting as a punk rock, Rod Serling. His job was to draw viewers as he was on guitar and vocals for the band Rancid. He does well enough to keep up his end of the bargain.
Music, punk specifically, plays a big part. The type of punk played in the vampire bar is definitely New School. How good that is depends on how you feel about New School punk. If you love it, then you will be happy to know you get a ton of it. If that period of punk isn’t your cup of tea, know there are no tunes here that will change your mind. In the end, The After Dark is closer to a cheap street drug than a fine wine. It is disreputable, relished by those on the fringes, and will get you higher than Hell.
"…you can really feel everyone is having fun..."
