Reign in Darkness

Rating

Director

David W. Allen, Kel Dolen

Screenplay

David W. Allen, Kel Dolen

Length

1h 30m

Starring

Kelly Dolen, David W. Allen, David Will No, Chris Kerrison, John Barresi

MPAA Rating

R

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
A movie is only as good as the talent behind it, and Reign in Darkness is an example of limited ability and even more limited talented. The result is a vampire movie with an interesting premise that is marred by poor performances and slow direction.

Kel Dolen stars as Michael Dorn, a genetic researcher assigned to a project to help develop a cure for AIDS, using a mysterious virus. To test the virus, his employers have infected several people with this new bug, thus turning them into rabid, hunger-driven animals. When one of these potential infectors turns mean and attacks Michael and his bodyguard Lance Bates (Chris Kerrison), the struggle results in Michael’s infection with his own creation.

Driven by intense emotions, he disappears into the streets to feed on the population and curse his antidote and the people who asked him to create it. Lance, a bounty hunter by trade, begins a search for Dorn at the request of a mysterious council, whose identities are hidden in darkness. After a botched attempt to capture Dorn, Lance is forced to take on an associate, a first-batch bioengineered vampire named Gage (David No). Together, the two fail to eclipse Dorn’s resourcefulness.

Constantly on the run, Dorn must slowly discover the secrets of his own research and the hidden desires of those who wanted him to create it. He must journey into his own psyche and come to live with his new-found abilities as a hunter of the night.

Reminiscent of a high school theatrical production, the performers here overdevelop their roles and turn their characters into screaming irritants with no personality. Kerrison gives the worst performance, spitting out every word with vehemence. His character never breeches the third dimension, a shell of a man with a temper as volatile as Mount Vesuvius. Dolen is a little more restrained, but many of his scenes are filled with a similar overblown intensity. No offers martial-arts skills previously honed for a limited television career.

Dolen, along with co-star David W. Allen, produced, directed and wrote this minimally entertaining vampire film. Their screenplay has a modest amount of potential, which the uninspired performances and their own inept direction ruins. There are many elements here that resemble those in other traditional blood-sucking adventures, but the idea of vampires not being able to survive in the ever-changing modern world is an interesting touch and does bear some attention.

The themes represented here in Reign in Darkness are scientifically appealing and thoughtful, but – without creative filmmaking – are lost on a B-movie audience. Anyone who enjoys intellectual debate could find parts of the film’s story discussable, but will probably ignore this movie for another film with a better presentation. Meanwhile, vampire movie fans will undoubtedly flock to this inspired mess and may or may not like its themes, but will certainly enjoy its Blade-like fight sequences.

Review Written

May 4, 2003