Macabre…ish Horror Review: Daylight’s End

 

 

 

Daylight’s End, 2016/ 1 hr 45 min

 

 

It is a post apocalyptic wasteland and other than the few humans that are left, there are countless vampires.

 

A lone drifter, Thomas Rourke (Johnny Strong), driving his rusted but fortified vintage plymouth, hunts the infected from New York to Texas.

 

He stops at an old gas station, empty except a creature sleeping in a freezer. He attaches a chain to the freezer and drags it out into the sun. Rourke drives away leaving the creature, once a woman, to roast.

 

The next town is equally dilapidated and abandoned, littered with remains and chaos. With the infected, laying in wait.

 

Later, on some other survivors arrive and they are ambushed by marauders, after using a traumatized woman, Annabelle (Farah White), for bait. They just want the woman in the group, Sam (Chelsea Edmundson) and they almost succeed but they hadn’t counted on Rourke being there.

 

With nightfall coming, Sam convince him to take her and Annabelle back to Dallas where they can take shelter with her colony of survivors. They barely make it and Dallas is crawling with the infected. But the colony, located in the country jail are prepared to fight as the three arrive.

 

There’s a new and more dangerous creature, he’s huge and a thinker, the Alpha (Krzysztof  Soszynski). He watches, waits and calculates. He led the rest of the of his kind right to the survivor’s location. And Rourke recognizes him.

 

The colony is made of mostly former cops and their families and is led by Frank (Lance Henriksen). They are not thrilled by Rourke’s arrival or their members’ deaths but Sam has good news, she found a cargo plane. They plan to use it to escape tomorrow to a remote desert location, a potential survivalist colony called Baha. It’s three days by car but hours by air.

 

Unfortunately, Rourke is being treated as a potential threat to this group’s safety and is locked in a cell for the night. A few hours later, the jail is breached, their video feed goes down and a few of the infected bite as many as they can before they’re taken down. But it feels off, why weren’t there more?

 

The next morning, the survivors discover they cannot open the bay door, it has been intensionally sabotaged. When they check outside they find the road has been blocked by a bunch of mangled vehicles. The creatures worked all night to build this barricade. Rourke decides to kill the alpha, this behavior is new and coincides with his arrival. His presence makes the infected more dangerous and organized.

 

Frank is completely against the plan but Rourke is gonna do it himself if he has too. But he won’t have too, some of the men break with Frank to fight back. They plan to go into the nest and set up charges but it goes awry when the alpha wakes the others with a roar.

 

It turns out to be much harder than expected plus the alpha is catching a lot of bullets and nothing is slowing him down. The group is being overrun in waves, it seems hopeless.

 

This post apocalyptic horror film was directed by William Kaufman. It is fast moving, action packed and violent. It is bloody and gory but it’s no gore fest. These creatures are feral and mindless like rage zombies, and they do not ash or disappear when they are killed. Also bullets or knives will do the trick, no silver or garlic necessary. There’s no CG and the make up and creature acting is solid. There are lots of kids in this movie but they are mostly in the background. This movie also isn’t as graphic as it seems. I enjoyed it!