Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which is working to save the lives of cats and dogs all across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.

Today’s theme: Vampires

There are so many vampire movies that you may almost think that everything has been said about bloodsuckers and you may be right. And then you watch Darkness and realize that no one has even scratched the surface of what can be done with vampires since this was made in 1993.

Made by Leif Jonker for $5,000 or so in Wichita, Kansas, this movie does more with its time and budget than pretty much any 90s horror film did with millions. Working with effects artist Gary Miller, who also plays the vampire hunter Tobe, it’s as if this movie wondered, “Can we blow things up and have so much blood that it feels like your TV screen is leaking?”

From the moment a terrified person runs into a convenience store and tries to explain that everyone is going to die until a conclusion that has numerous bodies festering with blood, pustules and grue before exploding in a plasma soaked storm, this is like when Slayer did Reign In Blood from start to finish live, as it never slows down by battering you with non-stop scenes of carnage. Jonker started this when he was 17 and when he came back to it years later, he had the kind of crew working with him that would sell their blood to make it happen.

Tobe meets up with some teens who use shotguns, chainsaws, Holy Water, drills whatever it takes to destroy Liven (Randall Aviks) and the plague that he has brought to this small town. I’ve read some reviews that say, “This has no story” and you know, what movie did these guys watch? This is lo-fi gloriousness on the grandest of scales, well, as grand as five grand can be.

When I thought about the plague that would end humanity as a teenager, it wasn’t me sitting in my house and people arguing about wearing a mask. It was bloody skeletons screaming in the sun, 7-11s filled with blood and hot metal girls in Iron Maiden shirts trying to kill me. I wanted the end times to feel like a Dio album cover or, well, Darkness.

This is metal as fuck! It made me so happy that I was cheering. I almost cried I loved it so much. Really, why did I take so long to watch this? It’s like a film crawled inside my head, ate most of my brain, used the blood and fluids inside my skull to fill a gravity bong, laced it with PCP and then made something for me to watch while I succumbed to the bloody abyss.