Inspired by '60s soap opera Dark Shadows and George A. Romero's underrated thriller Martin, producer/director J.R. Bookwalter (The Dead Next Door) ushered shot-on-video features into the mainstream with his 1991 horror-drama Kingdom of the Vampire. The gloomy tale was far from a financial or critical smash, but paved the way for a tsunami of weird, wild camcorder movies throughout the '90s, decades before Hollywood abandoned film for digital cinema.