by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: Discs: 2, The Film: 3.5/5, The Extras: 3.5/5, Overall: 7/10
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Tim Guinee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell
Intro:
Blessed with a solid cast, a superb soundtrack and a slick 4K print, this is undoubtedly the best way to view the film.
The Film:
Director John Carpenter means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. His decades-long career has produced an absurd number of bangers across a shockingly wide variety of genres. Don’t believe us? Well, consider this is the bloke who formalised the slasher genre with Halloween (1978), created one of the most iconic post-apocalyptic action flicks with Escape From New York (1981), crafted perhaps the greatest horror/sci-fi ever made with The Thing (1982), fused Asian and American cinema together long before it was cool with Big Trouble in Little China (1986), dropped one of the most intellectually stimulating concepts of the devil with Prince of Darkness (1987), delivered one of the funniest piss takes of untempered American capitalism with They Live (1988) and even had an explicit crack at going full Lovecraftian with In the Mouth of Madness (1994). Boasting a keen eye, an ability to frame a shot with almost uncanny precision and a gift for score composition, Carpenter almost became a genre unto himself. Not that every flick he knocked out was a timeless classic, mind you. His output in the 1990s was, to put it mildly, inconsistent and never quite reached the heights of his earlier greats. Although there is some fun to be had with his lower tier gear, warts and all. Which brings us neatly to today’s topic, John Carpenter’s Vampires – a film that features dizzy highs, depressing lows and a kick arse soundtrack to tie it all together.
John Carpenter’s Vampires is the story of Jack Crow (James Woods), a grizzled, deeply unpleasant hunter of the undead who is funded by the Catholic church. Jack leads a cadre of greasy, boozy ne’er-do-wells who make up for their lack of social etiquette by killing vampires really well. Life is grand in supernatural pest control until Jack and his crew manage to piss off super powerful über vamp, Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith), who tears Crow’s crew to pieces, leaving only Jack, trusted lieutenant Tony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) and bitten-soon-to-vamp-up sex worker Katrina (Sheryl Lee). The film then becomes a MacGuffin hunt as Valek seeks a relic that will grant him the power to walk in the sunlight and Crow seeks to wipe him from the face of the planet, while snarling profoundly politically incorrect dialogue and chomping down on cigars.
On paper, Vampires would seem like classic material for John Carpenter. Based on the book by John Steakley, this is a gritty horror neo-western tale with plenty of moral ambiguity, authority-despising antiheroes and a downbeat denouement. James Woods is effectively despicable as the sharp tool of the Catholic church (replete with all the sexism and homophobia that comes along with that gig) and Sheryl Lee does some of her best work in a role that could otherwise have been truly thankless. Baldwin, however, seems a little lost in his role, perhaps due to his well documented addiction issues at the time and Tim Guinee feels a tad miscast as Father Adam “Padre” Guiteau. Overall, though, the cast do fine. As much as we hate to say it, the problems with Vampires stem from Carpenter himself.
Now, don’t get us wrong, you saw the opening paragraph: in this house we love some JC. But Vampires, for all its crude charms, lacks the directorial precision present in his other work. Gone are the well executed sequences with perfect timing, and in their place we have a bunch of janky dissolves that occasionally work to make the action on screen feel dreamlike, but most of the time give the impression that they’re being used to paper over cracks. This, unfortunately, would be a technique we’d see repeated in 2001’s extremely uneven Ghosts of Mars and added to an overall impression that this master of the filmic craft was losing the control he wielded for so long. Look, the script by Dan Jakoby isn’t going to win any awards either, but if 1986 John Carpenter had helmed this flick? It would be a very different viewing experience.
Vampires is still a fun film, though, for all its shortcomings. It’s a bad arse western infused genre yarn without a hint of mercy and has plenty of gruesome gore, chuckle worthy dialogue and vampire extermination to deliver some trashy enjoyment after a hard day’s work. It’s just when it comes from one of the greats, you expect greatness and Vampires doesn’t quite tap that vein.
The Extras:
Not exactly a bloodsucker’s banquet on display here but some juicy tidbits nonetheless. First and foremost, there’s an audio commentary from Carpenter himself (always a good time) and another one from author/film historian Troy Howarth, which is absolutely worth a listen.
You’ve got Potshots and Padres: The Western Theology of John Carpenter’s Vampires, a video essay from film critic Andy Marshall-Roberts which is a thoughtful, intelligent watch. Then there’s the highlight, Stake & Burn: Scoring John Carpenter’s Vampires – which is a short but densely packed interview with film music historian Daniel Schweiger who takes us through the film’s various musical motifs in a really entertaining, engaging way. Other than a few archival making-of featurettes, however, that’s all she wrote!
The whole package comes with a booklet and art cards, bundled up in an attractive hardbox with a lenticular cover.
The Verdict:
Although it’s far from his best work (frankly it doesn’t even crack the top ten), John Carpenter’s Vampires is nonetheless a crudely enjoyable, splattery horror action neo-western that has moments when the veteran director’s talent shines through.
Blessed with a solid cast, a superb soundtrack and a slick 4K print, this is undoubtedly the best way to view the film.
Just as an indulgent addendum: one time a bloke who used to haunt the goth clubs of Sydney, and earnestly claimed to be a 600-year-old vampire, told your humble scribe that he hated this film and found it deeply offensive to “[his] people.” So, if it pisses off real life bloodsuckers it’s got to be doing something right, right?
