Vampires


In 1998, Columbia Pictures released John Carpenter’s Vampires, an adaptation of John Steakley’s novel Vampire$, which, to date, is the second to last feature film Carpenter ever directed. Having felt the financial and creative failures of the recent Escape from L.A. and Village of the Damned, the director nonetheless made a film in Vampires that is classic Carpenter in just about every way.


The movie’s protagonist is Jack Crow, a vampire slayer. Resting at the Sun God Hotel after a long day of routing out bloodsuckers, Crow’s drunken team encounters master vampire Jan Valek, who obliterates them in an orgy of blood. Crow escapes Valek, shaken that the vampire knows his name. Together with Montoya, the only other surviving member of the team, and Katrina the hooker, one of Valek’s victims, Crow and Father Guiteau must destroy the master before he can turn the tide in the favor of the undead.


From the opening seconds, Vampires is classic Carpenter. As the sun rises, shots of wide, sweeping vistas of the New Mexican desert pour onto the screen; accompanying them, the foreboding notes of a guitar. Carpenter is the master of 2:35 to 1 widescreen. He understands how to fill every inch of the frame as nobody has since the directors of the sword and sandal epics of long ago. Some of his shot compositions are spectacular, especially in the scene where Valek levitates against the ceiling before he descends to give Katrina the singularly most standout vampire bite ever. Carpenter’s also expert in creating memorable scores, and punctuating scenes with them. Throughout Vampires, Carpenter proves that he hasn’t lost his visual or musical touch.


The camera finally hones in on Jack Crow. The leader of a team of vampire slayers sanctioned by the Vatican, Crow readies his men to clear out a nest of bloodsuckers. These characters are men’s men, cut from the very archetypes of Carpenter’s hero, Howard Hawks, as so many of Carpenter’s characters are. The film even sports a scene that’s sort of a reverse Rio Bravo, in which the heroes work on breaking into a jail where the vampires have holed up. Vampires continues the delineation of Hawks’ themes in Carpenter’s works, and trumps his much earlier Assault on Precinct 13 in that it’s a Western that takes place in the West.


Perhaps the only great element missing from Carpenter’s classic era is Kurt Russell. As I watched Jack Crow throughout the film, I kept thinking Carpenter intended for Russell to play him. The character’s swagger would’ve suited Kurt’s acting skills well, and certainly after the weak Escape from L.A., fans of the actor/director partnership would’ve flooded theatres to see the pairing again. Fortunately, James Woods fills Crow’s boots perfectly. Woods portrays him as an angry man who lost his family to vampires, and has sacrificed any desire for happiness in exchange for a much more satisfying revenge. Spouting off hilarious strings of profanity, Woods throws himself into the character. Woods is a master at improvising lines, as Carpenter mentions in his commentary. I can guarantee that he altered much of his brilliant dialogue from the way screenwriter Don Jakoby (and Carpenter himself, who did a rewrite) had it on the page.


Jakoby may not be responsible for some of Crow’s dialogue, but he is for taking a poorly written novel and turning it into a strong script. Steakley’s novel is absurd trash. Jakoby and Carpenter wisely tossed out most of it, retaining a few lines of dialogue, a few key scenes, the main character and that set piece in the jail. Carpenter takes a silly novel and transforms it into a textbook action film.


And make no mistake, Vampires is an action film. Yes, it’s loaded with vampires, but there’s not much of a sense of dread (Well, unless you consider Daniel Baldwin’s performance as Montoya). The film is much more concerned with things blowing up than things that go bump in the night. Though Thomas Ian Griffith does a creepy turn as Valek. His frosty breath and pale visage, complete with long fangs, sell the monster well. He does an admirable job as an adversary for the unhinged Crow, though Woods still steals the movie.


The only extra of note is the audio commentary that Carpenter provides. It’s a lazy affair, with many quiet spots, but still entertaining, as the director’s commentaries always are. Columbia would have improved it considerably by teaming him with Woods, whose unique perspective I always welcome. Left to his own devices, Carpenter comments on working with Woods, the film’s music, and how he doesn’t quite understand the exposition about the Berziers cross and reverse exorcism (Yes, the director of the film doesn’t understand a key portion of the script. Now that’s frightening).


A trailer is the only other extra. Whoever edited it did a brilliant job, mixing scenes with Crow’s dialogue and Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People.” One side of the disc is widescreen (don’t you dare watch the other side!) and the other is fullscreen (I warned you!) . The box also claims there’s a stills gallery, but there isn’t. I gather this was a misprint for something Columbia had planned. It’s not a big loss.


Vampires was a return to form for John Carpenter, combining all the elements of his glory days. His next film, Ghosts of Mars, would take his career full circle, with an interstellar take on Assault on Precinct 13. Neither of these films would garner the accolades or financial success of his earlier films. But if you’re a fan of classic Carpenter, as so many of we horror fans are, Vampires belongs in your collection.


--Phil Fasso