Vampiros de John Carpenter

"Vampires" is great popcorn entertainment. While fans will always compare Carpenter's later movies with his early genre classics, "Vampires" is excellent entertainment, even if it isn't an "important" or "milestone" horror event.

James Woods is not the most likable of heroes here but he's very watchable. Daniel Baldwin delivers a believable performance as his dependable sidekick. "Twin Peaks"' Sheryl Lee plays the leggy small-town hooker who is unfortunately bit by a Master Vampire, Valek. There are also appearances from Maximilian Schell and "Miami Vice"'s Gregory Sierra.

In Carpenter's "Vampires", the undead don't exit this world peacefully. Instead, they explode like giant Catherine wheels. This is exciting to watch - you can't have enough sparking vampires, can you? With lots of action and a few dark laughs, you could do a lot worse than see this movie.

With an excellent score, great visuals and a fast pace, "Vampires" scores a strong 8 out of 10.

I'm a big fan of John Carpenter. But in his latest films, I've noticed somewhat of a clumsy way he directs his films. It's almost as if the films were rushed and some scenes or even shots, just weren't filmed. He fades between all of his scenes... Sometimes, leaving us wanting more, but he just fades to the end of it. Sometimes, the scenes he uses could have been completly cut out and not used with the fade-technique whatsoever.

Anyway, I just had to get that off my mind. Off to the plot:

Jack Crow is a Master Slayer, meaning that he kills vampire for the catholic church, and has been doing that for his entire life. After he cleans out a nest of Vampires in New Mexico, his team gets ambushed my a powerful vampire named Valek. Valek kills the entire team of slayers, except for Jack and his friend Montoya. They also manage to bring a hooker along with them, who got bitten by the vampire. Using the hookers telepathic link with her master, the two try to hunt down Valek and find out what he's up to.

This film is gory. Really gory. Most likely John Carpenters goriest film to date, counting The Thing. Some might think that gore is an unnecessary way of filming, but in this film: Gore is not used to "impress" or "Show off". It's used as a background thing. I didn't feel that it was a way of using the gore to create "terror". And if you happen to like gore, you'll find one redeeming factor in this film.

The acting is good. James Woods is really funny as Jack Crow at times, altough Daniel Baldwin isn't really "great", nor is Tim Guinee. But the acting holds up. There's not much else to say other than that James Woods is funny... at times.

The action in this film is quite abundant, yet it's not that great. It can be enjoyable but at the same time the action is very repetive. That doesn't bode very well. Another thing abut this film is that it's too damn long for an action/horror film. Its almost 2 hours long. They should have made it 90 minutes instead, as that would be more fitting of a movie of this "type".

Well. The film is boring sometimes, yet it has some redeeming factors. All in all I give it a six. Nothing great, but if you're a John Carpenter fan you'll like it. And you might want to see how his style has changed. Dramaticly.

Carpenter is not in his usual good form here despite excellent performances by James Woods and the rest of the cast. Woods is Jack Crow, a mercenary vampire hunter who leads a team of fellow hunters out to find and exterminate vampires.

Crow, who comes across as an atheist, is in the payroll of the Catholic church and is driven by his own demons that are more based on revenge rather than anything else.

The film shows the battle between the hunters and a very powerful vampire (Valek) who attempts to create a new order of invincible vampires that can rule the earth.

Despite the excess of gore and blood the film does not have the tense moments of other better Carpenter films (Escape from New York, Assault on Precinct 13). Nonetheless, Valek is a formidable foe that creates a number of scary moments. Perhaps a film only for the loyal Carpenter fans (myself included).

The movie opens with a trained, fully-equipped team of vampire slayers, led by Jack Crow (James Woods), methodically purging a "nest" of its fanged occupants. This is one of the best scenes of the movie and sets the viewers up to think, "Hey, these guys know what they're doing. They're some rough-and-ready characters."

But, lo, where is the master vampire? Not to worry, he'll have his chance at revenge...later that very night, as the "trained" vampire hunters go to the nearest town, lay down their weapons, and begin drinking and whoring. And they knew full-well that a master vampire, whose "subjects" they'd just fried, was still lurking about! How stupid can you be???!!!

The movie marches on, showing carnage and betrayal as the plot is advanced. (And, frankly, it's not a bad plot). But there are many holes, many questions that are not answered, like, Why was such an mysterious and important item (a cross that would permit a vampire to walk in the sunlight) guarded by such a inept group of robe-clad nincompoops, who, according to their own harried screams, knew "The day has arrived!"? If they knew that a particularly horrific "day" was inevitably going to "arrive," why, then, did they lack even a modicum of defensive capability. Why were they caught frantically scampering around like a herd of panty-clad Dr. Smiths (from TV's Lost in Space..."Oh the pain, the pain of it all..."). Oh well, we'll never know, and they're too dead to tell us.

Be that as it may, this movie does have some good dialogue, interesting characters, a unique idea or two, and an actual plot--which makes John Carpenter's "Vampires" stand head and shoulders above most of the horror movies that are out today. I enjoyed it despite its defects.

But then kind of sputters out a bit and devolves into a bunch of talking with a decent finale scene. It was ok, entertaining enough. I was genuinely so excited to watch this again after watching the first 15-20 minutes, thinking it's a bit of a hidden gem, eh, not exactly, but wasn't bad. If it kept the pace of the first 20 minutes it would have been an absolute classisc.