Depending on whom you ask, director/composer John Carpenter is either a genius or a talentless imitator of greats like Peckinpah and Hawks. Though films like Halloween and his remake of The Thing demonstrate his undeniable skill at both directing and composing, others seem as though Carpenter was merely paying the bills. Unfortunately, this movie falls pretty much squarely into the latter category.
John Steakley’s “Vampire$”, the book upon which Jakoby based the screenplay, was an utterly believable and riveting story, a neo-Western in which the black hats were replaced by bloodsuckers whose almost godlike power made them scary as all hell. The novel conjured images so intense that it’s not hard to see why Carpenter wanted to make a movie of it. Sadly, the script remains faithful only briefly before veering sharply into typical Hollywood pap. Only Woods—who provides his character, vampire-slaying team leader Jack Crow, with snarky no-bullshit attitude—seems interested in the proceedings. Too bad his energy isn’t contagious. Baldwin and Lee somnambulate through their respective roles, and Griffith (as chief vampire master Valek) does his best to look mean and kill lots of people, but he’s stuck with a thankless role: we all know he’s gonna get his in the end.
In fact, the problem with everything in this film is the predictability of it all. Where the novel made you feel the almost-hopeless desperation of Crow’s Vatican-funded gang of mercenaries against the almighty vampires, the movie merely bogs down in tired convention and lame would-be plot twists. Suspense, which Carpenter has so deftly created in his past horror efforts, is conspicuously absent here. It must have been difficult to fuck up such great source material so thoroughly.
One bright note: a little scene that ridicules Anne Rice’s lame-ass vampires. At least the ticket price wasn’t a total waste of money.
(0.5/4)