John Carpenter's Vampires

John Carpenter's Vampires is not a good movie. It's a fun popcorn movie, but it's bad, and very dated to the late 90s. Very mild spoilers are necessary to explain some caveats.The setup: In comic book fashion, vampire hunters stalk the American Southwest hunting down packs of undead. They drink, they curse, they crack jokes. Things quickly go south when the master vampire tracks down our hunters. It's up to Jack Crow, the Catholic Church's chosen hunter, to set things right - even if it means going against the Church. The plot is bog standard stuff, but the comedy of our perverted hunters interacting with their priest cohorts makes for an interesting twist on the formula.What's good: I personally like James Woods as Jack Crow. He's gross, he's funny, he treats his role with the appropriate mix of grim seriousness and levity. Daniel Baldwin as Montoya does an amazing job at being a total scumbag who's nonetheless always there for Jack. Sheryl Lee steals the show as Katrina, a prostitute who is bitten by the master and forms a psychic bond which may help our hunters track down the master. Tim Guinee also puts in a good turn as Father Adam Guiteau, the slightly nebbish replacement priest for our crew. Together they form a very memorable crew. Some of the action scenes - in particular the method they use to drag vampires out of their nests - is very neat and builds good tension.What's not good: This is a movie starring anti-heroes, and they really come across as scumbags, so it can be had to root for them. While that can be a cool concept, it does go a few hits too far. Some of Montoya's rough handling of Katrina makes sense given that she's been bitten by a vampire, but it does go too far. Montoya is still beating Katrina even as it becomes clear he's developing feelings for her, and a late-movie turn where they even love each other just feels icky. Crow is still threatening to murder his priest far past the point where it's really even helpful to his cause, and the priest begins to trust Crow rather than being permanently scarred. A low-rent production with an only-okay script doesn't help. You start to realize this movie is filmed in the Southwest because deserts are cheap to film in and don't require permits. The master enemy is totally generic, his performance does nothing, and the "vampire vision" looks like a 90s nu-metal video replete with soundtrack. So our heroes are scumbags, our villain is almost a placeholder, and there's a music video scene where vampires climb out of the dirt to 90s nu-metal. This can have audiences laughing or groaning rather than getting excited.Overall: As a dumb popcorn action movie, Vampires works for me. I like the idea of scumbag anti-heroes being hired by the Catholic Church to root out vampires. It's a great spin on the idea that it takes a monster to kill a monster. But the scumbag factor is a little too high so I don't like the characters, the production is too cheap, and the late 90s music video portions are not going to win anyone over. I still watch it every few years, especially for the performances, but it's overall nowhere near Carpenter's masterpieces. Most people agree they'd rather watch Ghosts of Mars - another stinker - but I'm a little partial to Vampires just because of the lead performances.

Delivered on time and plays well.

Yes, is a classic Halloween movie tried to watch every October. It has some offbeat humor, so it may not be for everyone but the actors do great jobs, especially James Woods. It by a different perspective on vampires, and at the end of the movie, the good guys win!

Directed by John Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York), Vampires (1998) stars James Woods (The Onion Field, Videodrome, Any Given Sunday)...Kurt Russell must have had a prior engagement...as Jack Crow, vampire hunter extraordinaire and master of the colorful invective. Also appearing is one of the lesser Baldwin brothers, Daniel, to be exact ("Homicide: Life on the Street", Mulholland Falls), who had an interesting turn last year on VH1's celebrity reality show "Celebrity Fit Club" possibly...scratch that...definitely indicating ongoing substance abuse issues, Thomas Ian Griffith (Behind Enemy Lines, xXx), Sheryl Lee ("Twin Peaks", "One Tree Hill"), Tim Guinee (Blade), whom I best remember from his role on the television show "Law and Order" as an infinitely creepy, manipulative killer who defends himself at trial (it was a 2001 episode titled "Hubris"), and Maximilian Schell (Judgment at Nuremberg, The Black Hole), godfather to actress Angelina Jolie.As the film, set in the American southwest, begins, we see Jack Crow and his Roman-Catholic ordained and funded crew of mercenaries arriving at a dilapidated, isolated farmhouse they believe to contain a nest of vampires (and they're right). After cleaning house the crew of misfits celebrates with a drunken whoopee party in a nearby seedy motel, only to get slaughtered as a really powerful vampire (master of the nest they most recently destroyed), donning a velour overcoat, shows up effectively spoiling the festivities (nothing kills a party like having your melon torn off). Jack and another of his team, one named Montoya (Baldwin), manage to escape, taking along Katrina (Lee), a prostitute at the party who has since been bitten, as she's now Jack's only link to the one who decimated his team. Eventually Jack discovers, through his church connections, that the vampire that attacked him is one bad mofo, a six hundred year old European blood fiend named Jan Valek (Griffith), and has come to the new world in search of an religious artifact that when used in a ritual, will allow him to become even more powerful that he already is...(hint, he'd no longer have to use SPF 1000 during the daytime). As Jack, Montoya, Katrina, and a priest named Father Adam (Guinee), the last a new addition as the old padre didn't survive the events at the motel, track Valek across the Southwest, seems Valek's been a busy little imp calling forth some of his brethren masters to not only assist him in locating the religious artifact mentioned earlier, but to be a part of the ceremony that will give him what he utmost desires. Jack and his motley eventually do catch up to Valek in some podunk town only to discover they've walked into the middle of vampire central, and the only way out is through Valek and his thirsty, bitey minions...While I did enjoy this film, it's certainly not among Carpenter's best or most memorable. Even so, a half-ashed effort from Carpenter is generally better and more entertaining than a full on effort from any number of directors currently schlepping out features these days (Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars may be the exception). Woods is fun to watch, as his trademark intense, semi-psychotic, flippant, profanity-spewing manner, seen in any number of previous features, is definitely present here (he always seems to be set at `eleven'). He does portray the typical Carpenter anti-hero well, but I can't help but wonder how much different the film would have been had Carpenter had Kurt Russell, who Carpenter's used in a number of films, in the lead instead of Woods, as Russell presents a generally more readily identifiable (and likable) character than Woods in a role like this (can you picture James Woods starring in Escape from New York or Big Trouble in Little China?). As far as the others, they did all right, but no one really stood out over another. I've never been a big fan of any of the Baldwins (they're all showboating, pretty boy, prima donnas in my opinion), so having Daniel here (the least of the bunch) really wasn't a positive aspect for me. As far as Valek, played by Thomas Ian Griffith, he certainly was a menace, but the character seemed to lack any personality traits that differentiated him from any number of vampires I've already seen in other films. Something else...at one point in the film Wood's character lays it out for Father Adam, in terms of what they're up against with the vampires...in doing so he jabs the effeminate portrayals presented in such films as Interview with a Vampire, in a roundabout way, but honestly, the vampire depicted here doesn't seem to be a fountain of manliness, but really a European dandy with a taste for hemoglobin. As far as the story, there are some interesting twists and turns, all punctuated by Woods and his gift for profanity laden gab, along with quite a bit of blood soaked violence. I particularly liked the fiery effects used when the vampires where exposed to sunlight (seemed the more powerful the vampire, the more explosive the effect). The converted armored car/battle wagon used by Jack and his crew was kind of cool, as was some of their sophisticated weaponry (when I say `sophisticated', I mean a flashlight built into a fancy crossbow or such). There's plenty of action and things move along well, strung together with some original scoring by Carpenter himself (Carpenter does a lot of his own music, which tends to fit with the material well, but can become repetitive over time). While this isn't the best of modern vampire films I've seen (I've always been partial to Near Dark), it's entertaining and worth a look, especially if you're a fan of Carpenter and/or Woods.There seems to be a few DVD releases of this film floating around, but the one I own is the Superbit version. What's this Superbit business, you ask? Well, it involves how the material is compressed and transferred to the DVD (there's an insert that gives more details), providing what is supposed to be high-end picture, which is good, right? Well yes, but if you dig on special features, then it might not be so good as the material (both in terms of the audio and video) that makes up the film requires usage of a lot more space on the disc, effectively eliminating any room for extras (I guess adding a second DVD with just extra features isn't a viable option). As a result, the picture, presented in widescreen (2.35:1) anamorphic, looks very clean and sharp, and the audio, available in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS, comes through well, but there are no extras, other than subtitles available in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. I'm thinking this Superbit technology may end up being a moot point with the rapid introduction of high definition, but I'm no techno wiz...all in all three and a half stars for the film, plus an extra half for the DVD, for a total of four stars.Cookieman108By the way, there was a puesdo sequel put out titled Vampires: Los Muertos (2002), with Carpenter and his wife Sandy King listed as executive producers, written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace (Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Fright Night Part 2), that stars Jon Bon Jovi, and incorporates elements from this story, if you're interested. I haven't seen it, but it's out there...One last point...at the beginning, I don't understand why Jack and his crew bothered searching the vacant house for vampires, risking their necks...why not just douse it with gas, burn it down and be done with it? Because it wouldn't have been as fun, I suppose...

One of my favorite vampire movies as a kid.

Aboutley love this movie, except for the ending.

No es el steelbook, no sé corresponde el pedido con la foto/descripción

Bel film prima qualità

ein toller Film von John Capenter der es versteht Spannung zu machen und zu halten, auch wenn Vampire schon einige male in Filmen behandelt wurden.

Película poco difundida pero muy recomendable de vampiros... Nada de jorterias de que brillan. Son vampiros crueles y sanguinarios