Assault On Precinct 13 [Limited Edition Steelbook] [Blu-ray]

Assault On Precinct 13 was John Carpenter 's second full length movie. Already he showed many elements of his style that he would use for the rest of his career. One was the keyboard theme song which became a trademark of many of his releases. The other was a violent environment in which individuals were pushed to the edge to survive.The story is about a criminal played by Darwin Jostin being dropped off at a police station which is being closed down. It’s then attacked by a gang seeking revenge for the death of several members at the hands of the police. A small group have to defend themselves against a well armed mob.Carpenter definitely went for the shock value in the film. The first act of the gang for instance is to gun down child star Kim Richards who looks like she could’ve walked off the set of a Waltons episode.The director also made an interesting comparison between the two sides. The gang for instance united whites, blacks and Latinos while the attack on the precinct led the cops to turn to their prisoners for help.Assault On Precinct 13 definitely showed what Carpenter was capable of and any fan of his work should check it out.

BOTTOM LINE: I really love this film and easily consider it one of John Carpenter's best films, and his absolute best non-horror entry. If you're an action movie fan then you NEED to have this terrific film in your collection. Minimalist in every way, but the film is so much better for it. Directed & edited (and written and scored) by Carpenter for maximum impact, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 grabs you by the throat from the brutal opening scene and never lets go until the final fade out. I think everyone who loves action films but has never seen this film owes it to themselves to watch it at least once. If you're a fan then this spiffy new Blu-ray edition is an easy-to-justify purchase. If you already own it in another format and have a Blu-ray player I whole-heartedly recommend double-dipping. Don't hesitate. Buy this for yourself - NOW. 5 STARS!THE STORY: Basically a modern day, urbanized re-working of the classic John Wayne western Rio Bravo, with overtones of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead thrown in.THOUGHTS: Miles above the pathetic 2005 limpdick remake, this is one of the most high-tension action films ever made. It's one of those films I just never get tired of watching. I've owned it on VHS, 2 DVD versions and now... finally(!) on Blu-ray. I revisit this like an old friend at least once a year or so. The stars of this film are nothing short of riveting. Austin Stoker & Darwin Joston are electrifying and make an incredible on-screen duo once it all hits the fan. Something you know makes a great film truly great is that you can't get enough of the characters. You want to know more about them. I could have watched Stoker & Joston's characters just sitting in a room talking for a couple of hours and not been bored. I wanted to know what word or phrase Ethan Bishop etched into the top of that desk at the police station as a child that got him into trouble. I wanted to know the one other thing Napoleon Wilson said that a man should never do - even if it cost him his life. I wanted to know what happened to these characters after the events of this movie were over. Did Bishop stay on the force, eventually retiring? Did he testify before a judge on Napoleon Wilson's behalf, explaining how the inmate voluntarily joined forces with him during the gang's siege and risked his life to protect a total stranger AND a bunch of cops(!); perhaps getting the convict's sentence reduced from death to life in prison (or an even lesser charge)?? Even after seeing the film so many times over the years these questions and more run still through my mind. It's such a shame that neither of these lead two actors went on to greater things. Their taut performances in this movie seemed like guaranteed tickets to stardom but then perhaps that's just as well.THE BLU-RAY: How great to have this now in 1080p hi-def. Some have taken exception to the tweaking done to the film, but I think it looks fantastic. Sharp focus, no artifacting or pixelation. Thankfully there is almost no crush (video noise), which is good since most of the film takes place at night or in low light. Sound is strong and level. Bonus features selection is decent. The Carpenter/Stoker interviews and director's commentary from the Special Edition DVD are ported over. New stuff includes a criminally brief but interesting new on screen interview with star Austin Stoker, and a newly recorded interview with Nancy Loomis. Also new for this Blu-ray edition is a second audio commentary featuring frequent Carpenter collaborator (and friend) Tommy Lee Wallace. All-in-all, pretty good stuff.(While I'm thinking about it, I do have a minor complaint: John Carpenter's commentary really bothers me. As with several of his audio commentaries from his other older movies, Carpenter always seems to be apologizing for the end results of his films. Really John? Quit making excuses for things not being better than they were and be damn proud of what an amazing job you did with what little you had!!! For heaven's sake, the paltry budget for ASSAULT wouldn't even cover the catering budget on one of today's action films. Stop apologizing and take pride in what you did, instead of what you could have done! Several of your films are rightly considered classics and have earned that status as much for what they DON'T have as for what they DO. Your guerrilla film-making tactics have served as an inspiration to budding young film makers the world over - for DECADES, and they demonstrate what can be done with brains, heart and a little money instead of a bloated budget and too many fingers in the pot.)

Excellent 70's Era Movie!Fast shipping!

A very fun Film that holds up pretty good. Definitely a must watch for Carpenter fans. One of my favs from him. The Blu-ray was good quality and perfect for movie night.

"Driven by random violence, chance and fate" as Carpenter put it on the commentary track, it's easy to see his breakthrough feature (in the UK at least: it tanked Stateside) as a reaction against the cynicism of both the times ("There are no heroes anymore, only men who follow orders," says a voice over Austin Stoker's police radio) and its style of film-making. Carpenter's films often take place in a wasteland or an abandoned environment - Escape From New York, The Thing, They Live - but that is more of a narrative device to highlight his characters' self-reliance and increase the odds against them than a springboard for social criticism.Always at his best with a low budget that forced him to rely on his intuitive sense of the cinematic to overcome, Carpenter in his prime was a visceral director with a knack for updating classic genres with wit, imagination and style (not to be confused with the modern equivalent, which had more to do with slick cinematography and snappy editing). Here he gives all the trimmings of urban paranoia, particularly potent in a decade (the seventies) increasingly aware of growing alienation from and loss of community, with an old-fashioned tale of reluctant heroes doing what they've got to do complete with macho Hawksian dialogue and a classical film-making style.Sure, it's Rio Bravo set in seventies LA (the working title was The Anderson Alamo) boasting possibly the first politically correct urban villains in the shape of its inter-racial gang who take on a half-shutdown police station, but that's no bad thing when half of Hollywood was imitating Serpico or The Exorcist (remember when William Friedkin was the most influential and emulated director in the business?).Austin Stoker gives the film a sense of gravity with his soft-spoken authority as the cop on his first night out, Laurie Zimmer does a good Lauren Bacall that could have been even better if Carpenter had been able to shoot a few more set-ups and have a bit more latitude in the editing, but the undisputed star of the show is Darwin Joston's Napoleon Wilson. A Hawksian hero in the Mitchum mold, he doesn't have as much dialogue as the other players, but what he has is choice ("He fell over," says a prison warder after kicking him out of his stool. "Yeah, I don't sit down as well as I used to."). His personality dominates the movie so much that you wonder why, a brief cameo as 'Dr Phibes' in The Fog aside, he never went on to better things.Pitched as a blaxploitation flick in the US to miserable box-office but a surprise smash hit in the UK (enough so to drum up the budget for Halloween), a few former aficionados of the film have expressed disillusionment with it after seeing the widescreen DVD, and it's possible to see why. Oddly enough, the Scope frame probably slows it down on the small screen since the panning and scanning cuts from one side to the other on TV broadcasts break up the long takes and create a different rhythm and pace. Still, in Image's 2.35:1 widescreen transfer the film probably looks better than it did on its first release - after a decade-and-a-half of dupey prints, it's quite a shock to see a sharp print. And there's a great selection of extras too: an occassionally illuminating audio commentary with a few of the dead patches common to Carpenter's commentaries, a Q&A session with Carpenter and Stoker, a heavily scratched theatrical trailer, 2 radio spotsand photo gallery. There's also an isolated score track for Carpenter's classic synth score, for the most part a marvel of musical economy (one theme is inspired by Jerry Goldsmith's Rio Lobo) with a really great main theme.If you can remember that brief moment when Carpenter was the most interesting new director on the block - it was no coincidence that he shared magazine covers with Steven Spielberg back in 1978 - chances are you'll still find much to enjoy in this archetypal late-night movie. Maybe fond memory patches up some of the film's rough spots, but hey, isn't that what nostalgia's for?

Scream factory delivers as usual.Brilliant transfer colors pop right out, killer extras, beautiful packaging exquisite art work, only thing i can add is this edition is the same as their collector's edition released a few years ago.If you really are a fan of Jhon Carpenter and have a lot of love for his work make sure you get either edition.

Simplemente una obra maestra de John camperter

Wow! What can I say about Shout! Factory. I read that their Blu-ray release of 'Assault on Precinct 13' is sourced from the same 1080p high definition master used for the Image Blu-ray released in 2008, but this one looks and sounds much better in my opinion. The video transfer appears to be clearer and brighter on the Shout Blu-ray release. As for the sound, I played it through my home theater system and the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sounded excellent. I'd rate the picture quality at a solid 4.5/5 and the sound at 4/5. In my opinion this is an excellent Blu-ray offering from Shout! Once again their disc packaging with reversible slip cover and disc artwork is top notch.After Police ambush and kill a number of Los Angeles street thunder gang members, the four rival gang warlords come together and make a blood pact to avenge their fallen members. War has been declared, it's open season on anyone carrying a badge. While travelling with her father, a young girl wanders off to buy ice cream from an ice cream vendor. The young girl crosses paths with the four warlords and she is killed by the white warlord. Her father chases after her assailants and guns down the white warlord. The father is now being hunted by the remaining warlords and he runs for help to a neighboring police station which is all but abandoned and scheduled to be closed the next morning.The man babbling incoherently is taken into the protection of the police precinct. For the unsuspecting staff of the closing precinct the gauntlet has been laid down, they just don't know it yet. Out manned and out gunned by the L.A. gangs, a tiny group of police officers and several convicts will have to come together if they want to survive. Welcome to the 1976 cult classic "'Assault on Precinct 13"'Special Features Include:- New interviews with Actress Nancy Loomis Kyes and Art Director/Sound Effects Designer Tommy Lee Wallace- Audio Commentary by writer/Director John Carpenter- Interview with John Carpenter and Actor Austin Stoker- Theatrical Trailer- Radio SpotsThe Cast:Austin Stoker ... Ethan BishopDarwin Joston ... Napoleon WilsonLaurie Zimmer ... LeighNancy Loomis ... JulieTony Burton ... WellsCharles Cyphers ... StarkerMartin West ... LawsonKim Richards ... KathyPeter Bruni ... Ice Cream ManFrank Doubleday ... White WarlordGilbert De La Pena ... Chicano WarlordAl Nakauchi ... Asian WarlordJames Johnson ... Black Warlord

It is obvious in only his second movie directing, that John Carpenter was a supreme student at USC where he studied his craft. His direction here, feels like someone who had had ten features under his belt not just one.Welcome to John Carpenter exploitation style, which was all the rage back in the 70s.Assault on Precinct 13 which should have been Precinct 9, is a slow burner but a wonderful movie that gets better the more you watch it.It is in fact a movie with a simple plot- a gang of deadbeats hell bent on smashing up a local precinct.There are clear nods to Alfred Hitchcock, Rio Bravo and Night of the Living Dead and the film has a real flow to it. Every actor and actress is on top of their game.Of course this isn't Carpenter's best work, there are faults. One has to ask how many fathers would leave their dead child by a curbside in order to pursuit the bad guys? I think it was also a mistake to make the father 'mute' after said attack, because that lasted throughout the entire film. The other fault for me was not making the lieutenant stronger- a criminal takes over proceedings in order to help everyone. But hey ho.The films controversery is surrounded by the death of said child. The bizarre fact is that the actual killing is not the shock, but the way she is lying dead on the ground is.Assault may not be for todays generation giving that it is a slow burner- not much happens for the first half of the film. Again repeated viewings are worthwhile- it may not be a masterpiece, but it is an interesting early piece from such a great director, and certaintly a classic.

Lo primero, reseñar que el envío fue más rápido de lo que ponía y el paquete llegó a casa perfectamente envuelto y protegido. No estamos aquí para hacer una crítica de cine pero esta película es uno de los clásicos de John Carpenter, muchísimo mejor que su remake y una auténtica obra de arte al estilo que bebe mucho de los indispensables del buen western.En cuanto a la edición, el mío es el blu-ray de la portada roja con letras negras. No es un BD-R, es un disco prensado en fábrica (mirando por la parte de atrás de la galleta se puede ver que tiene una impresión típica de los discos fabricados así) pero sin duda no debe de tratarse de una edición oficial (posiblemente esta ni exista) porque mirando y remirando no encuentro por ningún lado ni el logo de la productora ni el logo de los estudios de cine ni nada, tan solo la referencia STY201. Aparte en la contraportada pone que es un Blu-Ray de 25Gb así que supongo que se tratará de una edición pirata pero replicada en fábrica... motivo por el que puedo recomendarla pero no darle las 5 estrellas...