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JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES |
| I got so sick of waiting for this to be released in the UK (came out in
October 98 in the USA) that I had to get a region 1 DVD and watch it that
way. Just to spite me the studio have now released it in UK cinemas! Why
we should have to wait a year to get this is a total mystery as it is
prime fodder for the 18 to 24 market.
Anyway, I’ve had the additional benefit now of hearing what Carpenter has to say on the dvd commentary track which you British plebs have not. He pitches it as "The Wild Bunch meet Vlad the Impaler" and I can think of no better description. James Woods plays the fearless vampire killer in such a way that you can’t possibly understand why every other director in the world is not giving him action hero parts as he is clearly the coolest male actor on the planet. Lots of blood, carnage and gratuitous female nudity ensue as he and his team track down and kill the vampires and then have to contend with a super-vampire in another bloody showdown. That’s about it really. Its novelty lies in the fact that it shows how bloody the act of vampire staking and beheading really must be. If you accept the premise then you must accept the logical guesomeness of vampire killing rather than go for the soft-focus off-camera killings that we usually see (or not). Although Carpenter is one of the Lizard’s favourite directors, I have to admit that his output is highly inconsistent. How can the man who made one of the few genuine masterpiece horror movies of all time in "The Thing" be responsible for crap like "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" and "Starman"? The 2 Escape films were themselves mixtures of all that is good and all that is bad in his output yet "Big Trouble in Little China" effortlessly synthesised kung-fu action and comedy. This wildly aberrant behaviour has often led to many of his greatest films being virtually ignored at the box office and by the critics (I’m thinking of "They Live" and "In the Mouth of Madness"). Maybe it is this inconsistency that leads to studio nervousness and hence the delay for the UK release. Or maybe the studios just don’t give a fuck about British audiences. I know which option I believe. John Carpenter’s Vampires is an enjoyable film for everyone who loves blood, carnage and gratuitous female nudity (and who doesn’t?) but does little to progress Carpenter’s undoubted talents. I liked it but it can only be rated "average" when set against his total output and that will have to do for now. |