Vampires (film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vampires, also known as John Carpenter's Vampires, is a 1998 American western-horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter. Adapted from the novel Vampire$ by John Steakley, the film stars James Woods as Jack Crow, leader of a Catholic Church-sanctioned team of vampire hunters. The plot is centered on Crow's efforts to prevent a centuries-old cross from falling into the hands of Valek, the first and most powerful vampire. Vampires also stars Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Tim Guinee and Maximilian Schell. Two sequels followed: Vampires: Los Muertos in 2002 and Vampires: The Turning in 2005.

A team of Vatican sponsored mercenaries led by Jack Crow (Woods) rids an abandoned house of vampires in the middle of New Mexico. Jack meets his boss Cardinal Alba (Schell) who introduces him to Father Adam Guiteau (Tim Guinee).

Jack tells the priest some of his past, about how his father was bitten by a vampire, killed his mother, came after Jack and that he killed his own father. He then asks what it is Valek's after and Guiteau tells him that he wants an ancient relic called the Black Cross of Berziers and that Valek was once a priest who was thought to have been possessed by demons. The Brziers Cross was used in an exorcism that was cut short but the result was that Valek was forever changed into the first vampire and that the priest Valek killed was the only person who knew of the location of the Cross. Jack and the rest head to the old priest's church to try and see if they can find out the location of the Berziers Cross now that Valek has had to stop at sunrise.

Jack gets Guiteau to agree to a two-day head start as Montoya backed up Crow for two days after being bitten by Katrina. Crow and Montoya embrace like the brothers they became after Crow informs Montoya that after the two days he will hunt down and kill both of them. Montoya and Katrina leaves. The film ends with Jack and Guiteau heading off once again to the jail to kill the rest of the vampires that made it to shelter.

Shortly after finishing work on Escape from L.A., John Carpenter was thinking about quitting filmmaking because "it stopped being fun".[1] Largo Entertainment approached him with a project called Vampires, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by John Steakley. They gave him two screenplays one by Don Jakoby and the other by Dan Mazur. Carpenter read them both and the novel and saw the potential for a film he'd been interested in making. "I went into my office and thought, 'It's going to be set in the American southwest and it's a western Howard Hawks.'"[1]Vampires gave Carpenter the chance to do a western disguised as a horror film," he said. "The story is set up like a western. It's about killers for hire. They're a western clich. In this movie theyre paid to kill vampires."[2] In terms of tone and look, Carpenter felt that his film was "a little more like The Wild Bunch than Hawks in its style, but the feelings and the whole ending scene is a kind of replay on Red River."[1]

He wrote his own screenplay taking elements from the Jakoby and Mazur scripts, the book and some of his own ideas. For this film, Carpenter wanted to get away from the stereotype of gothic vampires as he said in an interview, "My vampires are savage creatures. There isn't a second of brooding loneliness in their existence. They're too busy ripping and tearing humans apart."[3]

Carpenter cast James Woods as Jack Crow because he wanted "the vampire slayer to be as savage as the prey hes after. James Woods is the kind of guy you'd believe could and would chew off the leg of a vampire."[3] Woods was interested in doing the film because it was something different for him. Contrary to his reputation, Carpenter didn't find the actor difficult to work with because "we had a deal. He would give me one take as it's written and I would let him improvise...Many of his improvisations were brilliant. When I needed him to be more focused and disciplined, I had the take from the script that was straighter."[1]

Carpenter had not seen any of Daniel Baldwin's work and had the actor read for him. He had seen Sheryl Lee on Twin Peaks and cast her based on her work on the show. Carpenter's wife and the film's producer Sandy King cast Thomas Ian Griffith because she and the director wanted "someone who looks formidable, but is also alluring. There always has to be something alluring about the evil nature of the vampire."[3]

The MPAA took issue with the film's over-the-top violence, threatening to give it an NC-17 rating unless some of the gore was cut. King said, "We satisfied the ratings board by just cutting short of a few things that went into really gruesome stuff."[2]

The film was #1 in its opening weekend and grossed a total of $20,308,772 in its domestic release making it a United States box office disappointment. However it was an adequate box office success worldwide. [4]

The film was originally released to mixed critical reviews. Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail called it "crude, rude, nasty fun". However, The New York Times' Lawrence Van Gelder said it was "ridiculous without being awful enough to be hilarious". Vampires currently holds a 36% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 44 reviews.

According to the original book's author John Steakley, the film contained much of his dialogue and none of his plot.[citation needed]

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Vampires (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero