July 18, 2018
Directed by: John Carpenter
Written by: John Steakley (novel), Don Jakoby (Screenplay)
Budget: $20,000,000 (estimated)
Quote: "Can I ask ya somethin, Padre? When I was kickin your ass back there... you get a little wood?"
Trivia: John Carpenter had a good working relationship with James Woods on set. Apparently Woods has a reputation for being difficult to work with, but Carpenter got along with him just fine. They had a deal: Carpenter could film one scene as it was written; the other Woods could improvise. Carpenter found to his delight that many of Woods' suggestions were brilliant.
I was never the biggest fan of Vampire movies. I mean, I loved Interview With the Vampire and read half a dozen of the Anne Rice books when I was younger. But if given the choice, I would choose a slasher movie over a vampire movie probably 100% of the time. I like the grittiness of the slasher genre over the stylish and atmospheric feel of the vampire movies. Don't get me wrong, they often times are beautiful, but they never grabbed me. That being said, when I saw that John Carpenter made a vampire movie, I thought I'd give it a chance. Then when I saw that Sheryl Lee was in it, I had to see it! I fell in love with Sheryl Lee when I discovered Twin Peaks in my early twenties. I have been obsessed with Sheryl Lee's Laura Palmer ever since. Unfortunately, the movie is one of the worst movies I have seen during this horror movie marathon (45 movies deep so far)!
The movie follows a group of vampire hunters led by Jack Crow (James Woods) and Anthony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin). The gang finds a vampire hideout and kills nearly a dozen of them in the opening scene. Afterwards they are followed to a party they are having by the head vampire Jan Valek where he murders the entire party, except Jack and Anthony and gives a prostitute at the party named Katrina (Sheryl Lee) a bite on her upper thigh while the cinematography does its best to connect the act to cunnilingus. Anthony takes Katrina to a hotel where he waits for her to turn so he can use her as a vampiric GPS system while Jack gets teamed up with a priest and goes on the search for Jan Valek. Meanwhile, we learn, Jan Valek is trying to find some cross that was used in a ceremony 600 years ago that will allow him to move about in the light (for some reason it is in New Mexico or Texas or wherever they are). Eventually they all meet up for the final battle... I don't want to spoil the ending, but you can fill in whatever blanks are left on your own if you haven't seen it yet. The plot is pretty thin and to be honest, I'll probably spoil the ending in the following discussion.
Okay, so I never look at IMDB information especially trivia until after I have seen the movie. But as I was watching the film, I kept wondering if James Woods' lines were improvised? Sure enough, IMDB later confirmed this. Jack Crow is obnoxious and an asshole. The entire film I am rooting more for the vampires than for him and Anthony. His dialogue is a mixture of action movie clichés, homophobia, and homosexual curiosity. He goes on a rant where he tells another person that vampires aren't a "bunch of fucking fags" and that they'll "bench you fucking over and take a walk up your strada-chocolata while sucking the blood out of your neck." In the scenes where he isn't going on homophobic rants, he is asking men if they have erections. Seriously. He asks this question at four different times during the movie. "Say Padre, when I was beating you up did you get hard?" I think Jack Crow has some serious latent sexual issues that he needs to work on. John Carpenter felt that James Woods should have been noticed by the Academy for a Best Actor Award. I love you John, but c'mon, James Woods' character made this movie completely unwatchable.
Then there is Daniel Baldwin's character Anthony who is battling Jack Crow as the most unlikeable character not only in this movie, but in any movie of the decade. After taking Katrina (the Laura Palmer prostitute that is going to turn in a couple days) he spends most of the time dragging her, slapping her, and yelling at her because she's having trouble keeping up with him. Keep in mind, she is still Katrina at this point and has not begun to turn into a vampire yet. He is simply yelling and smacking a defenseless woman. Later Katrina awakens tied to a motel room bed face down with tape over her mouth completely naked. Anthony goes to take the tape off of her, not by walking up to her, but by slithering around behind her rubbing his big bloated Alec Baldwin-almost looking body across her naked back and putting his arm around her. Sure, he says he cleaned her up. I guess that was nice. But by leaving her tied up like that naked and uncovered he comes across as a creepy rapist. Later, when Katrina bites his arm he slaps her unconscious then burns his arm where she bit him (because fire stops vampirism? He'll burn his neck later when he gets his throat ripped open too... stupid).
So we have two unlikeable and wholly unrelatable characters fighting a pretty badass vampire. What else does this action film need? Now try to force a love story between Katrina and Anthony. The above paragraph lays out their backstory, one of verbal and physical abuse. Anthony's character doesn't change, he goes through the rest of the movie being a dick to Katrina. Eventually at the end Katrina finally turns into a vampire and bites Anthony's neck open. He seems to like it looking like she's giving him a hickey instead of drinking his blood. It is this act that makes Anthony fall in love with her. Later on they kiss and decide that they are going to go off and be vampire boyfriend and girlfriend together. Jack gives this stupid speech that no matter where they go he'll find them and kill them (just kill them now then.. why wait to hunt them you sociopath?). The love story is dumb and comes out of nowhere.
So much of the film's plot makes no sense. Jack keeps beating the crap out of his priest friend to get information from him that he is hiding. Finally, the priest spills the beans and gives Jack the backstory of the Jan Valek explaining his motive and his goal of obtaining the cross. Why did the priest want to keep this a secret from the guy hunting Jan Valek? This seems like important information that would help all parties involved. Also, this is meant to be a huge revelatory moment where not only Jack, but the viewer, learns the intention of the vampire which is confusing because all this was discussed with Jack thirty minutes earlier in the film. While Jack acts surprised, it left me confused... they already revealed this right? Oh, in the opening scene the vampire hunters use guns which, of course, do nothing... they knew this, they're vampire hunters, right? Throughout the rest of the movie Jack and Anthony keep using guns on the vampires with full knowledge that they do nothing. Stupid. Stake through the heart and sunlight. I guess Carpenter wanted an action flick so there are a lot of guns that have no purpose. In the end, they kill the main vampire by knocking down a roof, the exact thing I shouted at the tv during the opening scene.
The vampires themselves were pretty cool. There is some great bloody scenes and they are not stylized like most of the other vampire movies. They have that grittiness of a western and they bury themselves underground at night instead of hanging like bats. This makes for some cool scenes when they pop out of the ground at dusk. Also, the vampire hunters have a pretty imaginative way of killing vampires: They shoot 'em with arrows attached to a tow truck cable and then drag them into the sunlight. That's pretty cool.
Unfortunately, the rambling plot, completely unlikeable characters and James Woods' shitty improving ruined what could've been a decent vampire film. I will leave you with the final exchange from the film:
I was never the biggest fan of Vampire movies. I mean, I loved Interview With the Vampire and read half a dozen of the Anne Rice books when I was younger. But if given the choice, I would choose a slasher movie over a vampire movie probably 100% of the time. I like the grittiness of the slasher genre over the stylish and atmospheric feel of the vampire movies. Don't get me wrong, they often times are beautiful, but they never grabbed me. That being said, when I saw that John Carpenter made a vampire movie, I thought I'd give it a chance. Then when I saw that Sheryl Lee was in it, I had to see it! I fell in love with Sheryl Lee when I discovered Twin Peaks in my early twenties. I have been obsessed with Sheryl Lee's Laura Palmer ever since. Unfortunately, the movie is one of the worst movies I have seen during this horror movie marathon (45 movies deep so far)!
The movie follows a group of vampire hunters led by Jack Crow (James Woods) and Anthony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin). The gang finds a vampire hideout and kills nearly a dozen of them in the opening scene. Afterwards they are followed to a party they are having by the head vampire Jan Valek where he murders the entire party, except Jack and Anthony and gives a prostitute at the party named Katrina (Sheryl Lee) a bite on her upper thigh while the cinematography does its best to connect the act to cunnilingus. Anthony takes Katrina to a hotel where he waits for her to turn so he can use her as a vampiric GPS system while Jack gets teamed up with a priest and goes on the search for Jan Valek. Meanwhile, we learn, Jan Valek is trying to find some cross that was used in a ceremony 600 years ago that will allow him to move about in the light (for some reason it is in New Mexico or Texas or wherever they are). Eventually they all meet up for the final battle... I don't want to spoil the ending, but you can fill in whatever blanks are left on your own if you haven't seen it yet. The plot is pretty thin and to be honest, I'll probably spoil the ending in the following discussion.
Okay, so I never look at IMDB information especially trivia until after I have seen the movie. But as I was watching the film, I kept wondering if James Woods' lines were improvised? Sure enough, IMDB later confirmed this. Jack Crow is obnoxious and an asshole. The entire film I am rooting more for the vampires than for him and Anthony. His dialogue is a mixture of action movie clichés, homophobia, and homosexual curiosity. He goes on a rant where he tells another person that vampires aren't a "bunch of fucking fags" and that they'll "bench you fucking over and take a walk up your strada-chocolata while sucking the blood out of your neck." In the scenes where he isn't going on homophobic rants, he is asking men if they have erections. Seriously. He asks this question at four different times during the movie. "Say Padre, when I was beating you up did you get hard?" I think Jack Crow has some serious latent sexual issues that he needs to work on. John Carpenter felt that James Woods should have been noticed by the Academy for a Best Actor Award. I love you John, but c'mon, James Woods' character made this movie completely unwatchable.
Then there is Daniel Baldwin's character Anthony who is battling Jack Crow as the most unlikeable character not only in this movie, but in any movie of the decade. After taking Katrina (the Laura Palmer prostitute that is going to turn in a couple days) he spends most of the time dragging her, slapping her, and yelling at her because she's having trouble keeping up with him. Keep in mind, she is still Katrina at this point and has not begun to turn into a vampire yet. He is simply yelling and smacking a defenseless woman. Later Katrina awakens tied to a motel room bed face down with tape over her mouth completely naked. Anthony goes to take the tape off of her, not by walking up to her, but by slithering around behind her rubbing his big bloated Alec Baldwin-almost looking body across her naked back and putting his arm around her. Sure, he says he cleaned her up. I guess that was nice. But by leaving her tied up like that naked and uncovered he comes across as a creepy rapist. Later, when Katrina bites his arm he slaps her unconscious then burns his arm where she bit him (because fire stops vampirism? He'll burn his neck later when he gets his throat ripped open too... stupid).
So we have two unlikeable and wholly unrelatable characters fighting a pretty badass vampire. What else does this action film need? Now try to force a love story between Katrina and Anthony. The above paragraph lays out their backstory, one of verbal and physical abuse. Anthony's character doesn't change, he goes through the rest of the movie being a dick to Katrina. Eventually at the end Katrina finally turns into a vampire and bites Anthony's neck open. He seems to like it looking like she's giving him a hickey instead of drinking his blood. It is this act that makes Anthony fall in love with her. Later on they kiss and decide that they are going to go off and be vampire boyfriend and girlfriend together. Jack gives this stupid speech that no matter where they go he'll find them and kill them (just kill them now then.. why wait to hunt them you sociopath?). The love story is dumb and comes out of nowhere.
So much of the film's plot makes no sense. Jack keeps beating the crap out of his priest friend to get information from him that he is hiding. Finally, the priest spills the beans and gives Jack the backstory of the Jan Valek explaining his motive and his goal of obtaining the cross. Why did the priest want to keep this a secret from the guy hunting Jan Valek? This seems like important information that would help all parties involved. Also, this is meant to be a huge revelatory moment where not only Jack, but the viewer, learns the intention of the vampire which is confusing because all this was discussed with Jack thirty minutes earlier in the film. While Jack acts surprised, it left me confused... they already revealed this right? Oh, in the opening scene the vampire hunters use guns which, of course, do nothing... they knew this, they're vampire hunters, right? Throughout the rest of the movie Jack and Anthony keep using guns on the vampires with full knowledge that they do nothing. Stupid. Stake through the heart and sunlight. I guess Carpenter wanted an action flick so there are a lot of guns that have no purpose. In the end, they kill the main vampire by knocking down a roof, the exact thing I shouted at the tv during the opening scene.
The vampires themselves were pretty cool. There is some great bloody scenes and they are not stylized like most of the other vampire movies. They have that grittiness of a western and they bury themselves underground at night instead of hanging like bats. This makes for some cool scenes when they pop out of the ground at dusk. Also, the vampire hunters have a pretty imaginative way of killing vampires: They shoot 'em with arrows attached to a tow truck cable and then drag them into the sunlight. That's pretty cool.
Unfortunately, the rambling plot, completely unlikeable characters and James Woods' shitty improving ruined what could've been a decent vampire film. I will leave you with the final exchange from the film:
Jack Crow:
Let me ask you a question. When you were stabbing that vampire in there?
Father Adam Guiteau:
Yeah?
Jack Crow:
Did you get a little wood?
Father Adam Guiteau:
Mahogany.
Jack Crow:
Excuse me?
Father Adam Guiteau:
Ebony.
Jack Crow:
What?
Father Adam Guiteau:
Teak.
Jack Crow:
Are you possessed by demons?
Father Adam Guiteau:
Major Chubby.
Jack Crow:
Language, Padre, language!
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