Vampires

The crusader Jack Crow (James Woods), Anthony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) and their team are vampire slayers working for the Catholic Church under the command of Cardinal Alba (Maximilian Schell). When they find a vampire nest near Mexico, they exterminate all the vampires but their master Jan Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) that is hidden below earth. Jack, Montoya and their friends go to a motel to celebrate with prostitutes. However, Valek comes to the motel, bites the hooker Katrina (Sheryl Lee) and kills all the vampire slayers but Jack and Montoya that flee taking Katrina with them. Jack has a meeting with Cardinal Alba that asks him to join another team. Jack leaves the meeting with Father Adam Guiteau (Tim Guinee) and decides to hunt down Valek using Katrina as a bait. Will they succeed?

John Carpenter's Vampires is an entertaining underrated film with a perfect combination of terror, action and humor. There are many funny lines and the casting is perfect. Sheryl Lee is extremely hot especially on the bed scene where she is nude. Once again John Carpenter makes a great film. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Vampiros de John Carpenter" ("John Carpenter's Vampires")

Note: On 19 September 2020, I saw this film again.

Note: On 05 March 2025, I saw this film again.

I'm a big fan of John Carpenter. But in his latest films, I've noticed somewhat of a clumsy way he directs his films. It's almost as if the films were rushed and some scenes or even shots, just weren't filmed. He fades between all of his scenes... Sometimes, leaving us wanting more, but he just fades to the end of it. Sometimes, the scenes he uses could have been completly cut out and not used with the fade-technique whatsoever.

Anyway, I just had to get that off my mind. Off to the plot:

Jack Crow is a Master Slayer, meaning that he kills vampire for the catholic church, and has been doing that for his entire life. After he cleans out a nest of Vampires in New Mexico, his team gets ambushed my a powerful vampire named Valek. Valek kills the entire team of slayers, except for Jack and his friend Montoya. They also manage to bring a hooker along with them, who got bitten by the vampire. Using the hookers telepathic link with her master, the two try to hunt down Valek and find out what he's up to.

This film is gory. Really gory. Most likely John Carpenters goriest film to date, counting The Thing. Some might think that gore is an unnecessary way of filming, but in this film: Gore is not used to "impress" or "Show off". It's used as a background thing. I didn't feel that it was a way of using the gore to create "terror". And if you happen to like gore, you'll find one redeeming factor in this film.

The acting is good. James Woods is really funny as Jack Crow at times, altough Daniel Baldwin isn't really "great", nor is Tim Guinee. But the acting holds up. There's not much else to say other than that James Woods is funny... at times.

The action in this film is quite abundant, yet it's not that great. It can be enjoyable but at the same time the action is very repetive. That doesn't bode very well. Another thing abut this film is that it's too damn long for an action/horror film. Its almost 2 hours long. They should have made it 90 minutes instead, as that would be more fitting of a movie of this "type".

Well. The film is boring sometimes, yet it has some redeeming factors. All in all I give it a six. Nothing great, but if you're a John Carpenter fan you'll like it. And you might want to see how his style has changed. Dramaticly.

The movie opens with a trained, fully-equipped team of vampire slayers, led by Jack Crow (James Woods), methodically purging a "nest" of its fanged occupants. This is one of the best scenes of the movie and sets the viewers up to think, "Hey, these guys know what they're doing. They're some rough-and-ready characters."

But, lo, where is the master vampire? Not to worry, he'll have his chance at revenge...later that very night, as the "trained" vampire hunters go to the nearest town, lay down their weapons, and begin drinking and whoring. And they knew full-well that a master vampire, whose "subjects" they'd just fried, was still lurking about! How stupid can you be???!!!

The movie marches on, showing carnage and betrayal as the plot is advanced. (And, frankly, it's not a bad plot). But there are many holes, many questions that are not answered, like, Why was such an mysterious and important item (a cross that would permit a vampire to walk in the sunlight) guarded by such a inept group of robe-clad nincompoops, who, according to their own harried screams, knew "The day has arrived!"? If they knew that a particularly horrific "day" was inevitably going to "arrive," why, then, did they lack even a modicum of defensive capability. Why were they caught frantically scampering around like a herd of panty-clad Dr. Smiths (from TV's Lost in Space..."Oh the pain, the pain of it all..."). Oh well, we'll never know, and they're too dead to tell us.

Be that as it may, this movie does have some good dialogue, interesting characters, a unique idea or two, and an actual plot--which makes John Carpenter's "Vampires" stand head and shoulders above most of the horror movies that are out today. I enjoyed it despite its defects.

But then kind of sputters out a bit and devolves into a bunch of talking with a decent finale scene. It was ok, entertaining enough. I was genuinely so excited to watch this again after watching the first 15-20 minutes, thinking it's a bit of a hidden gem, eh, not exactly, but wasn't bad. If it kept the pace of the first 20 minutes it would have been an absolute classisc.

Ever since I saw a documentary on the making of horror movie special effects, I've wanted to see 'Vampires'. I wasn't disappointed. In this era of cheap computer effects it's really refreshing to see a movie where the special effects are done the old fashioned way. For some bizarre reason I really like Vampires. The plot is somewhat clichéd, the acting is nothing special and yet... I find myself watching this movie over and over again. Somehow the idea of a secret military force funded by the church, dedicated to fighting vampires is thrilling even though I'm not a religious man. I suppose it harkens back to the day of witch hunters. James Woods is great as the grim, dedicated man sworn to destroy all vampires and as the true shocker, the generic Baldwin appearing in the movie does a really good job as well! If you like gory movies, check it out!