John Carpenter month: Vampires

 A retrospective by Forrest Humphrey

Its my favorite month of the year, and with it, our director is one of my favorites. John Carpenter is revered among horror fans as one of the genre's all time greats. Halloween, The Thing, They Live, Escape from New York. The man is a legend for a reason. But the film I want to talk about is not regarded as being among his classics. Not without some valid reasons mind you, but one I don't feel it quite deserves the flack it gets. I want to talk about 1998's “Vampires”.

Carpenter both directed and scored the film, and it stars James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Tim Guinee, and Thomas Ian Griffith. Our plot is quite simple: James Woods and Daniel Baldwin play Jack Crow and Tony Montoya, leading a team of Vampire Hunters operating in the Midwest. After a successful hunt the hunters are partying it up when they are attacked by a new Vampire (Thomas Ian Griffith) and easily slaughtered. Crow and Montoya are the only surviving hunters along with a hooker named Katrina (Sheryl Lee) bitten by this vampire as a hostage. After getting back to the church, they are informed that the vampire they saw was named Valek, the first vampire, strongest of his kind. Tim Guinee is appointed to be the group's new priest and they set out to avenge their fallen comrades and kill Valek, namely by using Katrina's psychic link with Valek to track him. More unfolds but I wont spoil everything. 

The film has a unique style, what many call the New Old West, or Neo-Western. That is to say, it has the look and feel of a Western with its arid New Mexico landscape, and a plot that focuses on a band of hired hunters, save the outlaws these men are hunting happen to be vampires and the setting is the late 1990's as opposed to the 1890's.  Carpenter's excellent score enhances this with its focus on acoustic instruments and lonely country twang. The finale even takes place in an old Spanish town that just looks ripe for men in spurs walking down main street. 

While hardly new these days, Carpenter's style of vampire was quite novel at the time. These were not brooding, lonely creatures of the night, these were barely human monsters that were far more interested in ripping your throat out and lapping the gushing wounds like animals. Valek is the only one who even speaks, which helps him stand out along with just how old he is, given he's been hunting the world since the Middle Ages. 

While the cast are all quite game here, the standouts are Griffith as Valek, giving the ancient vampire a sense of presence and mystique, and of course, James Woods is always a joy to watch as he swaggers about and owns every bit of any movie set graced by his presence, easily going from hilarious to menacing without ever breaking his character.

But as I alluded earlier, not everything about the film deserves such praise. Despite being vampire hunters in the employ of the church, Woods and Baldwin's characters are not exactly the most likable people, often being quite ruthless and like I said earlier, Katrina is not happily along for the ride hunting down Valek. She's their prisoner, kept around only because she is linked with Valek as she turns and they can track him using her, whether she likes it or not. Some would say ends justify means, but still, these guys are not the noble hunters of evil you might expect to see in a vampire flick. Then again, one might enjoy the nasty shade of anti-hero the film is dealing with. That and the only significant female character in the film is a hooker held prisoner by our “heroes” and developments later in the film get rather troubling with more than a few shades of Stockholm Syndrome. 

Ultimately however, I think “Vampires” is a pretty darn good time. Well cast, some lovely old-west style cinematography, another great musical score from Carpenter,  and memorably savage vampires. Give it a look, maybe you'll think its a little underrated as well.