Vampires
USA 1997
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
New Mexico, the present. Jack Crow leads a team of vampire slayers underwritten by the Catholic church. Crow's team are slaughtered by powerful master vampire Ion Valek, but Crow escapes with his sidekick Antonio Montoya and Katrina, a prostitute who has been bitten. Cardinal Alba, Crow's Vatican liaison, instructs Crow to accept Father Adam Guiteau as a replacement for his team's murdered padre. Guiteau reveals that ex-priest Valek was turned into the world's first vampire by a botched exorcism in the thirteenth century. Valek is searching for the Black Cross of Berzieres, which when used in an inverted exorcism will enable him to survive in daylight.
Katrina's developing telepathic link with Valek enables Crow to track the vampire as he takes the Black Cross from an obscure monastery. She also bites Montoya, who conceals his infection from Crow. The team track Valek to a ghost town where he has raised a horde of vampires to take part in the ritual which involves the crucifixion of a crusader at dawn. Crow is captured, to take the part of the crusader. Alba will perform the ceremony. But Guiteau kills his treacherous superior and Montoya rescues Crow who destroys Valek at dawn. Although Katrina and Montoya are turning into vampires, Crow lets the couple escape because of Montoya's loyalty, vowing to track them and kill them later. Crow and Guiteau destroy the surviving vampire minions.
Review
Along with the comic-book-based Blade and the television spin-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this adaptation of John Steakley's disposable novel Vampires reflects a significant shift of emphasis in the vampire sub-genre. It's comparable to the mutation of the gangster movie whereby the flamboyant hoods of the early 30s were replaced as central figures later in the decade by equally flamboyant G-men, often played by the same actors (Cagney, Robinson). This current cycle similarly recasts the villains themselves as old-fashioned monsters of the night without any redeeming features and concentrates on the vampire slayers, whose inflexible moral superiority is leavened by their striking an assortment of supposedly appealing rebel poses.
In the opening sequence, James Woods' Wild Bunch-style team of vampire slayers surround an isolated farmhouse and, after taking a blessing from their padre, charge in like a combination of a SWAT unit and a lynch mob. Crow's favoured vampire-killing method is to shoot his prey with a crossbow bolt attached to a steel wire which when winched hauls the screaming "goon" into the sunlight like a landed fish. After wiping out this first nest, the team retreat to the Sun-God Motel for a party with gallons of beer and a Peckinpahish gaggle of topless hookers, only to be interrupted by Valek (modelling a black spaghetti-Western duster and a hippie haircut) who turns up to slaughter everyone with his bare hands. Director John Carpenter stages both massacres with a few effective initial strokes lifted from Sergio Leone or Peckinpah but then hurries through the death counts (as he does with other major sequences, including the finale) with elliptical fades that only render the action confusing and minimise their impact.
Valek, supposedly the world's very first vampire, is a sadly feeble opponent: straight-to-video action star Thomas Ian Griffith has height and a snarl on his side, but his master plan is vague and nothing at all is made of his potentially interesting pre-vampire careers as a priest and a revolutionary. The film has to be carried completely by the vampire killers, and at least James Woods sneers his way through cynical speeches about how loathsome his enemies are. As with a lot of 90s action movies, much of the tension between heroes and villains seems to arise from homosexual panic: Crow characterises vampires in the sort of terms that might be expected from a dedicated gay-basher ("if you wear cloves of garlic around your neck, one of these buggers will take a walk up your strata chocolata while he's sucking your blood") and taunts Father Guiteau by asking whether violence gives him an erection.
The thin script by Don Jakoby (also responsible for the vampires of Lifeforce) paints Crow and his gang as brutal, macho thugs scarcely more appealing than the monsters. Woods spends much of the film battering his supposed allies or innocent parties while sidekick Daniel Baldwin's contribution is limited to stealing a car at gunpoint and being offensive to a hotel receptionist. The moral lines are so blurred the final revelation of how deeply corrupt their superiors are has no weight. In this atmosphere, 'attitude' is a coded term for obnoxiousness, and the treatment of women - we only see whores and vampires, and the 'heroine' gets to be both - is especially reprehensible; Sheryl Lee is bitten on the inner thigh and spends much of the film naked and/or in bondage, treated as disposable by either side. Carpenter (Halloween, 1978, Escape from New York, 1981), whose decline over the last ten years has been alarming, still has an eye for widescreen imagery, a knack for getting the plot rolling swiftly (only to have it fall apart) and an ear for apt music, but Vampires is rarely as exciting as it would like to be and never remotely scary.
Credits
- Producer
- Sandy King
- Screenplay
- Don Jakoby
- Based on novel Vampires by John Steakley
- Director of Photography
- Gary B. Kibbe
- Editor
- Edward A. Warschilka
- Production Designer
- Thomas A. Walsh
- Music
- John Carpenter
- ©Largo Entertainment, Inc.
- Production Companies
- Columbia Pictures and Largo Entertainment present a Storm King production
- Executive Producer
- Barr Potter
- Co-producer
- Don Jakoby
- Production Co-ordinator
- Cheryl Miller
- Unit Production Manager
- Kim Kurumada
- Locations Manager
- Michael Dellheim
- 2nd Unit Director
- Jeff Imada
- Assistant Directors
- Christian P. Della Penna
- Deanna Stadler
- Chemen A. Ochoa
- Helicopter Unit:
- Greg Babcock
- Script Supervisors
- Benu Bhandari
- 2nd Unit:
- Sandy King
- Casting
- Reuben Cannon
- Eddie Dunlop
- Local:
- Therese Schoeppner
- ADR Group Voices:
- Loop Troop
- Caitlin McKenna
- Terri Douglas
- 2nd Unit Directors of Photography
- Leo Napolitano
- David Dunlap
- Camera Operators
- Leo Napolitano
- George B. Stephenson
- Panaglide Operators
- Kirk Gardner
- Colin Anderson
- Rusty Geller
- Marcus Cole
- 2nd Unit:
- Bob Gorelick
- Spacecam Operator
- Helicopter Unit:
- Bob Mehnert
- Video Displays
- E=mc2
- Video Supervisors:
- Bob Morgenroth
- Brett Cody
- Special Effects Co-ordinator
- Darrell D. Pritchett
- Special Effects Second Man
- William Casey Pritchett
- Special Effects
- Jason Gustafson
- Corey Pritchett
- Elevator:
- Gene Grigg
- 2nd Unit:
- William Casey Pritchett
- Corey Pritchett
- Art Director
- Kim Hix
- Set Decorator
- David Schlesinger
- Morrell Building Mural Artist
- Alex Rokoff
Costume Designer- Robin Michel Bush
- Costume Supervisor
- Bob Bush
- Make-up
- Jill Cady
- Janna B. Phillips
- Special Make-up Effects
- Robert Kurtzman
- Gregory Nicotero
- Howard Berger
- Special Make-up Effects
- KNB EFX Group, Inc
- Supervisors:
- Greg Nicotero
- Howard Berger
- Puppeteer:
- Shannon Shea
- Key Artists:
- Scott Patton
- Garrett Immel
- Douglas Noe
- Greg Funk
- Chris Hanson
- Tami Lane
- Lab Artists:
- Lori Piekarski
- Louis Kiss
- Brian Demski
- Sam DeBree
- Brian Rae
- Alex Diaz
- James Hall
- Steven Hartman
- Mechanical Department:
- Wayne Toth
- Jake McKinnon
- Mike Regan
- Hair Department:
- Ron Pipes
- Robert Maverick
- Co-ordinators:
- Kamar Bitar
- Chiz Hasegawa
- Hair
- Jill Crosby
- Laurel Van Dyke
- Enid Arias
- Main/End Title Design
- Bruce Schluter Design
- Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Music Performed by
- The Texas Toad Lickers
- Rhythm Guitar/Synthesizers:
- John Carpenter
- Lead Guitar:
- Steve Cropper
- Steel Pedal Guitar/Dobro:
- Jeffrey A. Baxter
- Bass:
- Donald V. 'Duck' Dunn
- Drums:
- Rick Shlosser
- Other Live Percussion:
- E. 'Bucket' Baker
- Hammond B3 Organ:
- Bruce Robb
- Saxophone:
- Joe Robb
- Music Conductor/Orchestrations
- Paul Mirkovich
- Music Supervisor
- Bruce Robb
- Soundtrack
- "Teaser" by Brad Wilson, performed by Stone
- Sound Design
- John Pospisil
- Sound Mixer
- Hank Garfield
- Recordist
- Charlie Ajar Jr
- Re-recording Mixer
- Ezra Dweck
- Re-recordist
- Mark Coffey
- Re-recording Mixers
- Michael Casper
- Dan Leahy
- Supervising Sound Editor
- John Dunn
- Dialogue Editor
- Aaron Glascock
- Effects Editor
- Donald Flick
- ADR
- Recordist:
- George Tucker
- Mixer:
- Christina Tucker
- Supervising Editor:
- Victoria Sampson
- Foley
- Artists:
- Paul Holzborn
- Rick Owens
- Mixer:
- Christina Tucker
- Editor:
- Christopher Flick
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Jeff Imada
- Weapons Specialist
- Michael Papac
- Wolf Provided by
- Candy Kitchen Rescue Ranch
- Animal Trainer
- George Stapleton
- Helicopter Pilot
- Jim Deeth
- Cast
- James Woods
- Jack Crow
- Daniel Baldwin
- Antonio 'Tony' Montoya
- Sheryl Lee
- Katrina
- Thomas Ian Griffith
- Ion Valek
- Maximilian Schell
- Cardinal Alba
- Tim Guinee
- Father Adam Guiteau
- Gregory Sierra
- Father Giovanni
- Mark Boone Junior
- Catlin
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
- David Deyo
- Tommy Rosales
- Ortega
- Henry Kingi
- Anthony
- David Rowden
- Bambi
- Clarke Coleman
- Davis
- Mark Sivertsen
- highway patrolman
- John Furlong
- Father Molina
- Angelina Calderon Torres
- cleaning lady
- Jimmy Ortega
- Gilbert Rosales
- male vampires
Danielle Burgio- woman vampire 1
- Laura Cordova
- girl vampire 2
- Troy Robinson
- male master 1
- Anita Hart
- female master 2
- John Casino
- male master 3
- Chad Stahelski
- male master 4
- Steve Blalock
- male master 5
- Marjean Holden
- female master 6
- Cris Thomas Palomino
- female master 7
- Julia McFerrin
- first hooker
- Lori Dillen
- second hooker
- Jake Walker
- county sheriff
- Michael Huddleston
- motel owner
- Todd Anderson
- deputy sheriff
- Steven Hartley
- clerk
- Dennis E. Garber
- limousine driver
- Robert L. Bush
- TV news anchor
- Frank Darabont
- man with Buick
- Mona Garcia
- Candice Kirkiles
- Neva Lucero
- Helen Moreno
- Janice Richmond
- Juanita Romano
- Ann Romero
- Elisa Valdez
- April Winters
- hookers
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 9,702 feet
- 107 minutes 48 seconds
- Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound
- Colour by
- FotoKem
- Anamorphic [Panavision]
- AKA John Carpenter's Vampires