Vampires

I like Carpenter's earlier work like The Thing, Halloween and The Fog among others but Vampires fails to be a great horror film. It has many great gore effects but nothing more. Carpenter is legendary horror director but this time he seems to be pretty tired. The film deals with a vampire hunter played by James Woods who is catching vampires with his "army". He knows there is a master vampire somewhere and by destroying him, he would save the world from "vampire virus". What follows is gore, splatter, often bad humor and blood. And did I mention gore? It is nice to see that he had guts to do the film this bloody and didn't want it to be some PG13 crap without any personal touch. The effects are pretty excessive (the split scene at the beginning is interesting!) and effects group has made fine job. Vampires would've been far more interesting piece of horror cinema, if Carpenter had included his skills in the tension and atmosphere department too. If you want brainless splatter, then you may like this one.. Well, it could've been far worse but I was expecting little more from John. He is still one of my favourite directors and his classics will never die. I hope he will be able to do something personal again. 5 out of 10.

I'd have to say that Vampires is about the worst written and acted vampire movie I've ever seen, and I have seen more of them than most people should in a lifetime. The Acting (especially by James Woods) was really pretty boring. His constant barrage of one liners and lack of meaningful conversation just annoyed me. Nobody really spoke too much in this movie. There were no clever jokes or interesting stories about the vampires. Basically it was just a hunt the bad guy vampires, go get the leader, he kills some of my guys, I kill some of his guys, I use all the brilliant techniques of a professional vampire hunter (add sarcasm here) ...well you can see the rest, but I wouldn't waste my money. So of course Woods is granted a vampire proof shield - he didn't get a scratch through the whole movie. (oh yeah - a cut on the leg to get some blood, sorry) Cool who does get "vamped", but that also turns out hokey. The best part of this movie is definitely the head vampire. He is big and fast and strong and can slice through the good guys with his fingernails (literally) He of course has a huge group of followers who also look really mean, but don't make any kills - it's always either Woods or the vamp's leader. And kill they did! Blood everywhere, heads slashed, and lots of screaming and burning on the part of the vampires. Definitely some cool looking weapons and great death scenes, but for vampire killers, these guys don't seem to have the right equipment. They always carry guns, for example. They use them, and see that it doesn't work, but never stop shooting. Even by the end of the movie with a huge fight scene between Woods and the leader, he pulls out a little handgun and starts shooting. HA HA HA. That's what the vampire did and that's what I've been doing as I kick myself for being talked into seeing this dumb movie. Daniel Baldwin was actually the best actor on the screen. He plays a big dumb right hand to Woods, but does it well. He definitely needs a lot of work to make get close to where his brothers are (Baldwins I mean), but he shows some promise. Truly though, I think that the least impressive part of the movie was the sound. The music was the same from beginning to end. Every time Woods went into badass mode, an old guitar playing the same chord would start up. It's really ridiculous that anyone would bother making a movie like this. I give it a 2! Really, don't waste your time!

Who but John Carpenter would have the savvy to make a "vampire western," and do it so well? His WILD BUNCH is a blue-collar crowd doing a dirty job, led by the cocky James Woods (whose wisecracking but nonetheless no-nonsense approach to hunting vampires reminded me more than a little of the early SPIDER-MAN- the one written by Stan Lee and rendered by Steve Ditko). And, just for the record, the movie IS better than the book. MUCH better. Carpenter manages to evoke a sense of time and place that seems to capture the FEEL of the southwest. The music definitely helps in this regard, but it's the director's filmmaking TECHNIQUE that makes this the almost "spiritual odyssey" that it is. When was the last time a movie made you feel you were THERE...?