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overthinking entertainment
Movie: Vampires
[TRAILER] Jack Crow (James Woods) has a business: putting stakes through bloodsuckers' hearts. With his battle-hardened crew of vampire killers and the assistance of the Catholic Church, Crow roams the New Mexico desert looking for undead lairs to annihilate. But he meets his match when, at a roadside motel, he comes face to face with Jan Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith), a vampire kingpin possessed of incredible powers.
Also starring Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Tim Guinee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell, Mark Boone Jr., Gregory Sierra, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Thomas Rosales, Jr., Henry Kingi, David Rowden, Clarke Coleman, Chad Stahelski, Marjean Holden.
Directed by John Carpenter. Screenplay by Don Jakoby, based on the novel Vampire$ by John Steakley. Produced by Sandy King for Storm King Productions/Largo Entertainment. Cinematography by Gary B. Kibbe. Edited by Edward A. Warschilka. Music by John Carpenter.
44% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
JustWatch listing.
posted by DirtyOldTown on Nov 12, 2024 at 9:22 AM
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Oh lord, I kinda want to revisit this since I haven't seen it in ages, but that would mean I would have to listen and look at James Woods. Sheryl Lee was so underused in this movie, imho.
posted by Kitteh at 9:26 AM
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This is probably structurally a better movie than Ghosts of Mars, but I didn't enjoy it as much. While the story is a bit more coherent and the FX are more consistent, it didn't age as well.
Carpenter seems to have been attracted to Steakley's novel because its fusion of horror with western tropes caught his eye. He seems to see the movie as an old school yarn about outlaw men alternately coming through for each other or betraying each other. "Who can a man trust?" kind of stuff. The fact that the only women in the movie are "working girls" or vampires doesn't help that. It's the sort of Rough Men on the Edge of Society! misogyny people don't do anymore.
And it picks up a little extra stink by having Woods in it, given who he is in 2024.
Still, I didn't hate this. And I was assured that I would. Still not sure why folks are snatching this up in the new 4K edition though from Shout Factory. (I settled for the HD edition from Indicator.)
Watch for Chad Stahelski (who later directed John Wick) as one of the vampires emerging from the desert soil in that memorable scene.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:41 AM
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That scene is pretty dope, true. 90s John Carpenter was pretty hit or miss, but I will always go to bat for In the Mouth of Madness, which I think is vastly underrated.
posted by Kitteh at 9:47 AM
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I've only seen this once but remember that my immediate reaction was that it was a profoundly woman-hating movie. Like not quite as womanhatenous as Species 2 but then what is?
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:58 AM
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There's a review on Letterboxd that is a bit more generous with the stars than I would be, but I like its take:
James Woods is a garbage human. Knowing that, it works quite well for him in John Carpenter's Vampires because his Jack Crow leads a pack of isolated misogynist men who slay vampires for a living. And when Crow meets the oldest and very first vampire to ever walk the Earth, of course he asks him how his dick is working because it's James Woods. Oh yeah, he also asks a priest if he got an erection from killing a vampire. The reason I say it works is because these are outcasts, society wants nothing to do with them, so it doesn't hurt the film that they're scum and that they show off in front of other scum because it's basically an echo chamber of trash dudes getting cut in half by vampires or cutting vampires in half. No one is likable but Woods plays Crow as if he is because, like Woods himself, he thinks this is a real man. It's been 20 years since Vampires hits theaters but it's a reminder of how casual and pervasive misogyny and dick jokes were in the 90s. Even though I hate the man, I would've been more disappointed watching the film now if it were say, Ethan Hawke. Instead it's smarmy Woods getting an erection off his own swagger and it actually oddly helps contextualize the movie... [more]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 AM
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I really did love this movie when it came out - largely because of the swagger (I was 24 and full of beans), but looking at it now it feels a lot meaner and bleaker than I remember. I definitely think Big Trouble in Little China is more the swagger I enjoy now.
posted by drewbage1847 at 8:15 PM
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This does also have Thomas Ian Griffith, looking so much like Michael Wincott in The Crow that it took me a minute to recognize him.
Also, he doesn't do any karate this time around, so that didn't help me spot him.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:44 AM
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This is the worst John Carpenter movie I've seen and I've seen Ghosts of Mars. On our way out of the theater after watching it my roommate said that if she had to choose between watching Vampire$ again and a bullet to the head she'd take the bullet as "at least the bullet's faster."
I remember years ago reading a quote where some producer said the remarkable thing about John Carpenter was that if you gave him six million dollars he'll make you a very good six million dollar movie and if you gave him a hundred million dollars he'll make you a very good six million dollar movie. He's not the only director who has a ceiling as to how much of his budget he knows how to wield effectively; Sam Raimi springs immediately to mind, as does Robert Rodriguez (although in Rodriguez's case the budget is about $750,000).
I don't know what happened to Carpenter immediately after In the Mouth of Madness wrapped but the last thirty years of his output have been pretty dire and for me at least Vampire$ has been the worst of it.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:36 AM
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I hear The Ward is the worst of all but haven't actually gotten around to trying it yet.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 AM
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I had found the book before the movie was ever even announced (I was really into vampires) and it's one of the few novels that I just stopped reading because it just...wasn't good. I then watched the movie when it came out, hoping that it made more sense or was more interesting being filtered down to a visual story, and I think I even turned off the movie too. Not even a "campy vampire b-movie" kind of good but just bleh.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:29 PM
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Yes! I also stumbled onto the book before the movie and it was horrible and misogynistic in an entirely different way.
posted by Eddie Mars at 7:57 AM
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