John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)

	The John Carpenter website, host for this Vampires page.
	Go back to the Main Vampires Page

The Raw News (The most recent news is at the top - start at the bottom to read the info on Vampires as it developed)

JC DVD and VHS Info A variety of stuff, including the release dates, supplementals and stuff on Vampires.

This from Nate:

"  I've got some info/news for you dealing with the American DVD release
(Region 1.) I don't know about the rest of the world but Vampires in
America will indeed have commentary by the man himself. He stated as
mush in an interview online awhile back and I have had it confirmed by
Peter at www.dvdfile.com before e-mailing you. Peter gets his info from
Cloumbia Tristar themselves. Also the slated release date is February 9,
and although it could be delayed, it is highly unlikely that it would be
released any earlier than that "

From Len:

"Just a little news for your site, you may not have heard but vampires
as now available on order in the USA. Amazon have the tape (release
date Feb. 9, 1999) at the price of 89.24 dollars. Priced as it will
be classed as a rental tape for the first three months (the price
should then drop by 30%).  The tape will be NTSC however (unless you
have an NTSC player)"

Lots of great info there, maybe the great minds on the net can answer Dave Joerg's question?:

"could you find out for me if the US DVD release of Vampires will contain a
Dolby Digital Soundtrack?"

Vampires for the Oscar's Ok, it'll never happen, never ever ever. But, it still makes a nice dream. Here's Matt G to tell you what the hell I am talking about:

"... those two lovable movie critics, Siskle & Ebert did a special show in which
they recommend certain actors/actresses/movies to the Academy Awards for
whom they feel should be nominated for an Oscar. And much to my surprise,
who did Gene Siskel ask the Academy to nominate? None other than James
Woods for his "electrifying performance" in JC's Vampires. Of course Ebert
completely disagreed and they got into an argument."

News as of 4th January 1999 Happy New Year Hope everyone had a great Christmas and all that. Mine was uplifted by the good result of my PhD exam, meaning I am now a fully fledged and qualified waffler. As you can guess, the partying and Christmas holidays have meant no updates for a while, but hopefully things will get back to some sort of regular schedule
Vampires Location Little snippet from NoFear35 "Some of the movie was filmed at the Bobcat Bite, Santa Fe New Mexico."
Vampires French DVD"Vampires will be release on DVD at the End of January in France. The Disc will be english
soundrack and French Dub in Dolby Digital 5.1. But in english, you wouldn't be able to remove the subtitles. also 16/9 and Cinémascope. Jérôme Wybon from the French magazine DVD Mag "
Vampires US Vid Release This from Daryl "I saw in my video store update today that Columbia Tri-Star will be
releasing Vampires on Feb.2. " and from Mike " I work at a Suncoast video store and I noticed in our book today that Vampires will be released on DVD, Feb 9 1999.  There weren't any extra features listed but it was only a short synopsis of the plot.  I would love to hear JC doing commentary, though."
JC Update Sandy King Carpenter has kindly dropped in this info. It gives us the latest update on what JC is up to and.... "We feel really good about the reception Vampires has received thus far.  Not many films get to be number one each year...max. 52, I guess.  So being number one was fantastic.  It was also great to hold the spot all week until we got squashed by Adam Sandler...oh well...Obviously, the film's in profit and it hasn't been released yet in most of its foreign markets.  It has a long life ahead of it.  We have no idea whaqaat we're doing next.  This last one was so labor-intensive, that we have just been savoring a little time off for the moment. Really, my first time at leisure was after the opening in November.  We'll start looking at things after the New Year and make a decision when the right thing turns up.  In the meantime, I'm trying to place a TV series and we have an online video game we're developing with Centropolis that should be announced sometime soon when the lawyers finish with their part of the deal. (see the Tom Alaerts scoop above) Send  your list of JC questions to me and I'll see how John feels about answering them.  I think he'll do it." List of JC questions? Well, you see I asked SKC if JC might be interested in a fan based Q&A through the net, and the answer seems to be positive. I think this is a great opportunity for fans to get to ask JC some questions. So, e-mail them to me and lets hope something comes of it. So, the info - email questions to brightms1@cf.ac.uk with JC QA in the subject line. Suggestions - try and hold off the 'sequel to The Thing/They Live/etc?" type questions cos JC has been asked these a million times and the answer is always the same. I shall be editing questions purely to remove duplications, etc. Also, JC and SKC will have the final selection on which questions they answer, so I guess the most interesting ones have more chance of being answered.
 

News as of 1st December Ok, the updates have been really slow lately. Personal factors have entered the equation, I am no longer a free-wheeling student, I actually have a job and a PhD viva exam to worry about. Still, the main reason for lack of updates is the lack of news, things are REALLY slow at the moment as Vampires has been released (and faded away worryingly easily) and JC doesn't have any public projects in the pipeline. So for the time being the news will be pretty mucn confined to reader contributions and queries.
Vampires Analysis The Vampires box-office trend continued, with it losing a steady 60% almost every weekend since its release. The US gross is standing around the 20 million dollars mark, pitiful considering the huge amount Blade made. Of course, when you compare budgets then Vampires doesn't seem so bad. As everyone seems to be saying, the marketing push for Vampires was practically non-existent. Mohammad Khan of The Carpenticized Side of The Web noted that it had stopped showing in his local theatre by the second week of release.
Jaxstor on Vampires " Sunday afternoon i got a chance to see my second viewing of vamps again...I wanted to see if the film was as good as I thought it was or was I just caught up in Toronto...I loved it even more...I paid more attention to the detail and the story between  W oods and Baldwin as buddies who have to make hard decisions works in every way...good news Vampires was # 1 AT US box office taking in 10 million....this is Carps best opening and is excellent considering I saw no push from Sony...very little marketing..very little on tv..small ads in the papers...also the US critics once again show their lack of intelligence by skewering this film...I do not understand that...critics over seas praised Vampires universally...here in the states it is being attacked for being homophobic and for bashing women which is bullshit... I still feel it is Carps best since Halloween and The Thing...the critic in my hometown paper said something I found interesting...he felt the film had stunning visuals yet could not recommend it because he felt the film was beneath Carpenters abilities...someone of his talent should do more dignified work...there you have it...I have always felt Carpenter gets negative U S reviews because he does not make the films critics think he should make....thank God he does not - jax"
Vampires Jeep? "In the VAMPIRES movie, what kind of jeep was that.....make and model? thanx, Aaron Silver "
Don M. on Vampires Another Vampires review from a longtime contrib. to these pages " Hey Marc,  Just wanted to mail you with my review of Vampires and to sum it up in one word, Excellent.  J.C. has made a movie that gives you everything you could hope for from the master.  The camerawork, the music, the story and just the air that is always produced when you watch a Carpenter film are all there in full impact.  James Woods portrays his character with perfection.  You wouldn't expect someone like Jack Crow to act any other way.  Daniel Baldwin as well plays his character very straightforward and with great effect.  However, the highest praise should be given to Thomas Ian Griffith who as Valek, brought an incredible sense of power to his role.  His portayal was magnificent, by far the best vampire character I've ever seen.  Yes there was gore, but I didn't feel that it was as excessive as many critics have stated.  On that subject, it's a shame that critics can't judge a film for what it is rather than what their personal views dictate.  Many reviews have fallen under what these people feel is morally correct.  Just because the movie isn't your run of the mill Hollywood commercial popcorn production doesn't mean it isn't good.  Well, I'm sure all of the J.C. fans and even some mainstream critics have provided enough positive feedback to give the film credit.  Vampires was number 1 at the box office on the slowest weekend of the year and that's saying something.  J.C. deserves the credit he has always been due.  And hopefully, this will be the film that brings that credit.  We all know the fans will always be there to make sure J.C. knows that his films are appreciated for what they are: Masterpieces.-  Don M. " Don later dropped in with some more info "    Just wanted to update you on the progress of the Vampires release in the states. Currently, Vampire's is #12 with a take of approx 19million (as of Thurs. 19th Nov).  Not a phenominal amount,  but not too bad either, considering that In the Mouth of Madness and Village of the Damned did not fair near as well when they came out in 95.  Vampires should clear over $20 million before it's through and as you stated, the foreign box office, DVD and video rights should prove Vampires an impressive success.  Something interesting happened today.  When asking someone if they had seen the movie, this person replied, not yet, but I heard the reviews weren't good at all.  I almost smacked the person upside the head, but this just goes to show how gullible some people are. Unfortunately, critics, as self involved as they are, can some how still leave an impression on the masses.  The sad thing was that this guy was a JC fan.  Another sickening fact is that after Vampires opened, I didn't see one trailer promoting the film.  This to a T is reminissent of Village and In the Mouth of Madness.  What is the problem, to keep interest in the public and to further advertise a film, trailers after a movie opens is a must and it was sad to see that Vampires didn't get the  treatment it deserved.  Well, I know the fans will do as much as they can to make the movie successful from a box office stand point.  I've seen the movie 4-times now and will try to see it again before it leaves the mainstream theatres.  Despite what critics print, I consider myself a normal adult in my twenties.  I have good morals, but this in no way alters my view of a film that was made with great expertise.  I've been a JC fan for years and this will never change.  I hope JC scans the internet and reads your page, if so, I'd like to tell him that there are people out there who do appreciate great film making and that he'll always have a fan in me.  He is simply the master. Take care,- Don M."
UK Vampires Date "Last I heard from Columbia UK was, Press previews Feb 99, this would suggest a  release of about March/April 99.- Simon Caleb."
New Zealand Vampires " I work at Village Cinemas Auckland and I found out the New Zealand Release
date of Vampires: It is 02 February 1998 and will be distibuted by Village Roadshow Distributors for Australia/ New Zealand. Keep up the good work. Oggy Doggy. :) "
Australia Vampires Date " the release date for VAMPIRES here is December 10, a mere 9 days from now!!! PS: You gonna update some time this year? - A O'Connor " Ok, I have been slow updating, so less of the sarcasm.
Leather Jacket? Some strange ID requests coming in for Vampirs props, but I guess they must be interesting to some people "From:  Kip T Melton - Do you have any idea of the make and style of leather jacket worn by James Woods in JC's Vampires.  I hope I haven't bothered you but this is driving me crazy. "
Vampires Video Release Tom Alaerts drops this in " just this: I saw an advertisement in a French magazine that Vampires will be out on video from november 20 on. Keep in mind that their videos are encoded in secam.." So it should be out there by now.
Nutters Of The World, Stand Up and Take a Bow I can't make my mind up about this one, either this is one disturbed person or they are seriously extracting the urine. Whatever, it had to be shared cos it made me laugh " To whom ever this email is going to, i saw john carpenter's vampire movie and was displeased. vampires are real and nothing like that.  we are more like anne rice show us to be.  we're not mean blood suckers.  we don't have master.  we don't just feed.  when someone gives their live to us it's a beautiful ritual.  and most times they don't even die.  i am one of many.  and most of us believes the person must be willing to do it.  please, we're not out to hurt, or kill the human race.  we're like the tigers of the jungle.  just a little high up the food chain.Lady E D " Yeah, higher up the food chain but way down the queue when brains were handed out. I personally am sick to death of the Anne Rice vampires. I was excited by Vampires cos it promised to drop that whole thing, and it has.

News as of 9th November Vampires is now standing at 8th place in the US box office, a 60% drop in box office since last weekend. The gross receipts are now over 15 million dollars, covering the budget of the film. Ok, this isn't good news. Following this trend Vampires will drop out of the top ten next week and maybe scrape 20-25 million on its US release. Still, add this to the enthusiastic French release, the upcoming world release and the large video/DVD and even TV revenue that JC always attracts and Vampires should make a tidy profit. Not enough to be a blockbuster, or even be termed much of a 'hit' but enough to get JC some more independent projects. So can we pinpoint the reason for this lack of success? The US critics, especially the mainstream ones, have been mostly unanimous in their slating of the movie, Totally failing to 'get it', comparing it to films like Interview.... and Bram Stoker's..., berating it for its 'western' feel without appreciating the whole point was to create a 'western' with vampires rather than a straightforward 'horror' film that is just intended to deliver the scares. The criticisms of the 'uberviolence' are just lame, imposing their own moral standards on what should be in the movie rather than judging it in its own context. Fan word of mouth has been pretty ecstatic, but this is never enough to give JC that mainstream hit. One surprising thing seems to have been the lack of promotional push. Despite official word of a 'large' advertising budget most people claim to have not seen much in the way of trailers and even less in terms of posters, adverts, etc. I think that the combination of bad press and weak marketing seems to have killed the movie. In a similar way to the X-Files movie (though obviously not the on the same scale) the initial box office rush was the fans, the very steep drop off pretty much indicates that now we have seen it the general public is not interested.

On a technical note, the server is playing up hence the recent difficulties in accessing the page. Sorry 'bout this, the technical bods assure me they are working hard on it.

Recent rumours have the UK release of Vampires for next May/June, a looong time to wait.

News as of 2nd November Ok, not only did I miss Halloween, I missed one of the most important events of the year, the Vampires release in the US. Sorry for the lack of coverage, but I took some time off after my thesis. I have also managed to secure a job, ensuring that bread and water will still be in abundance so I can pay the upkeep on this page. Of course, being a UK dweller the impact of the Vampires release was somewhat subdued, so I consoled myself with a trip to see Halloween : H20. Now, I have not been backwards in being a critic of this lame series of sequels but I was delighted with this film. All that Thorn and Man In Black crap was ditched, sequels 4-6 are completely ignored, to focus again on the simple fact that Micheal Myers is one extremely scary creation. They have done it right this time; the first time Myers appears, in the obligatory pre-credits sequence, my heart just stopped. Being a young sort I missed the chance to see the film on the big screen the first time around, so this was my first sight of Myers standing 30ft tall in front of me. The film gets better from there, despite almost slipping into a Scream-esque teenagers in peril movie. It is Jamie Lee Curtis who is the real revelation, the character of Strode is completely believable as a woman dealing with the 20 year legacy of that night in Haddonfield. When she finally decides enough is enough and goes after Micheal, it is so right. A great film, elevated by a wholly believable and sympathetic central preformance.
The Vampires Release A summary of the various early responses and box-office rumblings

" Just wanted to fill you in on the upcomming Vampire's release here in the States. Today is 10-27-98, 3 days and counting and soo far, the trailers for Vampire's has been pretty stagnant. Haven't seen many of them and the movie is too close for this kind of lackluster advertising. If I see one more preview or postview for Apt Pupil, Sony/Tri-Star ( THE SAME STUDIO RELEASING VAMPIRES) is going to receive a unibomb in the mail. The recent news of James Woods appearing on Jay Leno and Daniel Baldwin appearing on David Letterman will hopefully provide the type of advertising push that's usually given to even the most insignificant of films. Anyway, don't mean to complain but it gets pretty frustrating when you see a highly anticipated film by die-hard Carpenter fans that deserves the exposure get lukewarm attention right before release. Shades of the disgusting advertising for In The Mouth of Madness and Village of the Damned are unfortunately evident. Regardless, I'm confident that the fan base and good word of mouth (for once by commercial critics) will be enough. It's just disapointing to see this time and again. Well, I'll mail you back after the opening. Will try to see if a sneak preview is showing and if so, will let you know the inside story. Anyway, have to go turn the channel, another Bride of Chucky trailer just came on. That makes it about 15 so far today. Take Care and a late congratulations on completion of the thesis Don M. "

"From: Tztolls@aol.com Dear Marc;Could you please find out through your connections the brand name and style # of the sunglasses James Woods wears in "Vampires"? Thanks,John. "

"Hey Marc, I also went to that Long Beach film festival and I got a report for you. The place was packed and JC of course was really cool and laid back. He told us VAMPIRES was really politically incorrect which everyone applauded. He then said he put alot of violence and sex into it which got even more applause. In the Q&A when someone asked if there would be a sequel to THE THING, he said that a producer came to him with the idea of teenagers being dropped into the Antarctic and he killed it right there. That got alot of laughs. Another questioner told him that PRINCE OF DARKNESS was the scariest movie ever and that got a big applause. He was also asked if he thought that the young filmmakers who are doing all the Scream-ripoffs are just interested in making money and not doing quality stuff and JC answered that he thought that was being too cynical and that they are trying their best with the scripts and the casts that the studios give them. And when Harry Dean Stanton gave Carpenter the award, Carp said that it had Robert Wise's name on it, and he and Wise exchanged awards. That got more laughs. All in all it was a good night. The audience was obviously full of JC fanatics and they all really liked VAMPIRES. It had great cinematography, great gore and some hilarious one-liners. Later, Doug Graves "

"I WENT TO THE OPENING TONIGHT OF JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES AND I AM HERE TO TELL YOU THAT IT IS THE BEST FILM HE HAS EVER DONE!!!!!!!!!! I HAVE SEEN EVERYTHING HE HAS DONE AND THIS MOVIE IS NOT ONLY HIS BEST WORK TO DATE IT IS ALSO ONE OF THE COOLEST MOVIES EVER PUT ON FILM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RUSS BOGGS SIOUX CITY, IOWA. "

"From: Twoslats: Dude-- I saw Vampires last night, and I can only say ---HO LY SHIT!!!!! That's what we're talking about when we talk about a good freakin movie... "

"From: (Frances Westerfield) According to tonight's news, "Vampires" is the top grossing film this week. Good weekend to open seeing as how it was Halloween. I really enjoyed this movie! "

"From www.imdb.com - Joining a raft of scary movies already installed in theaters this Halloween weekend is Vampires (1998), from the Halloween movie creator John Carpenter. For the most part, the film is receiving frightful reviews. "Vampires never manages to be either frightening or suspenseful," writes Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times, adding, "By its end, a world that should be saved from movies like this has, at least, been saved from a new breed of evildoer." Many critics agree that Carpenter's usual restraint is largely absent from his latest effort. Tom Maurstad in the Dallas Morning News observes, "Enough severed heads roll around this movie to open a bowling alley for the damned." Eleanor Ringel in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution comments that Vampires "starts out great and ends up limp." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun Times allows that the movie "has a certain mordant humor" but, he adds, "the movie is not scary." "What you've really got is a bore," says Susan Wloszczyna in USA Today. But Bob Strauss, in the Los Angeles Daily News comments that the film succeeds on its own terms. "It's hardly a great film," Strauss writes, "but taken in the properly twisted spirit, it's smart and nasty Halloween fun." And Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News concludes, "Vampires is a guilty pleasure, a Halloween horror howler."

"some state side reviews of vamps is coming in and they are positive..the rolling stone review was by peter traves who gave a negative review for the thing way back when but liked vamps a lot detour magazine had a lengthy article and gave vamps 3 stars out of 4...cinefantastique called it carps best in ten years ....so maybe carp will hit paydirt..i know friday night i will be there with a group of buds for my second viewing and their first... jaxstor "

No real surprise that some of the straight critics didn't like it. The fans word of mouth is almost uniformly positive, and Vampires is sitting at No. 1 in the box office, a welcome return to the top slot for JC. It took 9.2 million dollars on its opening weekend. Lets hope it has the legs for the long haul.

News as of 15th October Random Ramblings Here we go again with excuses for the lack of updates. The usual reason, my PhD thesis. You'll be totall uninterested to know that I have now almost finished it. On a UK note, I urge you all to watch Ultraviolet on Channel 4, Tuesday nights. This excellent chiller is about a band of Vatican-sponsored vampire hunters, sounds familiar? On with the real news - (mostly just copies of e-mails as I am too busy to add much editorial)
Vampires in Vienna "Huber Christoph - The VIENNALE, Viennas international film festival has scheduled three Carpenter films this year. On Oct 17th they´ll play Vampires. At the same time they´ll also play Starman, due to a Jeff Bridges tribute. And one week later, Oct 24th they are going to screen Halloween right before H2O. Big chance, as Vampires still has no distributor in Austria and the other two can be rarely seen in cinemas un-dubbed ´round here."
The JC and James Woods Appearances "hey. first the date for the james wood la shrine aud. deal is oct. 11. 2nd. john will be signing copies of the vampires soundtrack at the virgin megastore in los angeles on sunset blvd. on oct 16. no time listed so they'll have to call the store at: Virgin Megastore(323) 650-8666 music press #141 - 144" Sorry about missing the boat on that one, did anyone go? Still time to get down for the JC soundtrack signing though.
More on that Widescreen Festival I have been reporting on this droolsome night out for a while now, and I thought I would refresh memories. "If anyone is hanging around sunny Southern California on Friday, October 23rd...JC will be live in person with legendary director Robert Wise on stage at the Fourth Annual WIDESCREEN FILM FESTIVAL at Cal State University Long Beach. Both directors will be on stage comparing notes on the tricks and joys of widescreen filmmaking from 7:oo - 8:00. They'll also take questions from the audience.Then at 8:00, a special advance screening of John Carpenter's Vampires will take place.I was there last year seeing Blade Runner, introduced by it's production designer, and it was great. All you have to do is show up early and you'll can get as close as you want to be. The 1000+ capacity performing arts center screen is BIG and WIDE. Excellent sound as well. The Screening is $7.00 for adults, $5.00 for students, and get this -- the JC/Robert Wise discussion is FREE. There's also a gallery that opens at 6:00 that will feature pictorial tributes to JC and Robert Wise.Tickets +information + credit card ticket sales call (562) 985-7000. Address is 6200 Atherton Street, Long Beach CA 90815. " I am totally envious, the only thing soothing my temper is that I am off to see one of Bob Mould's last ever 'loud' gigs that night. Thanks to Robert Brenneman for that info.
Vampires NY Screening?"XJohnDeth - Any more Vampires Screenings? I heard there'd be one more in the New York area in the next week or so, any info on that?"
Tons of Vampires Videoclips!! This excellent info was sent in "http://www.hollywood.com/movieguide/movies/vampires/video/index.html thought you would ike to see this if you hadnt already,.... great page... thanks! Magick " Excellent stuff.
Vampires Soundtrack Don M. drops in what we have all been waiting to hear "Hey Marc,If this hasn't already been mentioned, the soundtrack to John Carpenter's Vampires is out. Just picked it up from Best Buy in Boca Fl. The soundtrack is (as you would expect) great, with some emphasis on a group formed for the soundtrack including J.C. himself and other musicians. The group is called the Texas Toad Lickers and this type of music has more of a rock sound to it. Really good however. There is of course the classical Carpenter composed music that we all love with a bit of a different touch added (via more percussion). To sum this one up, another masterpiece for Carpenter. Pick this one up as soon as possible. There are 16-tracks in all and the soundtrack was released by Milan records.Take Care, Don M. "

News as of 5th October Vampires Italian Release Date Ok, I am late with this one ".. Vampires will be released in Italy the 2th of October. Luigi De Angelis" as it indeed was released on that date. Seems like everyone is getting it before the UK. - "Yesterday i didn't believe my eyes: on October 2th, VAMPIRES was released in Italy. There are two pages (in italian) about the movie: **THE ITALIAN DISTRIBUTOR www.cecchigori.com/cinema/VAMPIRES/home.htm, **TEMPIMODERNI, contains a review www.mix.it/tempimoderni/ Andrea Micelli "
Fantastic JC and Vampires Articles I have just been working ym way through the new Cinefantastique (with the X-Files on the cover) and Femme Fatales magazines. Both have a ton of Vampires interviews and features, with CFQ adding a bonus retrospective on JCs whole career that is just a joy to read. These articles are a must for any JC fan.
New On-Line JC Interview"I thought you might be interested in adding a new John Carpenter link to your page. Eon magazine has an exclusive in-depth interview with the director about his new movie VAMPIRES and his thoughts on retirement. There are also exclusive photos. Check out the interview at http://www.eonmagazine.com " Excellent interview, interesting to note that JC was on the verge of retirement before Vampires and is committed to a long vacation.
James Woods and JC PA This is interesting, but the info came without a date, can anyone supply one? "JAMES WOODS and DANIEL BALDWIN, the stars of JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES, will appear on stage at 2:00 p.m. to preview scenes and speak on the movie at the Shrine Auditorium Expo Center-700 West 32nd Street, in Los Angeles. The VAMPIRES event takes place as part of the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention. Show hours are 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Admission is only $5.00. Free VAMPIRES movie buttons will be given away. For more information call (818) 954-8432. "

News as of 25th September US Vampires Poster Thanks to Bjorn from the great Movie Page.

US Vampires Viewers These things sound interesting, I hope US readers know what Tempus Fugit it talking about cos we don't have these sorts of things overe here " .. in the US there are these viewers (usually located in theaters, malls, shopping centers, etc.) where a person can flip through about 20 previews of movies coming out. The name of what these things are escapes me, but the point is that the one in the mall where I work now has Vampires in it's roster. Once a person has viewed the preview, he can vote on how interested he/she would be in seeing it. I'd be curious to know what tallies they were coming up with. I'm sure you can find these things in many places around the US, so people should keep their eyes open. " Anyone in the know have any 'tallies'?

News as of 18th September Vampires Trailer Does The Rounds Tempus Fugit drops this in " I went to see the new Matt Damon movie, Rounders, this weekend it had the Vampires trailer attatched to it! True, it was the one allready available on the Sony site, but it was still great to see on the big screen. Anyways, it's out there and that's what counts!! "
JC Websites Article Yep, I have finally got it thanks to a very generous contact who scanned it in for me. I would like to thank John Thonen, the author, for the excellent coverage and balanced review. Click on the thumbnail to get a full size scan so you can read the article -

Vampires Soundtrack Release Date This excellent info from Aaron Morgan "I emailed Milan about when the Vampires soundtrack will be released,and they said it will be out October 13th,at least here in the US. "

News as of 11th September New Vampires Pictures These were posted up on Dark Horizons -

Jaxstor's Vampires Review Another regular contributor drops in with his throughts on Vampires "......to answer mr birk...i know there will be other opinions....the reason no one mentioned the so called sloppiness is there isn't any...as in all of jc low budget projects the movie looks like it actually cost more....kibbe is a terrific cinematographer who make carps films look beautiful again...as to second run theaters this film has played in France since what- April may on only less then 120 theaters fact it is still playing shows the legs...the film does have a low budget independent feel about it yet so does Halloween and assault and night of the living dead and pulp fiction and evil dead...that is what gives it its charm... also as i told Mohammed i checked out blade...no comparison....blade cost 3 times to make yet does not come close to the style...tension....and love of film making vampires does...blade starts strong then gets embarrassingly bad keep up the good work.....jax " Another positive. The buzz on this film is huge. A friend of mine reckoned the film passed the ultimate test, his girlfriend stayed awake during the whole movie and later said it was fantastic! We are talking about a woman who would fall asleep in Evil Dead, so I think that is a pretty high recommendation.
Vampires Review from DragonCon".. this week is Dragon-Con, the largest Southwestern Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention, and who'se here but John Carpenter; promoting the film 'Vampires'. Now, here's the kicker...Friday night at midnight, John released a special by invitation only screening of the show. Having stole an invitation, I can tell you a couple of things...whatever talk about the ending being stupid is wrong...it may be a bit Hollywood, but it does not ruin the movie! In my opinion. Second, only fifty people showed up...now this can be contributed to poor promotional skills, or the distance away from other Con events, but the attendance was low. People were pissed later, when they found out they could have gone if they had heard about it (An invite was pretty easy to obtain...besides stealing one) Third, no one mentioned how badly Vmapires bashes the Catholic church...it is brutal! Literally, it will have Christian groups in an uproar! Crazy. Carpenter was scheduled to talk about Vampires on Saturday, but he opened the floor to questions, and everyone asked about the stupidest possible things and if he was sequeling every movie he had ever done (will you Sequel In the Mouth of Madness? Will you sequel Big Trouble? the answer was NO every time, but it got monotonous...and John got visibly bored quick too!) Anyway, I wanted to let you know what is happening here on the Vampire front... Cucumber Alpha" Jeepers, when will people get of the sequelitis case? I want them too but I will gladly pass them up from some new JC stuff.
Dan Mazur on Vampires Yep, one of the original screenwriters drops in with some comments after seeing his name mentioned on the pages " As well as writing, I was also the original "executive" on the movie. Back in '90 I was a creative executive at Largo, and I "found" Steakley's book and bought it for the company. We hired Don Jakoby and worked with him on two drafts. While he was working on draft two, I left the job to pursue writing. When Jakoby finished his draft, my former employers hired me to rewrite him. About the time I finished my draft, there was a shake-up at Largo. Larry Gordon, who founded the company, left, taking all the creative staff with him. The project languished for some years, almost got off the ground with Russel Mulcahey directing, and finally got going with Carpenter.
.. I'm grateful to Carpenter (whom I've never met) for saying nice things about my draft in the Hollywood Reporter last week. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've read the final shooting script and it looks like it could be great. I'm a big Carpenter fan, especially of underrated masterpieces: THE THING and PRINCE OF DARKNESS. Since VAMPIRES I've sold a couple of unproduced spec scripts and co-wrote an adaptation of BRAVE NEW WORLD for NBC."

News as of 4th September Info on Updates As you may have noticed the updates have been pretty infrequent recently. Basically, without boring you all too much, I am a few weeks away from the end of my PhD, so I thought I had better devote my time to that from now on. For all fellow thesis writers (past and present) my heart goes out to you. Anyway, the upshot is that updates will be at most once a week for a while, I really think I should try and actually pass my PhD after all the hard work. Sorry if I have not replied to e-mails, keep them coming in, you will get a response eventually.
JC Widescreen Festival"Here's a link about the widescreen festival in L.A. featuring John Carpenter.http://www.csulb.edu/~cpac/brochure/widescreen.html " Thanks to Mark L for that info.
JC Magazine Articles"..... article on VAMPIRES and on the Carpenter oeuvre, Lesson In Isolation, are in the next Cinefantastique. It's a double issue, X FILES cover ..... There is also some coverage of mine on the film in the new Femme Fatales for any who read it .....The film is on the cover, most of it is about the females in the film, but there is a nice article on Sandy King. The issue hits U.S. newstands in about two weeks." Looks like I had better get a get myself down to the newsagent.
Vampires Soundtrack Details Sorry, still no catalogue number but this track listing info was posted to the JC mailing list " 01. Teaser* (03:59) 02. Slavers (02:34) 03. New Mexico (02:21) 04. Headless Priest (02:48) 05. Motel Sex (04:27) 06. Night Attack (03:19) 07. Santiago (02:18) 08. Stake And Burn (03:42) 09. Valek's Portrait (01:16) 10. Sunrise Death (02:03) 11. Valek Attacks (03:32) 12. Vampire Vision (01:46) 13. Farewell slaver (02:08) 14. Cruel Highway (02:58) 15. Katrina Bites (01:47) 16. Padre's Wood (05:35)

Total Time: 46:24

*Written by: Brad Wilson - Performed by: Stone

Music Composed and performed by: John Carpenter Album Produced by: Bruce Robb & Joe Robb Milan Records. " That was from MRH, who has an awesome CDs of JC webpage that concentrates on JCs excellent soundtracks. I think Slavers might be a typo fro Slayers, and I am interested in checking out this 'Teaser' track.
Negative Vampires Review This one is from David Birke, I thought a negative review might give a little perspective. "I saw it in Paris last week (where it was already relegated to a second run house with a shitty print.) It was pretty good, but a little disappointing considering how long I was looking forward to it. What I haven't heard anybody comment on is how cheap and sloppily thrown together it looked. A lot of the confrontations with the vampires including the extremely anti-climactic one at the end are presented through cheesy montages as if Carpenter hadn't really gotten all the coverage he needed to make the scenes work. .... Generally, a lot of potentially interesting avenues remain completely unexplored. On the plus side Sheryl Lee is good (and sexy when she turns into a vampire.) Also, the quiet final ..... is quite effective. "

News as of 24th August New Vampires Trailer The official Sony Vampires site has the new trailer up, both as a mov and an avi. Thanks to Jarrette Moats for that info. If you can't get the trailer to load as a plug-in then surfing to http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/vampires/assets/ will give you a directory listing from where you can pick an avi or move version to download and then play. My thoughts on the trailer? I love it, Sony are definitely pumping up the kickass angle and I have no problems with that. I also think this trailer gives a much better plot synopsis than the previous one. Some really cool scenes, esp. the fantastic hints at Jack Crow's legendary badassness. I cannot wait to see this character roar across the screen in full buttkicking mode. Can you tell I am excited? That is why I love this trailer. It's got me on the edge of my seat praying for Vampires to come out soon. Does anyone know a UK release date? The downside? That goth music add-on is a bit naff, not helped by the fact that Marilyn Manson are one of the worst bands in the world, sort of a goth Spinal Tap. I don't like that association with this movie, but I think it at least shows that Sony are serious about pushing this film. All those gripes about the soundtrack forget one thing, Sony must have forked out big time for the rights to those songs which shows how much effort they must be putting into the promotion. The buzz is good and the master is back. I love the way the trailer makes it seem like we havn't really seen Vampires yet, all the others are just pale imitations, until we see John Carpenter's Vampires. Not just his film, but also his Vampires.
Confirmation of JC at Widescreen Film Festival in Long Beach "Hello, I picked up the info today at the college where the festival is held in Long Beach. JC will be speaking at 7:30 PM on Friday, October 23. At 8:00PM there will be a screening of "Vampires." Then, on Saturday, October 31st, there will be a screening of "Halloween" at 8:00 PM. JC will not be in attendance on that day. They also have prints of "Alien" and "Enter the Dragon", so this festival looks to be a good one. " - Jennifer Marley.
New Vampires Review This one is from the Jam magazine which has done seem decent JC coverage in the past "I just ran across your web page and thought you might want a link of the movie review for it. http://www.canoe.ca/JamMoviesReviewsV/vampires_powell.html "

News as of 18th August A New Vampires Review I had to put this up cos it made me smile, and its nice to see a balanced review with carefully proposed criticisms "I have seen the movie and sadly for A Carpenter film it SUCKS. I have also seen Blade, Knock Off, and Rush Hour. Which are not bad. "
Jaxstor's Vampires Review I know I said I was going to hold back on Vampires reviews, but a lot of people who have contributed to this page over the years are sending in thier reviews and I think it is only fair to share them, see what the JC fans think of the film "....in a nut shell this is his best work in a long, long time....I think the best since halloween...for the following reasons 1. Great atmosphere...the cinematography and music go great hand to give great atmosphere 2. the action. This is action that is story driven rather then just set pieces. 3 the narrative.....it tells a story 4 the energy....even though I love Jc's films...something has been missing since halloween....when I swa vampires i what it was..energy!! This films graps you and does not let go...this is the John Carpenter who gave us assault and halloween.
Will American critics trash Vampires? Who can tell....critics from Germany to France have been very kind to this film with good reason... it it is very good film making...Will it be a hit.....only if sony markets it right....I do believe Carpenter has a cult classic on his hands though.....my audience loved it.. I envy you the first time you see it "
JC at Widescreen Festivals This was sent in by Mirth " I went to the San Diego Comicon Saturday (but Friday they had an unannounced "Vampires" screening! I missed it! AAAARRRGGGGHHH!) to see John Carpenter speak. It was interesting more in terms of finally getting to see him in person than in what he said -- mostly stuff we've heard before (he's going on vacation, might not direct again but probably will; "Vampires" will be released in his cut, as it's not up to the ditributor to make changes even if they wanted to; he loves all of his films and doesn't really have a favorite; the liklihood of another "Escape" movie is about zero). I'm sure someone else was there who can send in a better description.
Perhaps most interesting, however, was a casual mention by one of the audience members that she looked forward to seeing him at the Widescreen Festival. There are several Widescreen Festivals around the world, but the one she was referring to (I later found out) is in, I believe, Long Beach (California). John Carpenter will be hosting an exclusive pre-release screening of "Vampires" on either October 28th or 29th (price: $7) there, with Robert Wise also showing up to talk about and screen his film "The Haunting". A couple of days later (on the 31st) they'll be screening (amongst other things) the original "Halloween" (though no J.C. intro this time around). "
Vampires Trailer Not On All Copies of H20 Don M drops this info in "Just to follow up on the comment that a Vampires trailer preceeded H20 doesn't seem to be accurate. I saw H20 Friday and there was no Vampires trailer anywhere. Maybe it depends on the theatre since I've heard that it's the employees that usually piece together the trailers prior to the movie showing. Anyway, H20 was o.k. A 2-1/2 star movie. Steve Minor did a decent job in trying to write the wrong that was Halloween 4-5-and the absolutely pitiful 6. However, the movie of course wasn't the same without Carpenter. When has it ever been. There's a Vampires write up in the new Fangoria and the reviews seem to be extremely positive."
Official Vampires Info This was posted at aint-it-cool-news "

I thought I might be able to help answer a few of the questions about John Carpenter's Vampires.

1. There is only one version of the movie--John's final cut. This is the same version seen at any distributor's screenings, festival screenings, and the release in France. It received its R rating from the MPAA before it was delivered to Largo in December.

2. The music for the film is all composed and performed by John Carpenter with the exception of one song used in the motel party scene, "Teaser" by a blues band called Stone. On some tracks a live orchestra was used in addition to John's playing, and on some tracks we used live percussion by Bucket Baker. A band called the Texas Toad Lickers performed a few of the tracks. The members of the Toad Lickers are John Carpenter, Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunne, Jeff Baxter, Rick Shlosser, Joe Robb and Bruce Robb.

3. The trailer uses a cue from the soundtrack called "Stake and Burn" for the firest half, and a Marilyn Manson remix called "All the Ugly People" for the second-half montage. While it probably wouldn't work in the film itself, it seemed kind of cool in the context of building momentum and intensity in the montage. ( An earlier trailer was commissioned by Largo Entertainment, and with any luck will never see the light of day. It had techno-"toy" music, and could gag a maggot. It was never approved by us, and to my knowledge isn't being used by any of the distributors.)

4. The people at Columbia have been enthusiastic and supportive. There has never been any talk of changing the music on the film.

5. The soundtrack album will be released by Milan Records, distributed by BMG internationally. It will only include tracks from the movie and will not be an "inspired by" production.

Thanks for the great review, and thanks for caring about the integrity of the work. We appreciate it.

Best regards,

Insider person at Carpenter's side... " That pretty much clears up all the Vampires worries, roll on the general release!
More JC Stuff at AICN This was posted on the aint-it-cool site a while back "JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES PANEL: John Carpenter was extremely cool. Two interesting bits from the Q&A with him. One - the music is not being changed for the domestic release. He doesn't know where that rumor started, but it's not true. Two - yes, he did tell some people on the set of Vampires that this would be his last film ever. However, he feels that way when he completes any of his films. He says that he takes a good vacation after each film, gets re-energized, then starts work on his next film. " Good to hear that last comment as JCs wish to not do another film had managed to become a pretty strong rumour.
Vampires News From Cinescape Online Some really interesting info of some preview footage"‘John Carpenter wowed crowds at the San Diego Comicon today with the trailer and footage from the forthcoming Vampires. The Insider will have some quotes from Carpenter at a later date, but it is worthwhile to point out that the trailer and footage was EXTREMELY well received. The trailer features Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People behind scene after scene of undead action. The whole primer is put together in a very effective way that conveys the unique angle that Carpenter takes on the typical vampire genre (why Carpenter had trouble selling this flick is beyond the Insider).

Among the Vampires footage screened for fans:

"Motel Attack" Valeck (Thomas Ian Griffith) enters a hotel room filled with people and begins tearing apart everyone in sight with a clawed hand! He eviscerates a man, rips another inside-out from shoulder to heart and opens a few jugglers for good measure. Another person arrives in the midst of this carnage and empties a machine gun into him with little effect. It was an over-the-top sequence that showed Carpenter at his best!

"What Is A Vampire" [missed the actual title, so we’ll call it this for now] James Woods explains, in graphic detail filled with plenty of profanity, exactly what vampires are to a priest. It’s an effective performance that Woods pulls off well. The priest asks what the vampires are looking for and Woods explains that they’re after a mystical black cross.

"Vampires In Sunlight" The scene opened with James Woods battling a vampire on some kind of conveyor belt. Woods is on top of a vampire blasting away at the creature’s face and upper-torso with no effect. He tries to repeatedly stab the creature with equally poor results. The second the conveyor takes both Woods and the vampire into the sunlight the vampire erupted into a pyrotechnic display which drew raves from all in attendance.

One other notable point from Carpenter’s panel appearance was the director’s visible annoyance at suggestions that someone else would have the authority to replace his original Vampires soundtrack (as has been rumored on the Internet). No need to worry, Carpenter fans, the original tunes will remain intact." Ooops, I hope I didn't help spread that rumour around too much. Also from Cinescape, more info on the new trailer "A second Vampires trailer was shown at San Diego that explained, in great detail, the meaning of the Black Cross that the Insider wrote about yesterday. Evidently, in this new primer, the Black Cross is shown as a relic of great power to the undead which lead vampire Valek is out to retrieve so that he can walk amongst the living in daylight with absolutely no effect." Ok, I guess the next question is when is this trailer gonna be available on the net?

News as of 12th August JC Interviewed in Fantasia "I interviewed him last Friday, in Montreal, for CBC's Infoculture web site and although the page is in French, you can listen to the 25 minutes long conversation in english (but please forgive my baaad english!) Here is the address: http://radio-canada.ca/infoculture/speciale/fantasia/carpenter.html I hope you'll enjoy it. Sylvie, Radio-Canada CBC Montreal " This is a fantastic interview that has been thoughtfully provided in Real Audio format so we can actually listen to JCs comments.
German Vampires Dave Joerg gives us a review of Vampires and info on its German release "... I have recently posted you the information about Vampires being shown on the German "Fantatsy Filmfestival" in the multiplex movie theater "Kinopolis" in Sulzbach (close to Frankfurt/Main). I was there and saw the show on Sunday August 9th. They had a full house and the audience was just great. They really loved the movie and were cheering and applauding during and after the film. The show was a blast! The movie was suspensefull, cool and stylish and very cleverly edited. The editing style is very new for Carpenter but it worked really great. Vampires has a unique atmosphere that really brings out the best of Carpenter. I really feel that he will please a major audience with this highly chilling film. The Soundtrack is also remarkable and combines rock and synthesizer elements. James Woods as the vampire killer is a true Carpenter anti-hero. My god, what a movie!!! The organisation "ROSEBUD" that manages the German "Fantasy Filmfestival" in Sulzbach, Germany was so pleased with peoples responds that it actually offered another show of Vampires on August 12th. Bye the way, the choice for the original English Version was wise. The movie was shown in the Kinopolis complex on the biggest THX-Screen in DTS Sound. It was awesome! The people from "ROSEBUD" said that a German distributer will most probable bring Vampires into German movie theaters because they believe that quote:" There is an audience for John Carpenter movies". Speaking of a regular theatrical release: I hope that the German FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle), which is merely the German version of the MPAA, won´t cut the movie down. Vampires is surprisingly gory but it is meant to be so and it works fine. People went nuts about these scenes! Anyway, I will see the second show on August 12th as well. I hope you Carpenter Fans in the world will soon have the chance to see the movie too. DAVE JOERG, Wiesbaden (Germany) " - "one more thing. One guy on your site mentions the German distributor "ARTHOUSE" to be the one company to put out "Vampires" in Germany. ROSEBUD said: Yes they really want to release the movie on a big scale. They had questionaires on the Kinopolis premiere handed out, so that people could tell their opinion on the movie. "
Vampires Trailer Attatched to H20 I am a bit slow with this news, Chris gives us the info "By the way, I saw the VAMPIRES trailer before H20. VERY COOL!! But the trailer must be different than previous versions, as it only has lame Rob Zombie rock music playing over it. I'm really getting worried.... The trailer ends on a hysterical note. James Woods and another character are in a darkened celler, staring at something O.S. in horror. The other character exclaims: "You never told me they could do that!!!" and Woods, shaking his head, his eyes wide, responds: "I DIDN'T KNOW they could do that!!!" The new Fango also calls VAMPIRES J.C.'s best film since THE THING...."

News as of 11th August Vampires in Montreal The lucky b***ards have seen the film and are passing on their comments to me. Responses so far verge from positive to ecstatic. JC himself was there, commenting on the film (he is taking a loooong rest, so no projects for a while). It seems this will be the actual US version, so the good news is that it has not been butchered by the MPAA and JCs soundtrack is still on the film. It has not been saturated with rock music so we can all relax and not have to put up with Whiney Corgan spoiling the movie. Here are the reviews -

"Just wanted to drop a note and give you some info on last night's Vampires premiere here in Montreal. For me the month long Fant-Asia film festival ended with bang and a bite come to think of it. Vampires Rocks! James Woods as Jack Crow is fantastic and hilarious. It's not your usual horror fare there are more action elements to the movie than horror but Mr. Carpenter did not spare the hemoglobin. At times I was surprised he got away with some of the gore scenes considering the anal retentive MPAA censor board. Mr. Carpenter (who was in attendance) said he made a few minor cuts but what we saw last night was the release print going into theatres October 30th in North America. Mr. Carpenter presented the film and after the screening held a small question/answer period. Here's a few that I recall. One person asked about budget and shooting length. Apparently it was 54 day shoot in New Mexico with 5 month post production, the film's budget was 17 million U.S which is not very big by Hollywood standards. The film looks more expensive that's for sure. Someone asked if the author of Vampires John Steakly had much input in the movie. Mr Carpenter replied "none", he and the writer made all the changes. He did say he met the author once on the set and he was drunk at the time. So when those titles appear "John Carpenter's Vampires" you can be assured its his vision of the film and no one else's. Then someone asked what's next for him? He said he was going to take it easy. He mentioned he'd been working straight since 1993 and now he's "just relaxing watching pornography, wrestling and basketball." This got a huge audience reaction. After the questions he was kind enough to stay and sign autographs for huge lineup of fans who had brought various Carpenter paraphenalia. All in all a great evening. For Carpenter fans this one's great and hopefully opens up the eyes of others who don't know what the fans already know, John Carpenter is a great filmmaker. Stefan. "

"... I am also writing to to say that I just saw VAMPIRES last night at the Fantasia film festival in Toronto.I'm pretty sure that every JC fan will be pleased because this is one of his best and most polished films. James Woods is great and intense as one meanest anti-heros in recent cinematic memory. He makes Snake Plisken seem pleasent and amiable by comparison! The film was unrated with a great organic western music score and no crap pop music inserted. I wouldn't worry too much about them putting much or any pop music in it because JC's score works so well with the film. Something else which you may find interestng; orignally they supposed to premiere The Dentist 2 before Vampires but they lost the print of the movie so they showed Vampires twice! Anyway keep up the great work and I hope to write you again soon. - George Stark"

"I saw Vampires. Yessiree folks, yours truly was at last nights unveiling of John Carpenter's Vampires to the North American filmgoing public at Fant-Asia 98 and the event was a blast. Look for a D-E-T-A-I-L-E-D review soon. But until then be rest assured that the master is back. Vampires is absolutely the best film you'll see this year for sure. Carpenter has not shown such style since They Live (his last great film). If you felt In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A. and all of the rest of his nineties work was beneath his capability, like I do, you're going to fucking LOVE Vampires. And don't let none of this shit on the internet (hey!) make you believe otherwise. If you love JC films and nothing else, like I do, then do not miss the latest masterpiece from the master. That's all for now, your leader has spoken. - Mohammad Khan"

News as of 7th August The Vampires Soundtrack I really think I am going to have to try and get some insider info on this, as with most people, I am worrying about the possible over-saturation of the film with 'rock' music. I hope it'll be more like and EFLA deal, where most of the songs on the music soundtrack were not even noticed in the film. Anyway, here is Tempus Fugit to keep us up to date "I just went through the latest news at Dark Horizons and they reported the last bands to sign to the Vampires soundtrack: "The last few bands have signed. Blood Hound Gang, Fiona Apple (with Erica Chase), Eva Trout, and The Smashing Pumpkins again (SP allegedly agreed to do a song for this, the ISK and the "Cupid" soundtracks for a $1 million fee)" Fiona Apple? Smashing Pumpkins? WTF? Personally, If I see Vampires and hear either Corgan or Fiona singing instead of JC's score, I believe an executive ass-kicking will be in order at Sony."
Vampires on ET Here are some comments from various viewers "Hey Marc, Didn't get to see it, but I was told by my brother that there was some news on Vampires on Entertainment Tonight this evening (August 5, 1998). Will try and catch the West Coast broadcast and will get back to update you on what was said. Nice to see some advertising being done this early. Maybe Sony will learn from the poor advertising that plagued In The Mouth of Madness (After it was released) and Village of the Damned. Also, saw the trailer for Blade. Ehh, looked o.k. (previews can be better than the movie) and come on, it's Wesley Snipes. Don M. in the U.S. " - "Wednesday, Aug. 5th -- Entertainment Tonight ran a first look at the trailer for John Carpenter's VAMPIRES. Even they mentioned it coming out the day before Halloween, on October 30th. In my opinion, they should release it about two weeks BEFORE Halloween since most movies make their money on Saturday night. Saturday night falls on October 31st this year, and that's the night where most people go out and celebrate Halloween at parties, which means horror movies don't make as much on the actual Halloween date. This could prove disasterous for VAMPIRES since that should be their money date. But, they're the pros, so they must know something I don't. The trailer looked cool, but looked like they cut a lot of stuff out for Entertainment Tonight, so I can't wait to see it in the theater some time. Bruce "

News as of 2nd August JC and James Woods at Comic-Con "I was just checking over the comic-con website at it appears that JC along with James Woods will be appearing at that convention in San Diego on Saturday, Aug. 15. to promote "Vampires." That's next weekend. I also noticed that a few people from "Blade" will be there to promote that film on the same day. I'm hearing strains of Dueling Banjos." Check out their website if you haven't already. http://www2.comic-con.org/comiccon/ - Jennifer Marley "
Full-On German Vampires"The film has been picked up by a german distributor - Arthaus, a new company that has quite a good reputation for good video releasese (Woody Allen, foreign films etc.). There is no definite release date yet. The press release says: "A film that uniquely combines elements of classic western with horror- and action-films." I hope thats of some interest to you. Best wishes, Tobias Kessler "

News as of 27th July German Vampires This should hopefully please a few people who seem to be left out of the current release plans "... I am eagerly awaiting the official release of the the movie "Vampires". I have learned that there will be a preview of this movie very soon on a German Film festival. It is the "Fantasy Film Festival" in Sulzbach near Frankfurt/Main, Germany. The movie will show in the multiplex-Cinema "KINOPOLIS". I checked their website and it says that "Vampires" will show on their biggest screen with Digital Sound in a THX equipped theater. "Vampires" will show on August 9th 10.30 PM CET in the original English version (thankgod!), not dubbed in German. I will definitely return earlier from my vacation trip to Amsterdam to catch this show.I can4t wait! " Sounds good to me, see it in a great cinema and thankfully it is not dubbed.
Rock From the Crypt Quite a few people e-mailed me about this, Tempus Fugit got his in first ".. the Dark Horizons website they listed some of the bands who are going to be on the Vampires soundtrack. He said Sony announced it but I have to go to work and don't have enough time to personally check out the Sony website... "Sony has announced most of the artists on the soundtracks for their two big Fall releases. Firstly, on the album for the John Carpenter film "Vampires", the list includes (there's still five groups yet to be included): Rasputina with Maralyn Manson, Sissys In Black Heels, Helmet, Gravity Kills, Roni Size, Big Fatty Boombatty Blunt, Sadaham's Son, Uncle Dicky, The Atomic Waste Baskets, Eve 6, Bigger than Diggler, L7, Asteroid Slutz, Meat Fiddle with John Carpenter, and Horsehead." Marilyn Manson, eh? I thought that one is interesting... I'm interested in finding out who Meat Fiddle is as well... Great sight, Marc and keep up the good work. " Sounds interesting, but to put some peoples fears to rest. The official word is still that JCs Vampires score will also be released, sort of like the dual EFLA soundtracks that were released.
Sony Vampires Just to keep people up to date with the 'official' info, this is a link to Sony's Vampires site.

News as of 20th July Official Vampires US Release Date - "It's official...According to the Sony Pictures web site, Vampires will be in theatres October 30, 1998...Guess that means we'll have to wait another month and a half...Oh, well...MARK STEENSLAND "
Snipes Takes a Pop at Vampires" In the recent Sci-Fi Teen Magazine there is a coverage report about Blade. And at the very end of the interview they ask him about going up against Vampires. Here's the quote, "That movie has no teeth at all, Blade is the biggie." Robbie RIdenour " Well, I guess they have to talk it up, and advance word does seem to be positive for Blade. However, Snipes should be careful, anyone remember Money Train and Drop Zone?
Vampires Info Patrick Kerr at The Films Of JC Site has managed to get in touch with the 'top source' for some info on Vampires, posted on his news page..

News as of 14th July Vampires In Montreal Yep, it is sheer sour grapes. Because I live nowhere near Montreal I have been slack in providing you with all the info you might need to go and see it. Sorry, but Mohammad Khan is going. Check out this section of his Carpenticized Side Of The Web for all the info you could possibly need on Vampires North American premiere.

News as of 2nd July Late Update - Vampires to Preview in Toronto! I don't know how many of you have the means to get to this, but it sounds like the first chance the public of the North America will have to see this film, as reported at www.aint-it-cool-news.com "Toronto to get John Carpenter's VAMPIRES first in North America!!! Just so you know it, you can see VAMPIRES early if you attend this screening in Toronto. Trust me... you won't regret it. Harry, I know how much you've been looking forward to "John Carpenter's Vampires!", so I figured you'd flip over this tip. Toronto is having its annual "Fantasy/Action Film Festival", starting at the end of July. Over half of the movies will be Hong Kong chop suey movies. BUT... The organizers announced yesterday that the festival will close, on August 9th, with the North American premiere of "Vampires!". Dunno if anyone associated with the film will be there, but I sure as hell will be!! Call me St. Germain. "

News as of 23rd June Tom Alaerts Vampires Review As promised, here is Tom's full review of the flick "Vampires (1998, USA, Largo Entertainment, 103 min.) director/composer: John Carpenter script: John Carpenter, Don Jacobi, Dan Mazur actors: James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Mamilian Schell rating: >= 12 years (in France) some people should be warned that the movie contains: extreme violence, some nudity, foul language, a delightful absence of Hollywood-type morals or political correctness.

At the moment, John Carpenter's latest movie can only be seen in France, where it did good business (esp. considering it's a horror movie). USA release is planned for the autumn. For interested tourists: keep in mind that the French release is dubbed in French. I don't know if the movie is also screened with subtitles. Luckily, my French was good enough so I only didn't fully get some subtleties of Jack's Crow swearing... I also believe that the movie is at the end of its career in France.

For those who haven't heard about it: here follows a very short and relatively spoiler-free synopsis of the intro: Jack Crow (James Woods) and his team are full-time, Vatican-endorsed vampire hunters. Team Crow employs drastic measures, to say the least. They manage to seriously anger the "original vampire" Valek (an impressive Griffith) and now the hunters become the hunted...

John Carpenter is back. Remember those delicious shivers you experienced during his best movies? Remember the impeccable wide-screen compositions, the trademarked thumping soundtrack? The much-copied "spring-loaded-cat" shocks? The non-conformist anti-heroes with the snarling one-liners? This movie delivers it all in spades. Carpenter needed a hit movie. It was hoped that his previous effort, Escape from LA, would bring him back to the commercial top, but it wasn't the expected hit. Perhaps this was only to be expected, how could a public that adored the extremely populist "Independence Day" appreciate such a cynical take on America? Before EFLA, there was "Memoirs of an invisible man" (which I believe is underrated), "In the mouth of madness" (which had a good story, but was not really scary) and the remake of "Village of the damned" (somewhat impersonal, but like most of JC's movies, it seems to get better with each passing year). I believe that, with the possible exception of Memoirs, all these movies made some money world-wide [Memoirs also made money - MB ], but we have to go back to "They Live" (1998) for Carpenter's last real commercial success. Commercial success is not necessarily a synonym for artistic success (just reconsider Independence yawn), but a hit now and then typically means easier funding for new projects. This movie might just be it.

You can expect Carpenter doing things differently. A vampire-movie is a classic, strongly coded style, but Carpenter injects it with new blood, by filming it as a contemporary western. Many Carpenter movies have some Western-type situations or characters, but it was never this obvious. You can notice it in the group of Team Crow (a wild bunch), the dusty southern landscapes, the music... I believe it is an appealing, refreshing mix (as far as I know, only Near Dark has more or less the same atmosphere) and I think the movie will benefit from strong word-of-mouth. Don't expect a soft horror movie. Vampires is a raw and brutal movie. The vampires themselves act more like leopards (very quick, beastly, deadly) than like classic vampires.

Carpenter's style has evolved. I always admired the relatively calm and pure but elaborate filming style of his earlier work. Alas, it seems that this very classic filming style is out of fashion. The style of Vampires is still visibly Carpenter (this is one of the very few directors who have a recognisable style) but on the whole it's "faster" than before. The global effect is more like the style of Desperado. More camera's are used and editing is generally faster than before (certainly during action scenes), but we're not talking 3-cuts-per-second Michael Bay style here. Well, the Reborn Carpenter Style works. It is also interesting to note that an extreme carnage in a motel is edited with fades. You would expect fast cuts (fades seem like "nicer" transitions) but it works. In this case I thought it gives a more mythical aura to the action.

Considering actors: James Woods truly shines. You really believe he's vampire hunter Jack Crow. He is not a likeable man, but then Snake Plissken or the killer from Assault (forgot the name) weren't nice either. These are truly "Carpenterian" heroes (lone, cynical, anarchist), and the director has said he sees them as idealised projections of himself. If that's true, better not mess around with this guy... It must also be said that Crow's attitude to women is not politically correct. Jack Crow won't have an Erica Jong novel in his bookcase... Daniel Baldwin is not special at all. Competent, nothing more. This could have been a nice role for Kurt Russel. It is a pity we don't see Sheryl Lee more often on the screen: she's a good actress (though her dialogue is minimal here) and of course, rather pleasing on the eye. But the big surprise of the movie is Thomas Ian Griffith. I didn't know him, but it seems he played in some B-grade action movies. His Valek is a truly magnificent, powerful and scary vampire. He has the charisma of Christopher Lee. The fact that he is really tall, makes him seem even more supernatural and invincible. What a change compared to Coppola's wimp Dracula!

Some other nice touches: the music has evolved, too: there are some typical Carpenter rhythms but they are held together with guitar sounds which reminded me of Ry Cooder (okay, not as good as Cooder). All in all, it seemed like one of JC's better soundtracks, and I am curious if it will also work as stand-alone music. And considering the story: the way the church is tied-in to the vampire myth is refreshing and there's some nice use of telepathy (also unexpected in a vampire movie). The inventive way the vampires are killed produces some extreme images. Perhaps it works so well because it isn't played for laughs (unlike From Dusk Till Dawn, for example). You'll see... Perhaps you are thinking: "Okay, but what about cardboard characters? Or an underdeveloped script?" Well, since you insist, I have to explain it... This movie deals with professionals. They don't start some freudian whining when something bad happens. They act. The characters are defined by their actions, less by their dialogue. Therefore, the bit of love-interest isn't drenched in Titanic-like romanticism. Vampires just wants to be creepy. The rest is superficial. By concentrating fully on the essential elements of what makes a good horror film, it succeeds. You can actually apply this reasoning on most of Carpenter's movies.

Is everything in the movie that excellent? Sadly, I have to make one remark: it really feels like the remaining budget suddenly evaporated while the ending was being filmed. It should have been a big, nail-biting finale. What we get to see is reasonably suspenseful in its build-up but like I said, it seems the moviemakers ran out of money. I don't want to give away too many spoilers, I think you will notice it yourself. Some running people, some shots are heard (not seen). It's all over rather quickly. I believe Carpenter wanted to save it with quick editing. Now, if Stanley Kubrick is allowed to film for 15 months and is recently even doing re-shoots for a month, perhaps it would be nice to flesh out the ending of Vampires somewhat. Otherwise, the movie is very enjoyable and there's a constant tension. The motel scene will be classic among horror fans. If I compare the movie to Prince of Darkness, Carpenter's last truly excellent horror movie, Vampires scores less on the edge-of-the-seat factor, perhaps because POD was much more claustrophobic. Or perhaps also because of the change in filming style. Whatever, Vampires is suspenseful and there's a lot of (gory) action. Highly recommended for genre lovers who are tired of standard horror-movies, or amateurs of wayward but skilled film-making in general.

Score: I think it is in Carpenter's top 5. You can convert this to your own units of appreciation.

Copyright Tom Alaerts, 1998 "

News as of 22nd June Vampires, Halloween and Blade Well, most of you will have seen rumours flying around the web of various shenanigans going on with release dates. A few people have e-mailed me with the news (thanks everyone) so I decided to attempt to get some official confirmation. This is what I got - "Columbia Pictures has been considering moving the US release of "Vampires" to October 30th, but no final decision has been made yet. H20 has changed its release to Aug. 5th. "Blade" has changed to August 21st, so God knows what's going to happen next. While we don't want the Halloween weekend as our opening, ultimately, the decision is Columbia's to make. They have an excellent track record in releasing, so maybe they have something special up their sleeve. In general, the Halloween weekend is a killer for horror movies, and Saturday is the holiday, so while the weekend grosses would probably be lower than otherwise, maybe the idea is to platform for a widening run. Regarding the re-release of the original "Halloween", we haven't heard anything other than the same rumours you've heard. John will be making an appearance with Robert Wise at the Wide Screen Film Festival in Los Angeles on October 30th to introduce a double bill that night of "The Haunting" and "Halloween". Perhaps that screening has given rise to the re-release rumours. " Special thanks to that source for keeping us all up to date. I wish I was going to be at that screening. JC, Robert Wise and the two scariest films I have ever seen. Both of those kept me up all night as a kid and I would love the chance to see them in that setting. If you are anywhere near there you have to go and give us a full report on what happened.
Tom Alaerts Has Seen Vampires Regular visitors to this page will recognise Tom's name as a diehard JC fan who has kept us up to date with developments, he has seen the movie, and his opinion is " This weekend I finally managed a trip to Lille. A very nice city, and vampires was still playing in 1 cinema. I must have seemed like a lunatic, going to a cinema while it was the first real summer-day of the year... Anyway: I will write a completely subjective review this evening and post it to you tomorrow. For now: I think it is JC's best one since They Live... " Fantastic news, we are all waiting for the full review.
Vampires Soundtrack As promised, here is the info from Franck " Here's the information you asked : Label of the CD : MILAN Number of tracks : 16 01 - Teaser 3:15 02 - Slavers 2:39 03 - New Mexico 2:22 04 - Headless Priest 2:51 05 - Motel Sex 4:30 06 - Night Attack 3:19 07 - Santiago 2:22 08 - Stake and Burn 3:43 09 - Valek's portrait 1:19 10 - Sunrise death 2:04 11 - Valek Attacks 3:34 12 - Vampire vision 1:47 13 - Farewell slaver 2:11 14 - Cruel highway 3:00 15 - Katarina bites 1:52 16 - Padre's wood 5:36 "
JC Interview in Shivers "Hi there.I just thought you'd like to know Shivers magazine will be running an interview with JC in the July issue (in UK stores 25 June). I'm about to update the Shivers Internet page so, within the next couple of days, you should be able to find some JC stuff on the site. Go to www.visimag.com for more information (but please give me a couple of days because I'm really busy creating links pages at the moment). We'll be giving you guys a link so if you could reciprocate we'd be grateful. Many thanks. Jonathan Wright Online Editor, Visual Imagination Ltd "

News as of 16th June Vampires Moulah? Dustin asks a good question that I would also like an answer for "Hey, I check your page about twice a week for news about Vampires. That "official" page is not nearly as cool...Anyway, I was wondering if you know how much money Vampires brought in in France."
Vampires Soundtrack Franck keeps us up to date with this news "Hello ! I am Franck from PARIS. I write you this e-mail just to tell you that I bought the Vampires' soundtrack 3 days ago. Yes, it is at last available in France and it is really great ! Do not hesitate to contact me if you want more information about it. " I should be getting the full info on it soon

News as of 12th June Vampires Release Date Dr Casey, of the well-respected Cabinet Of Horror, thinks that something may be moving -" I'm hearing a new U.S. release date of October 30th for Vampires. This makes sense to me, since there has been some major movement going on with "horror"-related films. Dimension just bumped up their release date on the new Halloween film to early August to compete with MGM's Disturbing Behavior. Another Jamie Lee Curtis thriller, Virus, is set to debut in mid-August. New Line has moved the release date of Blade, Vampires' real competition, up to August 21. Naturally, Vampires might suffer with this sort of competition on its previously-planned September date. Although October is not much better - Sony's other film, Apt Pupil finally comes out, Universal is releasing Child's Play 4: Bride of Chucky, there may be a re-release of the original Halloween, Phantasm IV may be released, and Phoenix Pictures is releasing Urban Legend - but no vampire films and, more importantly, no other film released on the day before Halloween other than (a probable limited release) Michael Almereyda's The Mummy. So really, Halloween might be the ideal time to release it (Got me why Dimension is breaking tradition and releasing the newest Halloween two months earlier than usual). There's going to be some serious competition this fall for horror-related films and a Halloween release date has been known to work for Carpenter in the past... " Interesting news, but I dunno, if H20 also gets re-released on Oct 30th I think this could have serious problems. I mean, H2- will be widely seen as a new JC project (even though it isn't), and I am sure the Williamson connection will be pushed hard to get the Scream crowd in. I will try and get some confirmation on this rumour.
You Interview JC Yep, your chance to ask JC some questions. I am sure this will get a huge response. I will let the web-site owner of the project tell you about it, by just giving you the URL so you can get right over there.

News as of 8th June Lack Of News Ok, you might have noticed the recent lack of updates. Well, on top of writing up my thesis I have been in the US for over the last week. Monterey, CA, my first trip to the west coast of the US. Anyway, you don't want to know about that, I am just telling you why I have not put up much news recently. Added to that is the fact that things really are quiet. Now that Vampires is pretty much sorted out, and JC seems to be taking a break, the news is pretty thin on the ground.
Vampires Preview - " address of my preview of John Carpenter's Vampires:Bookhouse's Previews: John Carpenter's Vampires http://www.oocities.org/Hollywood/Theater/3181/vampires.html Greg Dean Schmitz Bookhouse's Previews bookhouse@oocities.com"
Blade Update It seems that its release has been moved up to August 21st, which puts it before Vampires. It'll be interesting to see if this affects the Vampires marketing strategy.

News as of 22nd May Vampires Release Date Patrick Kerr (The Films Of John Carpenter) has managed to get official confirmation of the Sept 11th release date for the US. However, his source points out that it is possible that it could move about by a few weeks. However, the Sept11th date is now THE DATE.
New Vampires Pictures Mohammad Khan (The Carpenticised Side Of The Web) has found some new and exclusive JC pics. Shoot off to his site to find them.

Sorry for the small news updates but things have been pretty thin lately.

News as of 15th May Sony and Columbia Short, sweet and to the point from Jaxstor - "hey marc.....sony does own columbia ", so that should clear up the distribution confusion.
On-Line Vampires Article This is also from Jaxstor - "Greetings from Ohio Marc. While tooling around yahoo i found an ineresting site you might find interesting. It is called cinenext....a French online movie site. It has much on Vampires including a very positive review, an interview with J C, pictures of J C and Sandy King, and some stills I have never seen anywhere else. If you have not seen this site you might find it interesting. Carp reveals in the interview he has made the cuts before the french release to keep from an x or nc 17 rating. http://www.cinenext.com/vampires/vampires.htm from there you can go to the review and stills the jaxstor " So it seems that the NC-17 rating was just a rumour. I can't imagine sony shelling out 15mil for an NC-17 distribution. (Remember Alta-Vista Transaltions for language translations as the article is in French). The interview is a very recent one, take in JCs French retrospective (April 1998).

News as of 11th May Distribution Info and Release Dates - The official site (www.johncarpenter.com) is already proving its worth, as this e-mail shows - "Hi Bright, My name is Michael Roman... Here is something for you... I wrote the webmaster at the Official John Carpenter web site and got this response: Dear Michael, Thanks for visiting our new John Carpenter website! John Carpenter's Vampires will be released in the US on September 11th by Columbia Pictures. (We can't wait, either...)" So the word from the official site is Sept 11th, then Micheal goes on to say - "This strikes me as odd because I thought Sony had the deal wrapped up. The date of release sounds consistent with all previous reports. That is indeed a long time to wait for this film. I am going to Paris on June 1st ... what are the chances that the film will still be available in the city of light? " Does anyone know about this Columbia/Sony thing, I guess that maybe Sony own Columbia or something like that? Plus, can anyone help Micheal out and let me know if Vampires will still be easy to see in Paris on June 1st?
Soundtrack and Official Site Info I was also lucky enough to receive some info from the official JC site - " The first site links will be to the Endhunger Network, who John drew a Tshirt design for that raises money for programs to help alleviate the suffering of those who go hungry everyday across the U.S. Then we are about to set a link to Stone, the band who have a cut on the soundtrack for Vampires. The next one will probably be to Milan Records, who are releasing the soundtrack album, and then, obviously, to Sony Pictures. We'll go from there. I have to check with the website manager to see what their plans are for an e-mail update service. " So, now we also have some soundtrack info. Interesting stuff on that 'Endhunger Netwrok', I guess the US visitors will know more about that.
JC Mailing List Yep, I have already signed up for this (it is a bit quiet at te moment) so get over there and join us - "Greetings. I have just started a John Carpenter discussion list and I am having a hard time getting it off the ground... I only have on subscriber so far... I was wondering if you could post a link to the subscription page on your page.... Here is the URL:

http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/mouth_of_madness

Thank you, S.E. Hubbell, Moderator "

News as of 8th May A Fresh Point Of View After the deluge of reviews from people who have seen the film in France I thought it might be interesting to hear one of the first US points of view on the film, from a regular contributor to these pages, Don Q Pepioth. This guy actually went over to France and saw the movie, sounds like a great birthday present - " Whats up Bright , Don here , well i just wrote you to let you know i just got back to the States from my birthday trip to France ( YES I WENT TO FRANCE JUST TO SEE VAMPIRES FOR MY BIRTHDAY) and the trip was well worth it! Ive been a hardcore fan of the man since i was a little kid and thanks to your web page i was well informed about the world priemeir early enough to save money for a birthday trip out of the states ( which was my first....thanks bright) . Just like the rest of his movies, the less you expect, the better pay off you get, the music was phenominal as usual the best soundtrack id say since prince of darkness , kibbe displays some of the coolest vampire shots definitley since Dracula. Carpenter seems to have givin in to a new flashy quik style of editing which to myself is a step back from his trademark slow style which made classics and proved he still had it after Madness . He detroyed what could have been 2 of the coolest scenes in vampire attack history with worthless uncarpenter like time lapse reminicent of "Mobsters",remember how bad that was? maybe it was the only way to execute the scene because of the budget ,and if youve read the book dont even think that this story has anything to do with it , maybe about 14 % and the novel is still cooler . All in all it was a great film, dont take my critisism the wrong way ,youll definitely see the cool stuff and trust me it is a good . Sheryl Lee and Thomas Ian Griffith stole the flick while Baldwin and Shell made me laugh , cant compare jack crow here to the novel but its always cool to watch Woods .... I dont agree with with a couple of reviews i read on your page , especially the bad ones, comments like Vampire killers relying on gadgets the whole film didnt make any sense so dont believe everyone you read , upon my return i found the new JC sight and all i have to say is that as cool as it is i hope you dont stop updating your page cause yours is great . well good luck and hope you see it for yourself soon, personally i cant wait to see it in English. " Good to hear another positive, and thanks for the comments on the site. I'd just like to thank everyone for all the encouraging comments I have been receiving since the official site opened.
Vampires on A&E Al Selby keeps us up to date with this news - "Great site. I just thought I'd let you know that I'm here in the midwest U.S. & just got done watching a program on the A&E cable network that had some "Vampires" stuff on it. The program was a weekly show called "The Unexplained" & this week's episode dealt with people's facination of the vampire myth. It showed a couple clips from J.C.'s Vampires (one of the vampires coming out of the ground, & one of a long-haired male vampire drinking the blood from a woman's neck. It also had clips of an interview with Don Jakoby mostly dealing with WHY people are so facinated by the myth. At the end of the program they gave a toll free phone # where a person can order the episode for $19.95 + shipping. The # was 1-800-423-1212. " It definitely seems like Vampires are becoming flavour of the month again.
Blade and Vampires John Nada drops in with a combination of inside news and speculation about Vampires - " Weekly Variety did give the film a pretty positive review, if less than a rave. "an appealing mix of anti-clerical sentiment, unsentimental rebel codes and gung-ho gouging and splattering." "Lee harnasses a certain look in her eyes and various gradations of tembling to convey a striking range of conflicted emotions." "all the nudity, swearing , violence and gore fits smartly into the horror tradition---filling the envelope without pushing it. Lastly, it ws recently announced that BLADE is being postponed AGAIN, 9/29 IS CURRENT DATE, PUTTING vampires SEVERAL WEEKS AHEAD OF IT. I don't know if this is due to problems (which it has had) and it isn't ready to release, or if they just though that date a better target with less competition. If it is the latter they might move it up to beat Sony. I spoke with Largo's publicist a few minutes ago. she confrimed the Variety story on sony's purchase of the film for U.S., U.K. Holland and a couple others. She could not confirm the release date fo the US, saying she had only been told "in the fall." It would seem likely the early Sept date is right though. Any later in Sept and they are smack up against BLADE which will certainly have a huge ad campaign. If they go any later than that then they are up against Dimension's new HALLOWEEN film. " So Vampires could conceivably beat Blade, and the Sept release date seems pretty good as I am sure they would want to beat Halloween 7 to the cinema.

News as of 7th May More Info On Vampires Distribution - UK Thanks to Casey Hopkins, from the fantastic Cabinet Of Dr Casey, for giving me the full info on the distribution, this includes info about overseas, including the UK. It's good to know I will also get to see the film - "Just noticed that both Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety are reporting the following - Sony Pictures Entertainment has picked up all media distribution rights in the United States and Canada for Largo Entertainment production "John Carpenter's Vampires" starring James Woods and Daniel Baldwin. SPE, which acquired Latin American rights to the picture at MIFED last year, has also acquired distribution rights in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries. Woods and Baldwin portray the leaders of a vampire-slaying team that uncovers a den of bloodsuckers led by a master vampire who challenges the interlopers to a deadly battle."
US Release Date? Casey came right back to drop in this UNCONFIRMED news "Me again. Now I'm hearing a release date of September 11 in the United States as well. Not sure how official that is, but I trust my source. " Thanks for letting us know Casey. Now, this date, if true, puts Vampires AFTER Blade, its supposed 'rival', as they are both Vampire films. But, I am not too sure how much they will affect each others box office. Blade has been having great previews, similar to the great press that Vampires is recieving. I don't really see this 'I will only see one Vampire film' problem, as I would expect people to just go and see good films that appeal to them. Plus, stir in the fact that Vampires is rumoured to be NC-17 (though the only confirmed we have is an R, I think), plus the fact that we can expect a load of the 'mainstream' critics to give JC their usual critical mauling; the whole situation becomes much more complex than just which movie comes out first. Plus, September feels like an awfully long way off!
Vampires Trivia This unconfirmed report from an anonymous source found its way into my mailbox. I can't vouch for its credibility, but it does fit in nicely with the reports I have had concerning the great 'family' atmosphere on the set of Vampires - "During the filming of Vampires, the stunt double for Daniel Baldwin was rushed to the ER with a collapsed lung. During the long night's wait to hear his outcome, the film's producer, Sandy King, learned from his fiance that the two of them had been trying to get married while on location. As incentive - and motivation - for him to get well, the Producer offered to throw him a full-out wedding in 48 hours time. The performer got out of bed just in time to walk down the aisle -- and had such a great time at the full catered reception afterwards, he had to be re-admitted to the hospital the next day."
Negative Vampires Review Ok, as Patrick Kerr has pointed out, I have stopped putting up reviews of the movie. But what the heck, I can change my mind and show you this. Follow the link to Garth's Dark Horizons page to find a slightly negative review of the movie. Personally, I think the reviewer picks up on some strage points withoput really discussing the film as a whole. We still have loads of VERY POSITIVE review with only a few negatives.
Even more info on Vampires Distribution Mohammad Khan at the very cool Carpenticised Side Of The Web has scooped us all with this comprehensive overview of the distribution deal - " ...straight outta the cookie jar at CINESCAPE ONLINE - Sony Bites Into 'Vampires' It's been a big hit in Europe, but up until now no distributor has bitten at John Carpenter's Vampires for a stateside release, much to the chagrin of American John Carpenter fans. Finally, Sony Pictures Entertainment has picked up the film for distribution in the United States as well as the United Kingdom and Scandinavia from Largo Entertainment, according to Variety. Sony's Col TriStar Motion Picture Group previously had the rights to distribute the film in Latin America.

The Variety story states that many studios flirted with picking up the film, including MGM and Artisan Entertainment, even though it was rumored through the Internet that Dimension might distribute the movie. The Variety story adds that Sony picked up the film as part of their plan to appeal to the moviegoers likely to see movies like MGM's Disturbing Behavior, Dimension's Scream franchise and Sony's own I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Sources inside say that Sony won distribution rights with a bid of $15 million. Furthermore, the studio plans on committing an additional $12 million to promote the orphan film, with a goal of getting 1,500 screens. With low-budget moneymakers like I Still Know... and Vampires as its bread-and-butter and a possible blockbuster-to-come in Godzilla, Sony may be standing financially tall by the end of 1998." Wow, 15mil practically covers the budget, and 12mil for advertising is just what we wanted to hear. Excellent stuff, bring it on.

News as of 6th May Vampires Distributor This scoop was sent in by August 3 "FINALLY!!! It is a done deal! Sony Pictures entertainment has just aquire the US and Canadian rights to VAMPIRES. Still, no release date is set. This comes from the 5/4 edition of THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The answer has finally come! Now the question is when it's released? -August3 " As August says, finally!

News as of 30th April It's Here Now! Get your butt right over to the Official JC Site, where they have just opened the Vampires section. All I can say is fantastic, they have really taken their time over this. An inspired use of shockwave, a great design that evokes that way out west feeling, and the first chance to hear a whole new JC composition, called Slayers Theme. Most of you will recognise it from that clip I put up a while back, but this is the full 5 minutes in fantastic stereo. I think it sounds a little like the They Live theme, that lone drifter sort of vibe. Anyway, stop reading this and go an' check it out.

News as of 27th April Show Me The Money OK, most of you have probably checked out the official JC site after my last news report, and found it still closed. I am as puzzled by this as you, my source assured me it was opening on Fri night. Sorry 'bout that, I will try and find out what is going on.
Vampires Box Office Thanks to Etienne, we can check out how well the film is doing in France - http://www.allocine.fr/boxoffice/box_fr.asp?ARG99=0&ARG140=0&ARG141=0&ARG142

News as of 24th April The Vampires Distribution Deal Some interesting stuff has come to light. Basically, the Destination Films deal has fallen through.
The New JC Website - Our most reliable source has dropped in with some more info on this new project - " Meanwhile, you should check out our first website of our own. http://www.johncarpenter.com It should open tonight, and will eventually have domains for all of our projects. Right now, it's just "Vampires". We will be opening a section for each territory's release with press kits in the various languages and news clippings. Hope you enjoy it. " That e-mail was delivered this morning, so expect the new site to open very soon (hopefully tonight as it says in the mail). Just remember, in a few months time, when you are all hanging out at the official site and my site is just a dusty old cafe on one of the minor old internet routes, just remember who kept you entertained with JC stuff when the web was a wilder place (I am really feeling sorry for myself today). Seriously, the new site sounds fantastic and I cannot wait for it to come online.

News as of 22nd April Those JC French Premire Interviews - JCs next movie? Etienne Barillier has quoted this for us from those on-line interviews I mentioned in last weeks update - " The latest issue of the French magazine "Premiere" has a fine critic of the movie, rating it with three stars (out of four) and giving it the seventh position of this year's "Top 7" movies. There's also an interview, with this fine portrait by Patrick Swirc. JC is saying (being ask about the way all his main character seems to be the same) that "My heroes are idealized representations of myself. I'm not through with them, there is still one or two possibilities left" (roughly *back* translated!). By the way the movie is out since today, there will be another interview of him on Canal+ (in the weekly 30 minutes show). There's 200 copies of the movie in France. It's a good way to see if the distributor think it will be a success (for instance "the big Lebowski" has 130 copies, "US Marshals" 415, "Event Horizon" 135, "The Rainmakers" 160...) " So, it seems that JC is definitely considering a new project. And a note on the success of the movie in France:
Vampires In France - Well, it was released last Wednesday, here is a pretty good summary from Aint It Cool News - " People are _flocking_ to see it in France, where it opened this past Wednesday! Of course, we aren't talking about a Titanic-like attendance, but still it's a pretty nice success. Some theaters in central Paris are sold out at the 10:30 PM late night screenings, and THAT'S the appropriate timing for seeing this flick. The reviews are just terrific! Not just the genre mags, but the dailies too. "Libération" had a nice Carpenter interview last Wednesday. And even the very influential "Le Monde" (which you might compare it to the NY Times), wrote "A vampire movie like no others" in the FRONT page, and carried on with a rave review in the entertainment section.

Vampire$ exceeds every expectation you might have -- it rocks, it's a carnage-fest, it's a pure Carpenter-ian masterpiece, and you might go as far as to say that this is the kind of movie that a Sam Peckimpah or Robert Aldrich would have made today if they were alive and they wanted to direct a vampire flick to show off this dreadful Buffy-like politically correct trash." Brilliant stuff, lets hope that success gets repeated everywhere.
Vampires and NC-17 Thanks for all the responses on the maybe NC-17 or R rating for the US Vampires, here is a selection of the response I have had (also, bear in mind, the OFFICIAL published word is that Vampires got an R, but that was some time ago, so maybe Baldwin knows soemthing we don't?) -

About Danny Baldwin's comment on the NC-17, I really can't see that happening. NC-17 is reserved for the most sexually explicit, goriest movies out there, and is rarely given out. "Showgirls", "Crash", and "Bad Lieutenant" are such examples. Basically, if a film is given a NC-17 in the US, it is doomed to art house theaters. - Cary Aston

NC-17 is the most rescricted rating before the movie is deemed a porno. R rating is commonplace and every violent movie gets it. But NC-17 means extremely violent and unprofitable. This movie will undoubtedly be delayed so it can have its harsher scenes edited out and be given an R-rating for late American release. - Ricardo Todd

I live in the US, and NC17 and the R rating aren't the same thing. (from the Motion Picture Association of America homepage) R: RESTRICTED. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. NC-17: NO ONE 17 AND UNDER ADMITTED. If I remember correctly, the current NC17 rating is more or less what the X rating used to be.- Dave

Thanks to everyone for the comments, one thing I think is strange is that an 18 rating is commonplace in the UK, yet an NC-17, which is effectively a milder rating, is thought of as really bad in the US. Wierd.
Vampires Soundtrack - A little bit of 2nd hand, twice removed info about this, which gives a vague 'possibly soon' status on the Vampires soundtrack - "You may wish to check in with Harry Knowles at the AICN site - If I recall correctly, he states that he listened to it several times - most recently in his adventure on a set. Should be in last Thursday's news. " Thanks to Ben Wern for letting us in on that.
Vampires Trailer As many of you have noticed, my server is not the best in the world and the Vampires Trailer can be a sod to download, so here is another source for it -

VAMPIRES TRAILER - NORWEGIAN DOWNLOAD SITE

JC Interview and Vampires Review on-line If you run over to the French Premiere Magazine you will find an interview with JC and a review (a favourable one) of Vampires. Here is a tip, for this not familiar with French try Alta-Vista's Translation Service. It is not perfect but you do get the general idea.
US Certification? Thanks to Don for pointing this out, in previous news I reported that - "Daniel Baldwin interview: "it's a pity the movie got a NC17 certificate in the states...."" Now, an NC-17 rating is pretty restrictive. I thought the film had an R rating in the states. Are these the same thing?

News as of 14th April The Trailer Thanks to everyone for replying to me telling me they downloaded the trailer ok. To all those having problems, sorry; but I can't help you out because as far as I know it is fine. And no, I can't e-mail it cos my e-mail server does not handle files that large. By the way, after this site appeared on Harry Knowles' aint-it-cool-news over 3000 people attempted to download the trailer on the weekend! This film seems to be the most anticipated JC offering in a long while.
Vampires Novelisation This was sent in by Etienne - " The novelization of "Vampires" is now available. The front cover is a close up of the French poster. And it looks as dull as any novelization." Hmm, is this a novelisation or just a reprint of the Steakley book?
Ecran Fantastique and French Movie Mags

The French press is well into the Vampires Press Juggernaut, this is what Etienne Barillier (who kindly sent in the above scan) has to say - " The last issue of the French magazine is almost a special "Vampires" ! You can find inside (with lot of pictures): -
a 3 pages long analysis of the movie -
an article about James Woods -
a look back over JC's past movies -
a 3 pages long interview of the Master himself -
a fine page about the *lost* movies, those movies he never mad (do you know that the laserdisc (and DVD) edition of "The Thing" will have some new scenes? It should be a test for the second opus that will come to life if it's a success : Mc Ready is accused of the murder of his former team by the soldiers who rescued him... But another survivor appears, Childs!)
- a 4 pages interview of William Baldwin - a 3 pages interview with Thomas Ian Griffith
- 4 pages with Sandy King
- 4 pages with Thomas Walsh
- 4 pages with Gary B. Kibbe (talking of his collaboration with JC since "They Live")
- 4 pages with Greg Nicotero " Wow, that is one magazine I would LOVE to get hold of! To add to this Tom Alarts shares his thoughts and info with us - "

This weekend I found an avalanche of vampires-related info in the french magazines. - .. "Les cahiers du cinema" ... a large interview (6 pags) with jc, there were some good questions, i will send snippets as soon as i have the copies, but here are 2 interesting fragments: 1. when asked about current projects, jc spoke about the thriller he had some ideas for. So this is still in an embryonal phase. and 2. When asked about the evolved filming style used in vampires, jc answered that, utilising more cameras simultaneously he wanted to create a more brutal and raw atmosphere. Still, the much adored motel massacre was filmed in vintage, pure, jc style. There was also a 4-page appreciation about jc's movies and career and of course a review of the movie. Well, the reviewer found it somewhat empty and ultimately disappointing but he also thought that today's horror audiences, who only seek skillfully made thrills, might very well like it. Typically, jc's movies almost always get good to rave reviews in "Les Cahiers...", so this was unexpected.

- Then there was the new "l'ecran fantastique". This featured a whopping 33 -yes, that's thirtythree- pages about Vampires (35 if you also count an article about modern vampire movies). You already know most photos, so I will only give a few relevant snippets: - the review: they adored it. a movie that that even gets better with multiple viewings... Stylishly made, but never a videoclip... One of the most original and "biting" movies about the myth... - Woods about Crow: "Crow is similar to William Holden in the Wild Bunch...a typical american western hero, politically very incorrect." - JC interview: Q: "the way Valek bites Sheryl Lee is original and rather evocative..." A (laughing): "Yes, I wanted to suggest the sexuality of vampirism...I have never seen this in another movie, so why not innovate a bit?" (my remark: now that gets me curious...) - a JC unfinished projects article. Well, it seems the people at ecran fantastique have impeccable taste in surfing the net, the article is in fact an almost verbatim translation of your unfinished projects page (even the funny fait-divers about "the hungry moon" is included). So why was it asking too much to print a pointer to this website somewhere in those 33 pages? - Daniel Baldwin interview: (this is a loose translation, you'll get the idea) "between the dozens of scripts i receive each week, there was one with a vampire-photo on the sleeve, I threw it immediately upon a pile with uninteresting stuff. Later I heard JC wanted me for a vampire movie, so only then i remembered the script and started reading it" "it's a pity the movie got a NC17 certificate in the states, because of the physical and verbal violence. so let's hope it gets good word-of-mouth". (my remark: USA censors, read my lips: in Titanic there were a LOT more deaths...) - Thomas Ian Griffith interview: about the scene where the vampires come out of the sand: "I am a claustrophobic so this was very difficult! (laughing) you are only under 30 cm of sand but it's already unbelievably heavy..." - Sandy King interview: about the creature of the black lagoon remake: (another loose translation) "JC partially accepted to remake village of the damned because then the studio would offer him the creature remake... Rick baker already designed a fantastic new costume...but then the production responsable of Universal changed, and the project...fell into the water. I still hope john will one day make this movie." There was a question about the nude girls in the motel, something unexpected in a JC movie. "Indeed, i plead guilty! (laughing). John doesn't really like this kind of scenes, but i convinced him it made the story more credible... and also, it ensures a bigger shock when the vampire brutally appears..." about the howard hawks tribute: "we originally would make it for canal+, as part of a video-encyclopedia made by contemporary cinema people about people who influenced movie history...after a while, we didn't hear anything about this project anymore... but then the British film institute proposed us to make the movie with them but they had a very classic idea about the documentary... so the project fell into the water because of artistic divergences, but one day ore another we'll make it." - Thomas Walsh (chief decorator) interview: the motel was specially built for the movie. - Gary B. Kibbe interview: about They live: "one of the reasons of the use of black-and-white for the alien scenes was that this way, we hoped to divert the attention a bit from the crude make up". (my remark: oh, i thought it was only for the story) about the visual style of EFLA compared to EFNY: "we changed the look of the movie so the change of place is more obvious." about the red sky when the vampires come out of the sand: "it was a dry riverbed, which already had red sand. So this was a good occasion of using a polarising filter together with a red one. This set the atmosphere for the rest of the scene". - Greg Nicotero (sfx guy from KNB) interview: about Rodriguez (KNB did the sfx for from dusk till dawn): "we'll do the sfx for his new project, written by Kevin "Scream" Williamson, which is a homage to both the thing and the bodysnatchers". (my remark: ahhh, could RR be the true heir to JC, just as JC is to Hawks ?) he also says almost all the sfx he designed can be seen in the movie. The small parts that can't were deleted because they would slow down the pace of the opening scene. about JC and Wes Craven (KNB also did Scream): they don't want to change the rhythm of a story just to show off the sfx. John and Wes have done this in the past, but have quickly abandoned this approach. that's why our sfx work so well in Scream and it's sequel" Great stuff there Tom, thanks for keeping us informed. So, does anyone from Ecran Fantastique read these pages? If so, did you use some of my info as source material? I'm not mad, it'd just be great to know that some of it is actually useful. Please, e-mail me and let me know if you have used this stuff anywhere.
Another Vampires Review We are right up to the release date now, so I guess this will be the last pre-release review. This one is from Aint It Cool News - " I was expecting this flick, since I've heard that Carpenter had replaced Russell Mulcahy on the director's chair. This project could not have been cooler. John Carpenter (The Master of the Genre) meeting the Greatest Myth of the Genre( Vampire's story). Sounds a hell of a match-up. Obviously, like everyone elses, I was disappointed by Carpenter's last work (Escape >From LA). But I knew that this baby would be good. Any movie who got Woods kicking some ass, can't be a bomb. It must have something to look forward, at least. Because you know, James Woods is one of the coolest actor around, and in this one we got the James Woods typical/Snake Plissken attitude coming from Jack Crow. Is that makes you drool ?

What makes Vampires so powerful and cool, it's the fact that this one is....Truely...a 100% Carpenter's ride. Jack Crow is a typical Carpenter's kind of hero. Jack is doing his little buisiness and he's not answering to anybody. And he's also a survivor, the only guy who see the whole BIG plan that others doesn't want to see. Jack will strand on his convictions 'till the end. Like John Carpenter's kind of atittude.In fact, Jack is an anti-hero, when he's slapping the face of a girl, it's how he is....Luke Skywalker would have never done that to Princess Leia....that's how he's so atypical....but a 100% Carpenter's character..YES. By the way, he's oftenly smoking a cigar, by this trademark he was reminding me the Comix character called Nick Fury. Same attitude, you understand what I mean.

This movie had another surprise too: Daniel Baldwin. The Unknown brother of the Baldwin's family. Frankly, I was not expecting much of him, but since he was playing Tony Montaya, I had to give him a chance. Surprise among all the surprises....you know what ?...he kick ass, like any other Baldwin did before him. He got a little, calm animals rage that will be loved by the fans. He's tough, but also a sentimental...another typical Carpenter's character. There's a scene between him and Sheryl Lee that will make

Sheryl Lee gives an honest performance, but I was not very attracted by his character. It's wrong, since I should have been attracted by her. I did not believe in his character, like I did not believe in the chicks seducing Keannu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

There's also Maximilian Schell (The Cardinal) who gives a Strong performance, full of ambiguity. The Villian is called Valek (played by Thomas Ian Griffith), an unknown for me. So I can't compare my opinion with this one and his previous performances. He's the REAL Christoper Lee's of the 90's, from a Vampire's Geek Point of view. He got a real Scary presence....but he's also a seductor. Wait to see him seduce Sheryl, you won't have seen a scene like this since....the old Lee's movies. He got a real Physical presence too, his scenes are almost the best scenes of the movie. Especially when he's fighting, a real barracuda hunting for more blood.
In fact, all the movie is based on a big Hunt. It's a team, working together , hunting Vampires. It's the simple storyline of the movie. From this notion, Carpenter is inventing some genious scenes that I had never seen on a Vampire's movies. Like you have Vampire's who are armed !!! Or that most of the scenes takes places during the day, not always by night and like the usual Darks rooms. The movie is really full of surprises, some of the characters that you will love ends up, others ends down. It's Maximum Carnage. The Scene on the motel is very an Anthological Piece, that will be remembered for a while. Graphic violence, Bloods everywhere, very gorish but also unconventionnal. The Vampires hunters are having so much funs, while killing those blood-suckers, that it's disturbing. They are like the ALIENS Team (from the director who did Pirahnas 2, I don't remember his name), but a team working for money, without any military ethics. After the Carnage of the motel, the guys are relaxing, happy to have get ridden of their preys and they are blowing away the whole motel in a final blaze of glory. Crow's team is a really cool. The film works because of them. The motel's scene is the Opening of the movie. You got the feel immediatly, and it doesn't stop from there. The Religion takes a huge place here, but I won't talk about it. You will have to understand the whole thing by yourself, make your own opinion. Warning for this movie. The Master is Back....with an attitude. 2 Toes Up ! The Lone Jedi...... " A fantastic review, another massive positive. Thanks to the Lone Jedi.

News as of 9th April Problems With The Trailer Ok, I have had loads of e-mails about the trailer. Lots of people have asked me if there is a problem with it, but loads of people have downloaded it without any problems, so no problem with it. I will say this, if you are using a Shareware MPEG player (such as VMPEG) then they have a size limit on the files they will play. I have put up the trailer in good faith, I can't do anything about it if people find their connection going down halfway through, as far as I know everything is fine this end (and a lot of people will vouch for that).
Discussion Of The Movie Now a lot of use have had a chance to see the clip and the trailer I was wondering if anyone wanted to discuss the movie? If you do check out alt.movies.john-carpenter
Fatal Attraction The Unfinished Projects section has not been updated for a while, but here is Tom Alaerts (who now owns 50% of this site by default!) to give us some more information - "JC was offered to make Fatal Attraction, this was before they asked Adrian Lyne. But jc wasn't interested because the story reminded him too much of "Play misty for me" (The 70s Eastwood movie about a DJ who is harassed by a female fan.). Anyway, I believe it would have been a seriously different movie, I think the erotic tension would have been less steamy in a jc version but otoh, it is very well possible that the terror from the 2nd part would have been more edge-of-the-seat." Cheers Tom, as one vistor to this page has said - "Without you and that Tom Alaerts guy I would be totaly clueless as to what is going on. Thanks."
The Stars, My Destination I cannot remember who told me this one (could you please e-mail me and let me know?) but JC was also considering adapting this sci-fi novel, which I think was written by Alfred Bester.
More Info On Distribution This was sent in by Casey, the webmaster at the fantastic Cabinet Of Dr Casey - "... little tidbit in Army Archerd's column for Daily Variety today that I thought you might like to hear. Apparently the U.S. distribution is not in limbo- "Producer Steve Stabler's New Destination Films scored a coup in launching as a distribution house for major product with Largo's summer horror/thriller "John Carpenter's Vampires." Destination Films beat out several majors. The picture premieres Tuesday in Paris, part of a monthlong celebration of Carpentermania featuring 23 of his films." Note the term "summer horror/thriller." Guess I'll have to make do with the trailer from your site for awhile! :) " Summer is the first mention I have heard of any release date for the US.

News as of 9th April Problems With The Trailer Ok, I have had loads of e-mails about the trailer. Lots of people have asked me if there is a problem with it, but loads of people have downloaded it without any problems, so no problem with it. I will say this, if you are using a Shareware MPEG player (such as VMPEG_ then they have a size limit on the files they will play. I have put up the trailer in good faith, I can't do anything about it if people find their connection going down halfway through, as far as I know everything is fine this end (and a lot of people will couch for that).
Discussion Of The Movie Now a lot of use have had a chance to see the clip and the trailer I was wondering if anyone wanted to discuss the movie? If you do check out alt.movies.john-carpenter
More Info On Distribution This was sent in by Casey, the webmaster at the fantastic Cabinet Of Dr Casey - "... little tidbit in Army Archerd's column for Daily Variety today that I thought you might like to hear. Apparently the U.S. distribution is not in limbo- "Producer Steve Stabler's New Destination Films scored a coup in launching as a distribution house for major product with Largo's summer horror/thriller "John Carpenter's Vampires." Destination Films beat out several majors. The picture premieres Tuesday in Paris, part of a monthlong celebration of Carpentermania featuring 23 of his films." Note the term "summer horror/thriller." Guess I'll have to make do with the trailer from your site for awhile! :) " Summer is the first mention I have heard of any release date for the US.

News as of 8th April The Trailer Is Here! (So say goodbye to the clip) I now have the Vampires trailer, supplied to me by supercool Tom Alaerts, who got it from the Cinelive magazine. This is another MPEG file, this one is 14Megabytes, so still huge but slightly smaller than the clip. As the headline says, to make room for this trailer the clip has to be removed.This is strictly copyrighted to Largo Entertainment and all other bodies associated with the production of John Carpenter's Vampires. You will need an MPEG movie player and a fast connection to the 'net (a 28.8K modem will take approx. 1 hours to download it!). Please, only download the clip if you have the bandwidth. This is not a streaming MPEG file so you will have to download 'THE WHOLE' file before you can view it.

Trailer Credits The following picture is of the credits at the end of the Trailer -

So, most of the stuff we knews was correct, no mention of Dan Mazur as a scriptwriter, and Don Jakoby is also a co-producer. There is also no mention of JC also being a screenwriter, so according to these credits a large chunk of the scennplay will be from Jakoby's original.
More Info On Distribution This was sent to me by Captain Blake - "... the publicity Firm that is handling Vampires. They said that the Dimension deal is just a rumor and that a US distribution deal is close, but nothing is official yet." So it seems like the US release is back into limbo.
Vampires Premiere Nikola has sent us this news - "World premiere of "Vampires" was a part of BALLANTINE'S CINEMANIA film festival here, at Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Film and first reactions of the audience were great. I am not sure about the critics, though. It's a well known fact to me that JC's latest movies are not well accepted amond those "I'm a film critic, I know the best" bastards. Nevertheless, there are some die-hard fans over here (I'm definitely one of them; I like JC's movies since I was a kid) and VAMPIRES will surely be an underground film hit." So Belgrade has beaten everyone to the punch, it is good to know that the audience reaction was great.

News as of 6th April French Vampires Poster Etienne Barillier has kindly supplied us with this scan of the new poster for Vampires

That Vampires Clip Over the weekend over 350 people downloaded the Vampires clip! This is a huge amount considering that the only people who know about this clip are those who come this site anyway. This just shows how much anticipation there is for this movie.

News as of 3rd April (Late Update - 3rd April, 2pm GMT) Vampires Clip! Real, live, video clip of Vampires! After much consideration I have decided to put this up on the site, but it may not be up for long. This is an 18Megabytes MPEG clip, 2minutes playing time, from the start of Vampires. It was first discussed (with pictures) in the News section a few weeks ago. This was provided by a good friend and contributor to these pages. It was available on the French magazine Cinelive's cover mounted CD-ROM. This is strictly copyrighted to Largo Entertainment and all other bodies associated with the production of John Carpenter's Vampires. You will need an MPEG movie player and a fast connection to the 'net (a 28.8K modem will take approx. 1/2 hours to download it!). Please, only download the clip if you have the bandwidth. This is not a streaming MPEG file so you will have to download 'THE WHOLE' file before you can view it.

Update On April 1st News Ok, most of you guessed it just by looking at the date, and the name of the source (Palil Roof = April Fool), but I was sure that reference's to old JC films would really make sure everyone knew it was all a joke! As for the multi-film-project, a few people actually took me up on that one, so I guess I'll have to say I am sorry for raising people's expectations. Anyway, I had loads of people telling me they found it funny, so I am glad you liked it.
New Vampires Magazine Articles Chris drops this in "...the new issue of FEMME FATALES features a small blurb on VAMPIRES. It focuses stunt woman/actress Anita Hart who plays a vampire in the flick. She gives a detailed report of how she and James Woods battled it out. He shoots her in face five times, and the attack is so violent, a few women on the set were upset. J.C. directed the scene by instructing Woods & Hart to act like they were ex-husband & wife.

The new Cinefantasque also features a page on Vampires. Nothing new revealed here, but it does allude to the fact that this film could be a break-out film ala SCREAM for Carpenter-- IF it beats BLADE to the punch. "

News as of March 31st Another Vampires Picture As reported in various places this really cool pic has appeared in numerous magazines, and was supplied by the ever vigilan Tom Alaerts -

Go To The Multimedia Section To See The Pictures

News as of March 30th Finally, The News The US Has Been Waiting For This is hot news straight from a most reliable source - "Just got the news from Largo that the film has been sold to new indy distributor, Destination Films for release in the US. "Vampires" will be their first release. In order to acquire the film, they had to beat out offers from majors including Columbia and Fox. While we don't know the financial details yet, the Fox offer had been for almost the entire budget of the picture. Expect to see press releases later this week. So far, we don't know their plans for the release, but are supposed to meet very soon. Will keep you posted." I am really glad to see that it has been sorted out. It sounds like the bidders for this movie had some idea of the 'buzz' going around. As the news says, this is Destinations Films first release, it will be interesting to see how they push the film. So, now we wait for the latest on the actual release date.
Vampires Trailer It's not available on-line yet, but let's hope so soon. Anyway, Tom Alaerts has scanned a load of pictures from it for us, so I'll hand you over to him - "It's your bat-winged messenger again. I discovered the Vampires trailer on the CD-ROM of the new issue of Cinelive. It is a 14Mb mpeg file... I made some screenshots to satisfy the impatient. Keep in mind that the quality of the screenshots is much less good than when you see the images moving. Anyway, I selected pics that extend the collection on the news page. The music throughout is similar to what you've heard, but some typical nervous jc rhythms are added. Here's my description of each pic:

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT LARGO ENTERTAINMENT, JOHN CARPENTER and anyomne else involved with JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES.

Go To The Multimedia Section To See The Pictures

There was also a short introduction text to the movie. It seems that Crow, when a child, had seen how a vampire killed his parents. So that's his motivation. Mmmmhhh, this sounds a bit like the unhappy childhoods of Batman and other caped crusaders. The magazine also featured a short interview with JC. Mostly the typical questions, the typical answers. But here is the one part that that you will LOVE to read (excuse my clumsy re-translation): Q: Is there a myth left you would like to direct? A: I always wanted to make my own Frankenstein, but I don't know how I could better what's already made. However, I am really more interested in the Frankenstein story than in vampires. It is a more modern person. Creation with a big "C" is a very fascinating idea. When I find how to adapt it, I will do it. Otherwise, I would like to make a thriller but I have no story yet. Just some images. We'll see..." There's also a table in the mag with each reviewer's ratings about the films of the month. Vampires got: 2 times watchable, 2 times very good, 2 times excellent-don't miss (no masterpiece rating, which is the highest rank in cinelive, is given) OTOH, the Mad Movies table was as follows: 3 times very good (which must be between very good and excellent from the other mag) and 1 time masterpiece. So, all in all, it seems this will be JC's best rated pic in quite some time. Let's hope it will attract audiences. "

News as of March 27th New Zealand Release Date I don't know why I am posting this as I got it from alt.movies.john-carpenter, a newsgroup I am sure you all read regularly. Anyway, here is the scoop, posted by Oggy Doggy " My friend who works in the local cinema, says that the flick : J.C's Vampire$ will be distributed by REP an indy distributor (I think) around July/August?l" Seems like everyone in the world is going to see this pic before the US, of course, this New Zealand date is unconfirmed at the moment.
They Live On DVD Thanks to everyone for telling me about this, the overally feeling is that this new DVD is fantastic, to quote Brian - "hey i just got the they live dvd yesterday and it is excellent, the movie is even better in widescreen than it already was in pan and scan, really good transfer i thought, the only drawback is that there was no extra stuff on the dvd. prince of darkness is still due on april 1st hopefully it will be as good ive also heard that starman and in the mouth of madness will come out on dvd within the year, maybe even more of carpenters movies as well i hope, especially the thing signature edition".

News as of March 26th Vampires Review Well, it had to happen. After three glowing reviews of Vampires we get our first negative. Although even this 'negative' reviewer had some very good things to say about the movie, he did not trash it at all. It is only one person's opinion and it does not change my (or I suspect anyone else's) anticipation for this JC movie. I still think it is going to be fantastic, anyway, here is the review, submitted by Matt - " I have been sitting on this news for a couple of days, reluctant to release it. An associate of mine ... gave me the report from the American Film Market where he sat through a screening of JC's Vampires. This friend, whose opinion I trust highly, loves Carpenter and loves the genre. Now far be it from me to put the kibosh on all the good reviews coming into the site on the film, but this one wasn't so positive. He told me that Vampires is a very good looking, well produced film, full of nice effects, and shot in a very wide screen format (probably anamorphic 2.35:1), which is so far typical Carpenter. But he went on to inform me that on the whole the film was very disappointing. James Woods wasn't much of a leading man and that the film is more a combination of From Dusk Till Dawn meets Captain Kronos (if you know what I mean) than The Wild Bunch. Relying heavily on Dusk Till Dawn. He said it was chock fill of gimmicky little devices that the hunters use and the writing and story were very weak. For JC to do a great looking, but overall weak film is... dare I say? Not to far out the realm of possibilities. Especially when one considers his last few releases. But on the other hand I suggest we all reserve our own opinions until we see Vampires for ourselves and no matter what we hear, go out and support the man for the work he has done and hopefully will continue to do." So there it is, I definitely take it with a pinch of salt primarilt because I find it hard to believe that James Woods, easily one of my favourite actors, could do anything other than light up the screen. In the small clip I have seen Woods has just the right 'hard-edged' quality. Anyway, as Matt says, let's all wait until we see it ourselves for the judgement. To recap - 3 extremely positive reviews and 1 slightly negative. Oh yeah, Harry Knowles (aint it cool news) has been saying that Dimension films have picked up the movie. I think Harry is still going by the old reports, my sources still confirm that even thought it is close, no distribution deal has been sorted out yet.

News as of March 23rd New Mad Movies Stuff The newest issue of Mad Movies (March) has a load of pictures and a new JC interview. Tom Alaerts has scanned the pictures for us and promises some snippets from the interview in the future. All pictures are (c) John Carpenter, Largo Entertainment and anyone else involved with John Carpenter's Vampires and any publications mentioned. Tom Says "so I rushed to a newspapershop yesterday evening and YES - the new mad movies was there. I didn't scan all the pics (some were similar to the ones you already have), just the most significant ones. here's my comment for each pic (my favourite is ceiling.jpg):

Go To The Multimedia Section To See The Pictures

News as of March 19th New Vampires Article As usual the French are running away with the best JC coverage, this was found by Etienne Barillier " The latest issue of the French Magazine "Mad Movies"(#112) has a "Vampires" cover ! Inside you can find 8 pages packed with interviews and pictures: 5 pages are dedicated to an in-depth interview with John Carpenter, one to Sandy King (producer & wife), one to Greg Nicotero (makeup). There is a long criticism stating that : - it's his best movie since "They Live" - it's a really scary movie (not a "Scream" like movie, an ironical one) - "(...) what he tells us is the story of a man loving a woman eaten by evil. A man ready to follow his love until night and destruction. The message is dry, brutal and dark. The vampires are frightening, the heroic behaviour is still there, the tough guys are still Nike Furys and whatever happens we'll love those westerners untill the end. But at the end of the road, Carpenter never forgets that the raison d'etre of fantastic is upon all to stare at death. The only real terror." Sounds fantastic, I have heard nothing but positives about this movie.
They Live We Sleep When John Nada slips on those old sunglasses of his there is nothing that escapes his steely gaze. This time he has managed to gather together a whole load of thoughts from some of the principles involvbed with Vampires. Listen up people, cos ther is some Very Interesting stuff about distribution. "

Sheryl Lee on getting into her role as Katrina "I start to dream as them. That's a very good sign that the character is becoming a presence with me. I would dream that there were vampires after me, or that I was a vampire, that was the most fascinating one for me. They weren't really erotic dreams, more to do with the supernatural powers that the vampires have in our film. In one of those half-awake, half-asleep states, I actually ran my tongue across my teeth and felt fangs. I kept doing it again and again thinking the would be gone, but they didn't go away. But in the morning they were gone."

From Thomas Ian Griffith- talking about working with Carpenter

"You hear a lot about really great directors, that the movie is made in their heads before the camera starts. That's John. I'd do my thing, he'd watch a couple of times and then very specifically set up the camera angles and lights, and we'd do it. He's a man of very few words, but all of them count"

Sandy King

On casting James Woods "One of the things about being a producer, especially for John, is that he is open to doing something unexpected. James Woods, when you cast him, brings an expectation. He plays bad guys really well and I thought it interesting to bring that hardness that he's known for and to make him an anti-hero protagonist."

On the idea of casting Kurt Russell

"Kurt was never a consideration, and it wasn't the budget. You cast someone like him and he brings the budget with him. The budget just goes up as much as his salary because they know he will bring at least that much extra at the box office. If we had thought he was the right person, we would have had the money to use him. We felt James Woods was the right guy. And we were right."

On VAMPIRES having not found a distributor

"Every company has a life that is totally outside your movie. Largo, I believe, and I don't know their corporate in's and outs, but they seem to be at a crossroads in their corporate history. I believe the decisions on the sale of VAMPIRES are based on those corporate changes, not on the film. columbia has a good offer on the table, so does Fox. There were offers before the film was finished."

So, the distribution deal, as I have said time and again, is not a problem with the movie. It is a buisness dealing thing. So, I am saying this to the people at Largo, please, please get this sorted out. This film has a huge buzz surrounding it and will be JCs biggest hit for years. Get this film out there now!

News as of March 11th Dimension Films Rumours The mysterious secret agent was able to give us some comments on the state of distribution of Vampires, some of it directly from the highest source. As of a few days ago no distributor was set, but Dimension films was mentioned as one of the possibles/rumours. So still no distributor set but it is edging closer to a deal all the time.
Vampires Mpeg Movie A while back I mentioned a clip of Vampires that was made available on a French CD-ROM. I have seen the clip, it is fantastic. Unfortunatley it is an 18MBytes file, so I can't put it up on the website. But, the next best thing has been provided by Tom Alaerts, a snapshot walkthrough of the clip -

Okay, here's the story: Go To The Multimedia Section To See The Pictures

News as of March 5th Vampires Distributor? Chris has come across this news which I hope is true "According to the latest Fangoria, VAMPIRES has been picked up by DIMENSION films for distribution. Still no release date set." Hopefully this means Vampires very soon.
Meltdown This from Matt G "This just came into my office: MELTDOWN is a go. A company named August Entertainment has posted a notice in Hollywood that they have begun pre-production on Meltdown. Co-scripted by John Carpenter and John Dahl (The Last Seduction) and to be directed by a Heede Jong(?). It is listed as action/adventure."
Scream Queen Chris also noticed that "Janet Leigh is playing a small part in Halloween 7. "

News as of March 3rd Halloween - Myers in Waterworld? Matt G noticed this strange title for Halloween 7 "Dimmension Films is advertising the next Halloween film under the title of... HALLOWEEN: H20. The silliest tile since JC appeared in Silence of The Hams. I just sincerely hope H20 stands for Halloween 20 th aniversary and not Halloween: The Water Edition."
JC On Canal+ Etienne watched this interview with JC and has the following to say " He talked about "Vampires", of course. The movie will be out by April, 15th. An extract was shown, with the killing of a couple of monsters. The scene was quite disturbing, with the sadistic acting of James Woods ("die!... die!..." he yells while killing a vampire with a wooden stick). John Carpenter talked about westerns, the Wild Bunch, and so on. He went also onto politics, saying that, yes, he's definitely not the politicaly correct kind of guy as he smokes, drinks and talks dirty!... "Subversive" is the word most used! He was quite at ease, making jokes and smiling a lot. He talked a little about Kurt Russel. He even thanked Wes Craven, for his "Scream2" hommage to "Halloween" and even recommended some of his own favorites movies : Halloween, the Thing and They Live ! "
JC At The Drive In Chris sent in this news "I came across a neat video called AFTER SUNSET: THE LIFE & TIMES OF THE DRIVE- IN THEATER. It features extensive interviews with Sam Arkoff, Joe Bob Briggs, and one John Carpenter!! It was produced in '95/96. J.C. has a lot of neat things to say (he lost his virginity at a drive-in!) and it seems his segments were shot in his home office by the look of things. VERY COOL. It's worth searching out. "
The Thing On DVD No one quite knows what is going on with this (as an aside, Patrick Kerr's The Films Of John Carpenter site concentrates a lot on JC LD and DVD news, so check it out regularly if you want this info) - this is what Brian Peterson managed to find out " i wrote to the universal web site about the thing and this is the reply i got:> >"Once the program is completed, I'm sure it will eventually be issued on DVD. However, I have no release information which indicates it will be any time soon."
Vampires Multimedia CD Tom Alaerts gives us the info on this "This weekend I found the french CineLive magazine which also includes a cd-rom with trailers, interviews, the like. I bought it because there was a preview fragment of vampieres on the cd ..... the GREAT 2 min. fragment: it is from the beginning of the movie: - a desert, you see a priest blessing Crow's team - Crow basically says "okay, I think we've got a nest here. I guess 6 ghouls and maybe a master. Any questions? No? Let's go" - then they walk towards the shack. music comes up here, i specially mention this because the music is different from what you expect of JC compositions: lots of slide guitar sounds that overlay the thumping bass. In a way, it seems more like a Ry Cooder soundtrack, which is no bad thing of course. It also resembles a bit the music at the start of They Live which also features guitar. - with some difficulty they open the door. there is some noise of blowing wind. The interior of the shack is dark and foreboding.

this is the end of the clip, so i saw some 1/45 to 1/50 of the movie.

noteworthy: as some people (who saw the complete movie stated) already stated: editing is a lot quicker than typical for jc movies, with cameras used from more angles simultaneously. However, the widescreen looks as good as ever And the way the team walk to the shack is really "wild bunch"-like." That sounds really cool and could be the first chance many of us will have to see a clip of Vampires.
Vampires Review 3 Well, someone did sneak into the AFM showing of Vampires and posted a review to Aint It Cool News - " ...one of the best JOHN CARPENTER films in a long time, the film VAMPIRE$ with James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa with a great score by the master himself. This movie is certainly among the top five of John Carpenter's films. The story is very tongue-in-cheek with some great dialogue and James Woods at his best. This is one of the hottest films at the market and Largo should be making a killing with this one. I don't have the time to go into details about the storyline. I just have to say it is a little jewel among all those bad films that are shown at the AFM this year." So we now have three totally positive reviews, fantastic!

News as of Feb 27th Late Update : JC French Press Conference The man is back, Snake Plissken is still keeping tabs on his old buddy JC, this time following him to France for a press conference - " Sandy King said the official site will be online in about a month. The countdown is on ! The official retrospective will be at the french cinematheque from 15 to 30 april. (in time for the release of Vampire). All his movies will be shown in widescreen in original english, including the one he produced & wrote and the TV body bags.
A book is also coming, MYTHES ET MASQUES, LES FANTOMES DE JOHN CARPENTER by Luc Lagier & Jean Baptiste Thoret, 336 pgs, 260 frs (about 26 £, ouch !). It's basically a long JC interview with more, according to the press release.
Carpenter said he doesn't surfs, but his son have shown him the Webpages dedicated to him... but then, he moves on to the X-Rated stuff ! Arf !" The book is good news, it has been mentioned on this site before. So, JC has checked out the websites, that is really cool news. So, Patrick, Mohammad, Erik and I (amongst others) have actually had our stuff seen by JC.
JC Live On TV I think this is on a French channel, I'll let Etienne give you the details " John Carpenter will be on C+ tomorrow (Friday) (18h30)... " It is today (Fri 27th Feb). Let's hope a load of people watch it and give us the lowdown.
More Sentinel News Thanks to Dan for getting us this info " PC Zone magazine has an article on Sentinel Returns. ... this to say regarding JC : Above all, Sentinel Returns is incredibly tense, and the John Carpenter soundtrack only enhances the claustrophobic and frightening atmosphere. Carpenter, the brilliantly talented director of (insert stream of Carp' movies) had never been any where near a computer game soundtrack in his life, simply because no one had ever asked him. So when the Cook (John Cook, owner of the company "No Name Games" who are producing the sentinel) approached the Carpenter, the Hollywood legend was delighted to oblige. With the deal signed, he was then left alone to create. As John Cook says "you don't tell John Carpenter how you want it done"
Feb 28th? As most if you know, tomorrow was the night that Vampires was rumoured to be premiering in the US. Seems a bit strange that none of us notice that this would be a Saturday, a strange day for a film to premiere. Anyway, still no news on a US release date or distribution company.
New Vampires Picture Just before midnight Captain Blake was wrapping on my door. I went to answer it but just as I got there my clock smashed. Strange.... anyway, I found this fantastic pic on my doorstep -

News as of Feb 24th Mr Anonymous Source (yep, him again) dropped in some interesting news, first off is The Vampires Stuff " Vampires will be shown here in the United States sometime during the week of February 26th to March 6th during the American Film Market. This huge convention is basically for all the mini production companies, like Largo, to come, have a screening for their film to all those interested in distributing it. Anyone who has a film for sale is at this thing, hawking their product at screenings. It takes place at the Loews Santa Monica Hotel. The main phone number for this hotel is 310-458-6700. Now understand that I can't professionally condone this, but a Carpenterphile nobody just might be able to sneak into this screening while posing as a somebody. " Good scoop there, but I second Mr Source in not condoning anyone trying to sneak into this showing.
The Thing Special Ed - What's Going On After discussing Vampires the skies began to darken, I am not happy with this news " The Signature Collection Laserdisk of John Carpenter's The Thing is, well in a word, not doing well. Frustrated by little or no word from Universal, I got a hold of a company who helps Universal out in the production. They told me, "John Carpenter's The Thing is still stuck in a supplemental quagmire, struggling to get completed." What does this mean to us? We'll be lucky if it's released before the millennium. " That is a real blow, can't Universal see how popular this is going to be?

News as of Feb 20th Vampires Review 2 Let me tell you something, when a guy with an eyepatch asks you outside for a game of Bangkok rules you don't hang around. I managed to dodge the homicidal interlude to snag a chat with Snake Plissken, who has been keeping an eye on the developments of JCs latest movie. He had this to say about a press screening he saw - "I saw the movie yesterday ... I loved it ! First, as Carpenter said, it is definetly a Western vampire movie. You do have every western cliche transposed into modern day :
- These guys chase vampires like cow-boys chase indians. - Vampires acts like indians, sneaking up when we least expect them. - These guys drinks and hassles women/whores like cow boys in a saloon. - Indians/vampire hide in the sands, and comes out at twilight - The ghost mexican town etc...
It starts with great SPOILER FREE shots of the deserts at twilight or dawn, with a Carpenter synth soundtrack that stick you to your seat. You know already it's gonna rock, and rock hard : heads blown up, people riddled with bullets, victims cut out in half, vampires staked thru the heart at close range, burned by the sun etc...

This movie is a catalog of every gruesome way to kill, and it does so with a sort of childish relish. There are many funny scenes all along, including Woods, always mouthing at everything and everyone, a psychopathic, but sympathetic Vampire Hunter. Carpenter manages to actually makes us almost believe Vampires actually do exists, and that the Catholic Church has commandos hunting and tracking them. It's a plus. In the middle of all these explosions and gunfighting (all done on a low budget, mind you, but very stylishly so), He takes time to set the reality of it all. Visually, Carpenter have changed. There are almost no long master shots anymore. He usually cover the scene with 4 to 8 cameras, and plays with it in the cutting room. The result is a fast paced kinetically cut movie, with many shorts shots. Sometimes, the photography and light isn't the same from shot to shot in one scene, but you don't notice it if you're not looking for it, and it works. It is way better cut than EFLA. For example, I love this early two shots of Wood, dark glasses on and crossbow in hand, panagliding on his face intercut with another similar panaglide on the house he is about to raid. I loved Carp earlier work because those camera shots panaglide actually made me jubilate. At last, I was seeing a beautifully shot movie, where the camera was used to create an emotion. Like Plissken running away from the crazies in the dark alley, remember ? The music helped create a distinctive signature style & mood, and here you have it back, only in an evoluted fashion, much faster and quicker. I think, like the other guy says, that the climax suffers from lack of action too. At one point, the soundtrack actually features gunfire sound when you actually do not see anyone firing. it is clear Carp tried to hype it up in the editing stage, because he lacked funds. The ending disappoint because it's way not elaborated after all you've seen before, but overall, it certainly ranks with the best Carpenter stuff, thought your girl friend may not like it at all. To scale it : better than Fog, EFLA, INVISIBLE MAN, or POD, not quite EFNY or Assault or Halloween, or the Thing, but great pace and great fun. Carpenter does not need to shoot a real western, this is the closest he has come to. " Another fantastic review, everything we have been discussing for ages seems to have come together, JC has delivered a fantastic film. Good to see another comments on the different techniques that JC seems to have used. From my point of view JC is famous for his 'wide angle' compositions, so it'll be interesting to see a different style on this movie. In reaction to this Snake said "...by wide, I mean usually Carp used long (30-50sec) shots in his early movies, he did not cut everything MTV style, now he does so. I wasn't talking about frame composition, but duration of shots."
Vampires Review! Thanks to everyone who pointed this one out, Harry Knowles Aint-it-Cool-News website has run a review of Vampires that has left me drooling, this is the info - "He's seen John Carpenter's VAMPIRES! Says it's an "...awesome flick" Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I want to see this baby now! Show me show me show me. By the way, how come Carpenter isn't with DIMENSION FILMS like Craven and Rodriguez? Hmmmm, food for thought.

I saw the movie at an early screening. No spoilers here, just to say : You wanted action packed super thrills, an awesome flick by Carpenter. You got it ! His best since Big Trouble in Little China IMHO. A Carpenter heart beat score, the P.O.V. shots, no beautiful wide master shots, but many quick cuts edited verrrrryyy well, ala Desperado, wide, close, closer, Blam, blood, head flying, corpses cut out in two, shit, it blow from dusk till dawn away ! 'Dialogue thrown from the actor's mouth of such gut wrenching coolness that you say it for years with that same raspy sound ?' Yes ! Wood is a little too foul mounthed IMHO, but you will love it. Full of gore, some funny scenes like the master vampire killing everybody at a party or the Vampires getting burned, the small budget can be felt sometimes, and the ending is a little disappointing (not enough gunfights, and the baddie [HARRY EDITED FOR YOUR OWN SANITY]). The scenes of the Vampires coming out of the earth is spine chilling. The score is cool, the opening credits just spells "this is gonna be cool, not like my latest movies guys". In short, COOL COOL COOL COOL CARPENTER !!!" That is every thing we wanted to hear, thank God Harry edited out the spoiler about the ending. C'mon Largo, get this film out there!
French Premiere Date This was sent in by Etienne, a regular contributor of great info "Vampires" will be out in France April, 15th. (from Premiere magazine)... John Carpenter should do a talk show on Canal Plus feb., 22th. ! "

News as of Feb 16th Major Vampires Update Okay, I know I have told you before that I have had 'the word' on Vampires from various industry insiders. Well, this is the big one. Completely undisputable facts that come from a very well placed source. There is no doubt about it, these are the facts - " The February release date never was. This may have come from some confusion over the Fantastica Festival at Gerardmer. We did not go to Gerardmer because we never told anyone we were going...Largo apparently did without asking us about it. There was no big reason for not going except that we were tired and then John had a hellacious bout with the flu. Instead, we are going to Paris next week to do press for the premier in April. We have had no censorship problems, much as I'm sure that lets some folks down. No scenes have been cut out of the movie. It has been rated "R" by the MPAA. Of course there's blood...they're vampires for Christ's sake...it's the nature of the beast, so to speak. The American distribution situation is a function of Largo's business decisions having to do with mergers and partnerships that have nothing to do with "Vampires". Bids were submitted by Fox, Sony, Live and MGM, among others. It's Largo's decisions about their catalogue and future as a company that are the deciding factors at this point. The photo of Jimmy with the cross is .... a pivotal plot point in the movie." So, facts - Vampires will premiere in France in April; The Feb US release date was never official. The last statement refers to a picture I posted last week, which I have now removed as I am anxious to not spread any spoilers (and I am sure everyone else out there will agree). The same source comments on The Reshoots : "Regarding the reports of our shooting in the Plaza in Santa Fe: 1. We never shot in the Plaza in Santa Fe. 2. Principal photography took place from June 2, 1997-August 4, 1997 in Santa Fe, N.M. 3. The only reshoots took place for 3 hours the first week of October when we reshot an insert of a portrait of Valek that we hadn't liked and an insert of a hand pulling the trigger of a shotgun. 4. The film was delivered to Largo on December 24 th...10 release prints were already sent to distributors in Europe over a month ago. It's done...it's complete...it's over, okay?" Just to put icing on the cake, here is the same source commenting on the Sentinel Computer Game "Yes, John DID score the upcoming video game, "The Sentinel Returns" for Psygnosis. No particular reason other than that they asked him to and he thought it was cool. He is an avid video game player." I urge everyone to keep a lookout for that game, not just for the JC connection but it is also a fantastic game.
The Official JC Website The same source (I know, I have been spoiled) has cleared up something that us net folks have been anxious about for a while- "The John Carpenter web site should open a little later this year. Eventually it will include "domains" covering all the films and projects. Since we're a sitting target, I have to be careful about all the legal clearances on use of materials from each studio and it's taking an ungodly amount of time to make it through the legal morass. I'll let you know when it's getting close."
'Official' Vampires Pictures A lot of pics have been flying around the web (quite a lot from my site) of the new JC movie. I like t give credit to the proper sources (people are working their butss off out there) so here are the credits for all the pictures I have run from the Mad Movies magazine - "The proper photo credits should be to Neil Jacobs (the photographer) and Storm King Productions/Largo Entertainment hold the copyrights."

News as of Feb 13th The Word On Vampires This excellent update found its way into my mailbox early this morning. Thank you for the news, you know who you are, "My source tells me this is the solid truth on Vampires' status: It has been sold completely foreign at this point- it will premiere in Paris in April at the Cinematheque Francaise as a tribute to John and will contain a full retrospective of his career. There is no US domestic release date, as no domestic deals have been struck yet- four companies are bidding with Largo for the domestic rights."
More Vampires Pictures Yep, thanks to Tom again for sending me these scans from the French Mad Movies magazine. Tom thinks (and I agree) that the extremely gory picture of the vampire slaying may be one of the scenes to fall foul of the censors cuts. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

News as of Feb 12th Very, Very Cool. Tom Alaerts has come up trumps and delivered this fantastic picture ..... (REMOVED see news on Feb 16th)

News as of Feb 10th No French Premiere This dissapointing news was submitted by Etienne "Vampire" didn't premiere at the Gerarmer film festival as it was announce. I don't know why. I'm looking for some informations. as soon as I get some, I'll tell you ! " So no concrete reasons why it wasn't shown and I am loathe to start any unfounded speculation.
The Reshoots? Many people have commented on the news of the reshoots for Vampires. The general consensus seems to be that they may be filming extra scenes for the trailer. This sounds fine, but the trailer was spotted in France a few weeks ago, so how does that fit into this?
Prince Of Darkness On DVD Many people have contacted me about this, all bursting to tell me the great news that POD is getting a widescreen DVD release. Brian says "just go to www.kencranes.com and check it out "
Alan Howarth Album Chris dropped in to give me this news"Here's an item J.C. fans may be interested in. Long time music collaborator, Alan Howarth, has just released a sound FX CD featuring some of the work he's contributed to films. It is unknown what the album contains at this point...just sixteen tracks...hopefully some Big Trouble or They Live stuff will be included. "
Vampires Special Effects Scoop This undead reporter managed to file this info on his way to the blood bank "... Greg Nicotero (his KNB Effects did VAMPIRES makeup effects) ..... has seen the finished film and thought it very good. "Every bit of blood, sweat and tears everybody gave to make this movie is on the screen. This is one of those movies where every element, story, effects, direction, actors, everything, comes together and is even better than you thought it was going to be when you were working on it." .... he and Carpenter are very good friends. .... confirmed that there are no CGI effects in the film because "John wanted to make a classic horror movie, not a here's the monster now watch him morph kind of thing" Nicotero seemed as lost as anyone as to why the film hasn't sold for U.S. distribution yet. He didn't seem to feel that BLADE was much of a factor. Nicotero also made it pretty clear in describing VAMPIRE's effects that it will be very gory. He said to prepare for the aftermath of one fight between humans and vampires that they walked around the set with supersoaker guns loaded with stage blood and covered everything and everybody, including some 19 victims scattered about the room."

News as of Feb 6th Wierd Vampires Goings On The ever vigilant Tom Alaerts has brought to my attention the following startling news on Harry's Aint It Cool News website - just read this "Here's the scoop (?) from Bone Thug...I am from Santa Fe, NM. And well I was recently walking around the plaza, when I saw a film crew and tape blocking off about three blocks. I went to go check it out and it turns out that they were filming a John Carpenter film called something like VAMPIRES and it seemed like it is gonna be a cool as Hell movie, but I didn't see much just about maybe 45 minutes of filming where it seems like they hadn't gotten nothing done, but it was also a cool little set that they had set up in the middle of the plaza. It seemed like it consisted of the cathedral that is in Santa Fe, and was being used as the main set, and they had lots of barrels of blood around so it seems like it's gonna be a bloody as hell movie, but I'll keep you posted on what's going on. They said that they were gonna be filming here in Santa Fe for the next three weeks, so I'll keep you >posted". That contradicts all our reports so far that Vampires has finished shooting and was even premiered in a recent festival in France. Thanks to Tom for pointing it out to us. My take on this? Unless these are 'reshoots' I would say that this is either old or incorrect news. Loads of sources (publicists, journalists, crew members, etc.) informed me of the shoot ending last August and I still stand by that.

News as of Feb 5th Vampires Snippets The UK mag Neon has an article on Vampires that mentions a few interesting points. The most intrigiuing is that no CGI FX will be used (contradicting some older stories), the fx will all be good old latex and fake blood. The rest of the article is pretty much stuff we know (i.e. Valick was created in the 14th century by the church, he 'bites' Sheryl Lee and a psyhcic link is created between the two, etc.) The article also confirms that it is an extremely violent film. JC has mentioned that a lot of scenes have been cut but will be available in the laserdisc version. Anyway, I'm off out to buy my copy now.
Vampires - Keep Your Eyes Peeled According to The Carpenticized Side Of The Web the US should be seeing clips and maybe even a trailer for Vampires soon.
French Premiere Did it premiere in that French film festival? I havn't had any news reports on it yet but you can be sure that I will post them here as soon as I have, the usual informants are working hard to try and get the scoop.

News as of Feb 3rd More Vampires Pictures Garth, over at the fantastic and rapidly expanding Dark Horizons movie news website, has a new picture of Vampires from Total Film. Get on over there and check it out. The picture shows a group of Vampires standing around, the other picture (not on Garths site) was the shot of Team Crow and their crossbows, we have already seen that one.

News as of Feb 2nd Still No Distributor Stewart is keeping us up to date on this "Spoke to the press office last monday and they told me that as soon as a distrubtor is found they will let me know. Also they will be setting up interviews as soon as they can. The film will however, have a festival release to attract some publicity, thats all i have for now. " The festival was announced here in the Jan 23rd news.
US Release Date This is from Laurent "Well, it is apparently official that John Carpenters Vampires starts playing in the U.S. on Friday, February 27th. The Daily News has a full page entertainment section at the end of every month to show what is coming to video, theaters, and cinemas for the following month. John Carpenters Vampires was listed in that section (page 52) of today's paper as premiering at the end of February." That goes along with the date we already now, but it seems very unlikely that Vampires will get a distributor and secure anough opening weekend screens in just three weeks.

News as of Jan 23rd The Vampires Preview and Interview Tom Alaerts has managed to get hold of some fantastic info about the premiere of Vampires, which looks certian to be taking place in France. This long message from Tom also has some great interview snippets "Yesterday I found the new "Mad Movies" at the newsstand. It is a special about the sf,horror&fantasy film festival in Gerardmer (France). And guess what: Vampires will be shown in world-premiere. JC and gorgeous Sheryl Lee will attend. It will not be shown in the competition series I don't know the exact day, the festival takes place between 28/1 and 1/2. Anyway, there is a very cool 2-pages article about the movie. 3 pics are shown, one with an impaled vampire was already shown in a british SFX mag. A close-up of Sheryl with good old vampire fangs. And the coolest pic of all: James Woods with the magical crucifix that the vampires are looking for. I will now translate some of the highlights of the article (not very efficient: an interview in English was translated to French for the magazine and now I have to translate it back to English. Some subtleties will inevitably be lost, but you will get the idea).
John Carpenter: "I always wanted to make a vampire movie. When I was offered to adapt the book, I discovered some elements that weren't shown before in this kind of movie. It takes place in the south of the states and has many similarities with westerns. It gave me the possibility of making a vampire movie that would be a lot different from those we already know."
Mad Movies rightly remarks that "Near Dark" by Catherine Bigelow could be the exception.
James Woods: "Instead of good guys following criminals, the movie shows a bunch of hunters chasing the vampires. You will see a lot of setpieces which are in obvious homage to John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and Howard Hawks".
Sandy King: "If you make an abstraction about the context, the similarity is really obvious. Replace the vampires with criminals, think "Rio Bravo" by Howard Hawks, and you will see how JC marches in the footsteps of his idols".
(Mad Movies asks "And Sergio Leone? It seems that JC is also inspired by Leone's heroes which are neither really good nor bad?" JC: "Of course, you will find the same kind of duality, but it is even more ironic. So you will find humans hunting the creatures of the night, repressed sexuality that is liberated, the thirst for blood. All the stereotypes will be used. But I always loved westerns and I accepted to do Vampires because I could approach the western genre.". Mad Movies: ... which is evident from the first image on...

----- SPOILER ALERT: NEXT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE ---- In excellently used cinemascope (my note: this is one of the techniques that JC can't be beat in) JC shows semi-desertlike plains with only a ruin in sight. Nobody could live there. Except a vampire. Jack Crow and his team show up, a very sarcastic Woods even says "a real wild bunch" (my note: probably for those with limited film culture). The team investigate the place and proceed by exterminating some ten vampires. In such a wild, raw, inhuman way that makes Van Helsing look like a choir boy. Big troubles demand big measures. At night, the hunters leave, behind them only some ashes remain. To celebrate their victory they go to a motel and order whores, whiskey and other substances. Until the understandably very pissed Valek comes along and kills almost all the people in the motel. Only Crow, his right hand Montaya and prostitute Katrina (Sheryl Lee) survive. But Katrina has some scars caused by Valek on her thigh... JC: "It takes 4 to 5 days for the virus to take over. Katrina is of special interest to Crow because now she sometimes is in some telepatic contact with Valek. Then she can see what he sees." ------- END OF SPOILER ALERT ------

Then Sheryl Lee gives a typical hollywoodlike account of the research she did for the role. Imagine, she's a vegetarian! I didn't bother to translate it. 2 nice other passages: JC: "A vampire movie without sex isn't a vampire movie." Mad Movies: The hunters have an excuse for their barbarian way of life, because a priest gives them absolution before every mission. Which JC films with obvious pleasure.
Strangely, Mad Movies doesn't give a real review. Perhaps they only saw the beginning at this moment. We'll have to wait but let's hope you get a review from one of the visitors at Gerardmer...Vampires will premiere in France on april 22 or may 13". I think everyone who reads these pages, and myself, really appreciate you typing this up for us Tom.

News as of Jan 8th Parlez Vous Francais? Do you speak French? Ever fancied an excuse to visit France? Well, now you have one, because it seems that Vampires will get it's first release there. David Fakrikian drops in this info "Get ready for this...If you haven't taken the Eurostar yet, the perfect opportunity will come up...French have always regarded Carpenter as an author... The distributors are always eager to get JC's next...Hence....VAMPIRES WILL BE DISTRIBUTED IN FRANCE THIS SPRING IN A WORLDWIDE EXCLUSIVE !!!! I think we are talking about a march/may issue at the worst !Saw the trailer on TV and making of and JC interview yesterday...JC says it's "The Wild Bunch with Vampires".Looks ass kicking and great ! " Great news and I am dying to see that trailer.

News as of Jan 6th Vampires Don't Get Around Still looks like no distributor set, this is the latest from a well placed source, the quotes have been changed to protect the source from deportation to the penal colony of the former LA,"there is NO UK or US distributor just yet but they a're very close" and "there was a screening for buyers right before Christmas, the film received a lot of interest." So, at least it seems certain that the final print has been cut.

News as of Jan 5th 1998 I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a suitably debauched New Year. Some of this news is a few weeks old, so this is a post-holidays update.
Vampires Distributor A few regular contributors have checked in with info on this, Kim August says "the Vampires publicist just left me a message, she said there is still no US distributor as of yet, but "we are getting close" and INTER says "I spoke with the publicist for Largo (the film's producer) today and was told that the film still did not have a set U.S. distributor. They did seem to think that negotiations were close and might be signed by the first of the year." So, that last piece suggests the distributor should be signed by now, anyone have any follow up on this?
Blade INTER has confirmed a rumour that "BLADE has been pushed back to August". This means that hopefully JC's Vampires will have the first bite at the vampire movie cherry in '98.
Vampires - First Look Ok, this is the news we have all been waiting for, David F says "... the french premiere mag.... said he have seen the vampire trailer... He says it's "assault" with vampires instead of outlaws assieging the precinct. The trailer is full of hard rock music, and James Wood nails a vampire with a cross bow... I haven't seen it, but if one tape is in circulation, it means more tapes will surface, and I will check and get back to you." Then our old friend The Man In The Black Suit, the undercover Vampires crew member, dropped this fantastic news "::::looking around the room with 2 chrome 9mm drawn and ready::::: I went to the premiere of Vampires the other day, if you have any questions feel free to write me, but beware: it takes a few days to answer my mail cause its hard to find time to sit down at a computer when you are being chased by the cops! ::::sirens:::: ::::running out of the warehouse, blasting my way to freedom::::::" I will have more on that as soon as he gets chance to contact me. So, when can WE see Vampires? This is from August 3 "Alos, rumor has it that Universal is set to begin audience test screenings sometime in January.", so keep a lookout. Of course, this rumour indirectly suggests that Universal are going to distribute Vampires. The same source also shares this info - "Found a long, detailed script review of the Carpenter draft at this address: http://www.writerswebsite.com/reviews/script/vampire/vampires.html", beware though, it contains SPOILERS, so read it at your own peril.
Vampires Magazine This is a bit old, but the Jan 98 issue of SFX magazine had a full page preview of Vampires with some cool pictures I have not seen anywhere else.

News as of Dec 9th Vampires Distributor This news is courtesy of the Carpenticized Side Of The Web "Hey-yo folks! Over at Marc Brights site some time ago it was reported that Vampire$ did not have a studio to distribute the film. Well today, a little bird got caught in my mailbox and I managed to wring its neck long enuff to find out that the distributor is Universal. Well that sounds like good news, I mean they did release JC's remake of THE THING didn't they? " Does anyone have any extra info about this?
Vampires - some plot snippets. Some extra info on the plot of Vampires has come to light. Valick (Thomas Ian Griffith), the head vampire, is the result of a botched exorcism from over 600 years ago. So, in a sense, the Vaticam church are responsible for creating him. This sounds really cool to me.

News as of Dec 8th John Steakley - His View John Steakley, as some of you will know, has been in contact with this page (amongst others) to share his thoughts on the upcoming adaptation of his novel -

Dear Sir,

It is extremely flattering that you take such interest. I must tell you, however, that I am only dissappointerd in John's script in the sense that...Well, If I'dve wanted to write that story...I would have written that story. Yet, I do, rather more than a little, like Carpenter's version of vampire hunters. And, while I'm at this, I like him. I showed up in Santa Fe unnanounced and uninvited and could NOT have been treated better. John - busy as Hell- and his wife, Sandy King Carpenter, and James (call me Jimmy) Woods and all the crew ...and everyone else I met, were wonderful. Generous, kind, considerate and, once they realized I wasn't there to complain about my "baby" being aborted, more fun than anyone deserves.

God bless,

Steakley

News as of Dec 3rd Just a quick update today to round up some of the news. First off I had an interesting note, attatched to a crossbow bolt none the less, narrowly miss me while I was hunched over this computer. The note turned out to be from John Steakley, clearing up a few points. First off, although Vampires (the movie) is very different to the book Steakley does not hate it, in fact he likes it. He also enjoyed meeting JC and the rest of the crew while they were filming down on Santa Fe.

News as of Nov 21st Steakley Speaks - More Detail Just a few snippets from the interview (see the news of Nov 19th). Steakley is not really happy with all the changes but he does not bare a grudge against JC, he actually likes him. There is no Felix character (the gunslinger in the novel) in the movie. The title has been confirmed by Stealey as Vampires, though Steakley may not be the definitive source.

News as of Nov 19th Steakley Speaks Dave over at the John Steakley fan site has this to say " I chatted with John live on November 1, and among other things, we talked about the upcoming movie. I will have a slightly edited transcript up there in the next day or so, but I wanted to let you know a few things he said about it: He said that most of the book was gone. He said Carpenter kept some of the dialogue, but changed all of the rest. Also, he said one reason it had been changed so much was because almost a third of the budget was cut after Carpenter started filming, which forced Carpenter to radically change his plans. For instance, apparently, they were supposed to film in Rome, but had to cut that part. He said Carpenter was already looking for his next project before Vampire$ was even finished, and that he didn't blame him one bit. Anyhow, you'll be able to read all about it tomorrow or the day after, whenever I get the time to post the transcript on the page." I can't wait for that full transcript. Some interesting and unheard of news there, I wasn't aware of any budget slashing (something that seems to happen to JC quite a bit). Notice the quote about JC looking for his next project? That is the first thing we have heard to possibly dispel the 'JCs last film' rumour that has been going around.
Blade Delayed A big shout out to Bruce of the official Halloween Movies site for this " Just wanted to let you know that BLADE has "supposedly" been delayed until August 7th. Of course we'll have towait and see if they definitely have delayed it, but that's the word I've been hearing. That means that Carpenter can get the jump on them if he can get a distributor and get VAMPIRES out sometime in late winter or Spring before the BIG movies come out in late spring and summer.". That could be the best news we've had this week.
Vampires or Vampire$? Kolchak has got back in touch with me to clean up some of the film confusion. The production notes all refer to the film as John Carpenter's Vampires, the word Vampire$ is only used when referring to the source novel. Seems like Vampires is the current title.

News as of Nov 18th An Industry Insider Speaks I have just finished chatting with Renfield, who, through a mouth full of beetles, gave me a great view of the current state of Vampire$ - " Having just finished the John Steakley novel, Vampire$ ... was surprised to read today's excerpt from your site that no title had been definitively chosen. As far as I have been informed, the title still is Vampire$. Now the problem is when you hear something on E! or on the radio they certainly can not say Vampire Dollar Sign, They have to say Vampires. I also know that JC and Co. spent some pretty pennies to get the rights to Steakley's novel. But from what I hear as well is that Steakley is not pleased with JC's adaptation of his novel to the big screen (Reported here first - MB). Apparently not much has survived in the transfer which is not a surprise when considering the director. JC always has had a habit of making the projects his own. In terms of Vampire$ not having a U.S. Distributor yet ... would consider that a bad thing, but I think it's best for Carpenter. Look at all of his films, the best were always his years not working at or with a major studio, i.e. Halloween, The Fog, EFNY, etc. I think when JC is working with a small company, not a lot of money, but not a lot of suits breathing down his neck either, he works at his best. JC had originally wanted to get Vampire$ out before the Wesley Snipes vampire thriller Blade which is set for a February release. Most likely the distributors will want to see if Blade does well before bidding on Vampire$. Now this can work for or against Carpenter. If Blade tanks at the box office, no one is going to want to spend any decent amount buying the rights for, advertising, and releasing Vampire$. Bad for Carpenter. If Blade is a success then distributors will go into a buying frenzy over Vampire$, good for Carpenter. Worse case scenario and, unfortunately, the most likely. Blade sinks at the box office. Who wants to spend a lot on Vampire$? It's not like James Woods is the type of actor to draw in crowds. Either a small company picks it up and tries to release it next spring where it gets crushed amongst heavyweights like Godzilla. Or a larger company buys it and doesn't give it much of a release. Probably dumps it in August or October of 1998. Either way, if the film doesn't get released by April of 98 don't expect to see it until the end of the summer, earliest. The saving grace? Yes, one. Carpenter goes back to his old style of filming and pulls a trick or two out of his hat. He makes a film worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Halloween, The Fog, The Thing and EFNY. Can he? If I hear anything new..." About the title, that is a fair argument about why we have not heard the dollar sign title, but as of now the two advertising posters both state 'John Carpenter's Vampires', so I am going to stick with that title for now. This clash with Blade seems unfortunate, especially as a few advance previews have labelled it as a stinker. The postponing of the release data could be a reality as well, we shall just have to wait and see.

News as of Nov 17th Another Vampires Web Page - The Pulp Cult Horror Highway, in the Hall Of Horrors section, has a load of stuff on Vampires. Instead of me telling you all about it, go and check it out for yourselves.
But, I can't help myself so I am going to mention some of the juicier titbits in the real player interviews with the cast - Woods likens the film to a classic Western; namechecking Ford, Peckinpah, Hawks, esp. how similar the film is to The Wild Bunch. Sheryl Lee confirms what we know about her role; she is a hooker who has a psychic link with Valick the master vampire. Team Crow take her hostage in order to track down Valick. Baldwin plays Wood's right hand man Montoya, his buddy; thecharacter sounds like a bit of a joker. Griffith (Valick) gave us a fair bit of stuff, he is the original Vampire and the Vatican have been sending slayers after him for over 600 years, he has killed hundreds of them. Valick is trying to find the cross that will help him walk in the daylight. The page in question keeps referring to the film as Vampire$, which I actually prefer as a title. Anyone know what the actual title is yet? Mark Boone Jr (one of the slayers) talks about how Team Crow come across a nest that contains the master vampire.

News as of Nov 14th More Info On Vampires Kolchak, taking time out from his busy schedule of chasing spooks long before Mulder and Scully came on the scene, has sent me some info on Vampires, the latest update to hit the streets - " As of yet the film does not have a distribution company or date for the US, the film is finished and awaiting test reactions. ..12 colour transparencies, which are fantastic.... These will appear in a popular film magazine this December and will be the first exclusive in the country dealing with Vampires. ...rushes for the film and can say that there is a sequence dealing with Valick and a motel which is truly awesome.
Screenplay credits are to Carpenter, Don Jackoby and Dan Mazur.
Producer is Sandy King.
Cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe
Production designer Thomas A Walsh. TV's MGM, When The Lion Roared, The Kingfish.
Editor Edward A. Warschilka - Rambo III EFLA etc
Costume designer Robin Michael Bush - EFLA - They Live - etc
Special Make up effects Greg Nicotero
Music John Carpenter
Films location - New Mexico.

There are CG elements in the film...Merchandise? I have no idea the only press promotions....are a cap and T-shirt and aren't that much to write home about.
One exclusive you may not have heard about is a character called Bambi which is played by a stunt man named David Rowden. " Quite an extensive update there. So, the film is ready and awaiting test reactions. Keep those eyes peeled for any sightings of this movie.

Who Will Distribute Vampires? Kim August, has delivered some interesting info. According to the Vampires publicist it still has no US distributor.

News as of Nov 4th Vampires On E! No, JC's films have not degenerated into drugs orgies, this is a note from Bruce Dierbeck, of the Official Halloween Movies Website, about an appearance of this film on E! "I was watching E! yesterday and they had a thing about vampire movies on. Yes, they showed some quick behind the scenes (and I mean quick, maybe a total of 10 seconds) of John Carpenter's VAMPIRES. One shot was of the main vampire (I believe) with steam coming from his head and his mouth, or something to that effect. Cool stuff. We also get a scene of Jimmy Woods shooting his gun and jumping past a camera as Sheryl Lee sits in the background trying to keep her head down. I take it she's scared shitless in that scene! Then, Woods talks about how this movie is like THE WILD BUNCH but with vampires. Lucky for all John Carpenter fans, I taped the segment. So, when things get less hectic, I'll scan some pics and maybe make some sounds and send them to you early next week for your web page." Thanks Bruce, I'll look forward to receieving those pictures. The Wild Bunch is one of my fave movies and Woods one of my fave actors, I cannot wait to see this film.

News as of Oct 29th Vampires - The Word From The Horses Mouth This plot summary was sent to me by Kim August "just spoke with the publicist for Vampire$ and am seeing if I can get any kind of interviews w/Carpenter and/or cast/crew. I can tell you that she told me there is still no US distributor and that Carpenter is still toiling away in post-production. Got a short synopsis of the film too.... 'A squad of vampire slayers is organized by the Vatican to exterminate vampires unleashed by the Church years prior. In their efforts the squad takes a prostitute hostage, because after being bitten by the Lord of the vampires she has a telepathic link to him.' "

News as of Oct 27th Vampire$ - Steakley's Characters - This is background info sent to me by a super cool anonymous vampire hunter "I met John Steakly several years ago at a party, I knew he would be there so I played several pranks on him that night { Warning, John is afraid of vampires, trust me}. I had read Armor and Vampire$ had recently come out in print. I learnt that night that I knew most of the people that John writes about--
Jack Crow---Jack Crain --the best man at my wedding!---Jack is a knife and sword maker and lives in Weatherford TX Davette--
Davette Shands---Gorgeous lady that John has known for years--She and her husband-- David Cherry [an excellent painter]live in Kansas City --I think, I haven't seen Davette in over a year.
David Cherry and Cat Conrad, another local writer, gave their names to Cherry Cat. I am not sure of the spelling of David's last name, his sister{C.J. Cherryh} spells hers differently.
There are other people that are In the book but I do not know them or am not able to give any info."

News as of Oct 21st More Vampires Pictures I have the rest of those pictures scanned from the Mad Movies magazine, (so they are copyrighted by them ). Thanks to Etienne Barillier for scanning in these for me. Any reproduction of these images on other sites should give credit to Mad Movies, Etienne Barillier and lastly myself (with a link to this website). (To view the pictures Go To The Multimedia Section).

News as of Oct 6th A Large Update Of Stuff I have been on holidays for a while, so I am catching up.
Vampires Pictures! Yes, I have some piccies from the Vampires movie (scanned from the Mad Movies magazine, so they are copyrighted by them I suppose). Thanks to Etienne Barillier for scanning in these for me. Any reproduction of these images on other sites should give credit to Mad Movies, Etienne Barillier and lastly myself (hopefully with a link to this website).(To view the pictures Go To The Multimedia Section).

JC Is Scoring Vampires Thanks to Bruce Dierbeck for this news "John Carpenter is doing the score for VAMPIRES. He started working on it on September 16th. So, he's got a good start on it right now. Hope that info comes in handy. " It sure does, thanks Bruce.

News as of Sept 23rd More Reflections Of A Vampire Tom Alaerts has got in touch with me to give some of his impressions of that Mad Movies article : .... you will drool over the photo of vampires coming majestically out of the ground. A typical JC atmosphere, a bit like the nameless killers of Assault or Prince of Darkness. Another pic shows James Woods with an elaborate cross-bow And the gorgeous Sheryl Lee is shown too. And of course a few (classical looking) vampire pics, including a "dissolved" one (the light!). From the article: it will NOT be like interview with a vampire, from dusk till dawn or coppola's dracula (jc doesn't even really like these), but a typical "wayward" JC approach: a cross between a spaghetti western and a vampire movie. This is probably the closest he has come to a real western (many of his movies are constructed as westerns). There will be some gore that is designed NOT to look funny (thus unlike dusk-dawn) but shocking. The fx will look very direct (make-up, fake blood, but no computer fx). The most powerful scenes will probably only make it on laserdisc. Also a mini interview with Woods about differences between Cronenberg and JC. He also said that the budget was really low. Should be no problem as most low-budget JC movies are superior to his bigger but slicker movies...Just one hope: that JC composes the soundtrack himself... Thanks for all that info Tom, does anyone have any info on who is doing the soundtrack for this movie? I also hope it is JC, it seems likely it will be if it is a low budget movie (JC has always says he uses his own material cos he is 'cheap').

News as of Sept 19th Vampires Script I am just providing this information.. The script can be bought online, from the Video Junkie website, as pointed out to me by Dave "The script is available for sale online at http://www.vidjunkie.com/, Check it out (if you want to find it directly, go to http://www.vidjunkie.com/update.htm". On a related note, Video Junkie is a cool magazine that I recommend to everyone. It is so cool that the special Halloween Horror Edition (coming out at about the end of October) will have a Vampires article in it written by yours truly, Marc Bright.

News as of Sept 18th That Mad Movies Magazine - A Fresh Plea Long time contributor to these pages David Fakrikian has kindly got in touch with me about the New Mad Movies interview (I think the mag is called Mad Movies) that JC did "Due to lack of time, I cannot translate the mad movies interview, but it is a good read, and features many pics looking good. John says it is a western vampire movie! Here's the mag url http://dual.net/mad/, But there is nothing on the new issue yet." Thanks for the URL and the info Dave. So, I ask again, does anyone have a copy of this interview that they can transcribe and send to me?
And There's More.... The excellent Dave Fakrikian (go and visit his entertainment 'zine Looker) has got in touch with me to give me more info on that interview "I am currently eating in front of my computer, so I take a few minutes to give you more about JC interview : He says he filmed a lot of gore stuff, expecting it to be cut for the R theater release, but reinstated in the laserdisc. It will be totally unlike other recent vampire movie like From Dusk Till Dawn (Rodriguez) much more serious in terms of characters. The hero, Wood, was almost a priest, whereas the main baddie, (Ian Griffith) is a priest that went wrong. The pics shows James Wood holding an awesome futuristic bow, made of steel. Ian Griffith and Sheryl Lee are also featured (Sheryl Lee interview)... also a great shot of vampires walking... in plain daylight ! You got it ! The plot revolves along a crucifix than can give the vampires protection from daylight. One of the shots is that of a crucifix drowned in a pool of blood... this issue is HOT for all Carpenters fans." The plot lines mentioned here differ a great deal from the novel, so we do have some huge differences between Steakley's Vampire$ and John Carpenter's Vampires. This thing sounds cooler all the time.
Something Scary This is an old piece of news that fellow JC van vicvega posted to the alt.movies.john-carpenter newsgroup (what do you mean you don't read it, why not?). Anyway - Date: 1997/07/13 In the new issue of SCI-FI Universe, there's a listing for JC's VAMPIRES. It says that Steven Seagal could possibly star. Thank God this never came to be. - I couldn't have put it better myself.

News as of Sept 15th Les Interview De John Carpenter I got this excellent piece of news in my mailbox In the New Mad Movies (french mag devoting fantastci movies), there is an interview (4 pages) of John Carpenter about the shooting of Vampires Jérôme WYBON. Thanks Jerome, and sorry about my terrible French headline. I am begging everyone who reads these pages to send me a transcript of this interview, please.

News as of Aug 22nd Vampires - Action! Some little snippets about the Vampires script have dropped into my mailbox, from an unidentifiable though extremely cool source "I just finished reading the script (First Draft, March 17, 1997 by Don Jakoby, Dan Mazur, John Carpenter) and while this version does seem to be lacking much in anything but action and gore, it looks like it should be a damn fun Carpenter film." So, the other comments we had about Jacoby's original script centering on action seem to hold true for JCs re-writes as well. I don't really think this is a problem, Vampires is an extremely visceral novel that does have some deeper elements. Ok, so the deeper elements may have been ditched, but as the source says, this should still be a great JC film. Also, notice the name Dan Mazur? Not credited as a writer in any previous information I have. Here is a link to his IMDB page (assuming it is the same guy), his only previous credit there is Night Of The Scarecrow. Anyone have any information on that film?

News as of Aug 15th A rebuttal (of sorts) Today is a good day for news. No sooner do I have the scoop on Vampires but someone who knows John Steakley kindly gets in touch with me (a big thanks for this info to JB). My interpretations of RezivorDg's comments on cast members and script details were premature. Sheryl Lee's character is not based on Davette and the script is pretty different to the movie : >>John Carpenter is filming "Vampire$" this summer, but he changed the script.. John S. doesn't understand why they changed the story up so much, if they were willing to pay him so well for his story, but shut up and took the money anyway . . they wrote out "Davette Shands"...<< Hmm, so, we are all still pretty much in the dark on script details.
Vampires - the man in black interview : Ok, this is a big one. I have been extremely lucky to have some hot info on Vampires dropped into my mailbox by the man in the funky black and white suit, RezivoirDg. We chewed the fat about Madonna's Like A Virgin then went on to discuss the movie (as is usual on this page quotes from the source are in italics - everything else is me)-
How closely is JC following the source novel?no i havent read the novel, but i will tell you that the team crow... OK, sorry folks, this bit is censored so as not to spoil the movie for those that havn't read the book. Suffice to say that the info I was divulged follows some pretty big parts of the book, some very important plot points.
What is the budget? I'll tell you this, its not BIG budget but it will be a cool flick
What are the roles of each cast member?Sheryl Lee=Katrina
Thomas Ian Grifith=Valick head vampire
Tim Ginniuie=Father Adam From the Vatican, same name as the novel character.
Mark Boon=Katlin (slayer) Possibly - Jack Crow's sidekick Cat, a funny guy in the novel, always ready with a quip.
Cary Tagawa=slayer Deyo
Henry Kinji=slayer Anthony
James Woods=Jack Crow
Daniel baldwin= Tony Montoya...but is always called montoya
Hmm, I think the Montoya character is the gunslinger known as Felix in the novel. I did have an e-mail suggesting that Baldwin was going to play Felix, well done Joseph Amenta. The slayer's are the members of Jack Crow's vampire slaying team.
What was it like working with JC? As for working with john, i found it to be one of the most incredibl.e experiences of my life, he was incredible...funny, pleasant to work with...but at the same time, i kept my distance.
What scenes did you see them filming? I witnessed about half of the actual filming....the slayers killing vamps, slayers getting killed, valick flying.....blowing up a motel....slayers dying...etc\
I have heard that Jacoby either wrote the first draft, how much did JC re-write the script? I dunno about that jacoby guy, i thought JC did the whole thing...
We have heard rumours (that have never been confirmed) of JC's ill health, how did he seem? John is fine, as far as i know...he never seemed to be in any unhealthy condition...the guy is no mr. universe but i wouldnt say that he is dying or anything. I thought so, still plenty of time for that Thing sequel then!
What do you think of the film? I think this film is going to be really cool...some great makeup effects and it seems like a lot of action, as for how scary it will be, hey this is JOHN CARPENTER...what i saw wasnt scary, only because i knew it was all coming, but from my experience on the set, i cant wait to see the final product.
We would have spoken some more but the cops came round the corner and our man left with guns blazing.

News as of Aug 13th Vampires release date : Yes, even more Vampires news! Geekmania reports that the release date of Vampires is Feb 27th 1998, that is for the US. Us third-world citizens will probably have a few more months to wait.The US date looks like it could clash with the release of BLADE, which I have been informed is also a Vampire movie. A garlic thanks to Mohammad Khan for this info.

News as of Aug 7th Jacoby Screenwriter? An interesting bit of info dropped into my mailbox this morning concerning the Vampires script (thanks Jay) : I read the original treatment of VAMPIRE$ - I believe by Jakoby but I'm not 100% sure (it was over a year ago). Having been a HUGE fan of the book I was very excited - unfortunately, the screenplay did not live up to my expectations. In any case, he ended up watering it down and weeding out a lot of the best, angst-ridden stuff and turned it into a pretty straight forward action movie. Then I found out that John Carpenter would be re-writing it and I have hope again. Unfortunately the only clips we have seen for Vampires are of the action sequences, so we have no idea of how much JC rewrote.
E! Interviews Ryan has kindly informed me that E! Tonight usually repeat a lot of their stuff : I'm a devoted E! watcher and I find that usually during the weekend editions of E! New daily (for the weekend it's E! News week in review) they rehash some of the stories they played during the week. I cannot guarantee this but maybe you should check it out. The first airing I believe is Friday night.

News as of Aug 5th Vampires News The E! interviews featuring JC, Woods, Baldwin etc. aired yesterdat on August 4th. Did anyone catch them? Please, get in touch with me and give me a full run down if you have. Bruce Dierbeck has kindly got in touch with me about these interviews - Just wanted to say THANKS for posting the info about the interviews with E! with the cast of JC's VAMPIRES. But, sorry to be late, but those interviews aired TODAY! I just got done channel surfing and saw James Woods so I stopped. It turned out to be clips and interviews with the newest Carpenter flick. I'm sorry I can't really explain much cuz I was just so SHOCKED that they showed clips already. Basically they consisted of James Woods and Daniel Baldwin kicking some ass and firing some cool ass guns. Woods looks cool as a Vampire Hunter. They got a few words from Woods, Baldwin, and Carpenter. Carpenter just basically said it took a while for him to accept the fact that people saw him as a Horror director. Baldwin was talking about how this is a different Vampire movie and that he had to act differently than he had expected for the role. They said the movie will come out early next year. I've heard February some time as a releae date. BLADE, a Vampire movie based on a comic book, is coming out February 13th. So, I'd hope they try to release it BEFORE then. Remember when two Volcano movies came out -- Dante's Peak came out before Volcano, and it made more money than Volcano. So, hopefully JC's VAMPIRES will come out before and make more money than BLADE. Hmm, interesting stuff about the dates clash. Has anyone got any more info on these interviews?

News as of Aug 2nd Vampires news The following is an edit of some info sent to me by Raptor (cheers) - ... interviews of John Carpenter, James Woods, Sheryl Lee and Daniel Baldwin for E! TV. The wrap date will definitely be Monday the 4th of August and Carpenter plans to start post-production the week of the 11th. ...filming of four critical scenes in which Team Crow is confronted by the head Vampire in their hotel after they just cleaned out a nest of vampires. Daniel Baldwin is a member of Team Crow; however I have not read the book or script so I do not know who he is supposed to be, but he is a good guy. Sheryl Lee is indeed a prostitute in this movie ... you are missing one very important name in your cast list. Thomas Ian Griffith who plays the head Vampire Valick who was the original Vampire created from an excorsism gone bad. Also Tim Guinee plays a priest that is always getting pushed around by James Woods caracter, and used as bait to lure the Vampires out from their den. All of that stuff sounds fantastic, thank you again Raptor. Everyone keep their eyes peeled and VCRs ready for those E! TV interviews.

News as of July 28th The Dark Horizons Vampires site has a US release date for Vampires : February 1998. Not exactly summer blockbuster or winter sleeper time, but, does the date really matter?

News as of July 24th The fantastic Dark Horizons website, fast approaching Harry Knowles Ain't It Cool News for the title of best movie news web page, has some stuff on the James Woods Entertainment tonight clip : John Carpenter's Vampires: I asked for a description of the ET 'Vampires' clip, and the flood of replies came spewing in faster than Princess Diana at a Barbeque. The best description was of a scene showing 'James Woods using a crossbow to stake a vampire and then retracting the string attached to the stake, which pulls the creature into the sunlight for some deep-fried cooking of it's flesh'. Way Cool. And this clip wasn't the only shining example. ET's poorer sister show 'Access Hollywood' showed quick flashes of the film, including Woods walking around with a bag of decapitated heads and a hotel exploding in flames. Thanks to 'HyenaSwine' and 'Mohammad Khan', the creatures who'll suck you dry (God you people have dirty minds!). Shit, that sounds so exciting, that 'retracting stake' scene is straight out of the book. It sounds like the producers (JC is one of them) have rightly decided to go straight to the excellent source material. This film is looking better very day.

News as of July 23rd Due to a server crash here I have been unable to (and I still can't) access my e-mail. A lightning dawn swoop on the computer center managed to release two e-mails about James Woods appearance on Entertainment Tonight from the set of Vampires! Anyone with a transcript of this interview please contact me. Entertainment Tonight have a web site but unfortunately it is on msn.com, that wonderful non-free service. If anyone is a member please scour the ET site to see if they have a transcript or some piccies, or anything to do with Vampires. Let me know if anyone finds anything. Thanks to Mohammad and Kevin for the information.

News as of July 17th The IMDB have changed the name of their Vampires page to Vampire$, the original title for the novel but NOT the title that appears in the adverts. Hmmm, seems like the IMDB have got it wrong again.

News as of 30th June From the Corona Vampires website : As with all of his films, the title has slightly changed to John Carpenter's Vampires. Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa, Mark Boone Jr.,Gregory Sierra, Henry Kingi and Tommy Rosales join the cast of the film. [Scoop sent in by 'Martian Ambassador'.]

News as of June 27th I got this through e-mail : in last sundays la times it interviewed briefly sheryl lee. she is a hooker vampire. shyam

News as of June 21st My sincere thanks to the New Mexico Film Office for replying to my queries about Vampires, here is the information they gave me : Vampires filmed in Las Vegas (NM) at the Plaza Hotel. They will also film in Cerrillos, Santa Fe, and at the Bonanza Creek movie set. The film is scheduled to wrap late July. So, has anyone seen any of this activity or likely to see it? A late July wrap could mean the Italian scenes will be shot later, rumours suggest we are looking at an early 1998 release for this film. The Corona website report that Tim Guinee has joined the cast list, again, a direct quote from them : June 7, 1997... Daniel Baldwin, Maximillian Schell and Tim Guinee also join the cast. Schell will portray a Vatican Cardinal. Filming starts in Santa Fe this month. Looking to take a peek at the script? Try again - it's being closely guarded. [Scoops sent in by 'widgett', 'Gazza', 'Kilroy', 'theshape' and Herbert W. Sterns.]

News as of June 18th That IMDB entry for Vampires does have some interesting snippets. First off, Don Jackoby is not listed as being part of the writing team. This could just be an omission on the part of the IMDB. Sandy King is listed as a producer, this should be good news. She collaborated (script supervisor) with JC on They Live, Prince Of Darkness, Big Trouble... and Starman, all great films, so we should be in for something great here. She also produced Body Bags, Mouth Of Madness and Village... Oh yeah, there is also the small matter that her full name is Sandra Ann Carpenter, yep, she is JCs wife. From: scott: Vampire$ Update - Hello from New Mexico USA -- According to the press release from the New Mexico State Film Commission, Carpenter was supposed to start filming in northern New Mexico on June 2nd. He (Carpenter) says that he has wanted to film in the area for some time, and wants to create something he calls "Southwest Gothic"...Locations are around Santa Fe and Las Vegas, a small town north of Santa Fe. This is a mountainous area of the state, with quite a few turn-of-the-century buildings and some interesting sites such as the Montezuma Castle, a huge former luxury hotel which is now part of the campus of the United World College. Shooting is scheduled for eight weeks, though at the moment it is not clear exactly how much of that time will be spent in the area

News as of June 11th The IMDB have a Vampires page up. No more info there yet than we already now. To clear up some of the 'JC in Tarantino film' confusion. This months Total Film mentions that QT is filming JACKIE BROWN. The NME reported that JC had apparently shot a cameo for QT's new film, RUM PUNCH. Well, it appears that JACKIE BROWN and RUM PUNCH are the same thing. QT changed the title from RUM PUNCH (the original Elmore Leonard) novel to JACKIE BROWN. So, maybe the NME were right after all. The same magazine lists Vampires as evidence of a resurgence of the horror movie in Hollywood. Some cast background info : The Sheryl Lee Fan Page, James Woods, Maximillian Schell

News as of June 5th From Bruce Dierbeck : Just thought I'd tell ya that Daniel Baldwin (last seen in TREES LOUNGE) has joined the cast. So has Maximilian Schell. Maximilian will play the Vatican cardinal who oversees the vampire eradication program. Filming starts next week, now. It should be good! The script is secretive, so this looks to be an interesting movie!

News as of June 3rd This is some stuff I cribbed straight from the excellent Corona Website on Vampires : May 18, 1997... Sheryl Lee is announced as a cast member last week. Prinipal photography begins June 2nd in Rome and Canada. A recent ad appeared in Daily Variety annoucing Carpenter's directing/writing job. It showed a silhouette of a group of mean-looking commando types, which prompted 'shape' to say "it looked quite good." [Thanks to Christian, 'widgett', 'theshape', 'brightms', and anonymous.] May 19, 1997... The lead character's name has been changed from John to Jack Crow. Vampires will also be shooting in Sante Fe, New Mexico. [Scoop submitted by 'theshape".] Nothing really new there. I am not too sure about that last bit, the lead character in the Vampire$ novel is called Jack, seems strange they would change it to John and then back to Jack, unless JC intervened! That 'brightms' credited with some news is actually me. Fame at last. The shooting should have started, has anyone got any inside info on the location shoots or maybe the SFX, behind the scenes work?

News as of May 21st I have just returned from holiday so I am catching up on loads of news. James Woods (Oscar nominee this past year) has signed on to be the lead vampire hunter in VAMPIRES. It was reported in Daily Variety.(Bruce Dierbeck) Extracted from Argentinian newspaper Clarmn: "James Woods arrived to Cannes to present his last movie "Kicked in The Head" and he said he had just signed a contract to film "John Carpenter's Vampires", the new horror movie by the master of the genre. The making will start in June and Woods will play a Vampire Hunter sent by the Vatican(...)" (Roughly translated by Francisco Pedemonte, from Argentina) You probably already know this but I read in my twice weekly e-mail subscription for Zentertainment, the following (Mon. 12 May): VARIETY columnist Michael Fleming reports James Woods (Contact, Ghosts of Mississippi) has signed to star in director John Carpenter's horror-thriller VAMPIRES, an adaptation of the John Steakley novel of the same name. Woods will play a vampire hunter working for the Vatican. VAMPIRES, which has been in development for awhile now under the working title VAMPIRE$, begins shooting on June 2nd in Santa Fe, N.M. (Vas) I saw in this months Fangoria, they have a little article about all the Vampire movies coming out and they have a (what I take is) a promo pic for JC's Vampires. It shows a man's face (which is mostly in the dark so who it is, I dont know) with a beam of light shaped like a dagger over his eye. Then at the bottom it says, John Carpenter's Vampires. Dont know if anyones already told you this or not, but I figured I'd tell you anyways. Its a pretty neat pic.(Tempus Fugit) The John Carpenter shrine has this advert, available here. The Aint It Cool site has come up trumps yet again with some more news on Vampires, I have quoted it directly here, this is all written by Harry himself : Fangs for the Memories! As John Carpenter's VAMPIRES picks up cast members (Sheryl Lee just joined up with James Woods) a spy is letting the bat out of the bag. Preacher Dan loaded up his crossbow and let loose with the coolness (attached to the crucifix bolt). Preacher Dan says that we are in for some severe vampiric violence. First off, it is about Jack Crow and Team Crow. Woods will be playing the lead, Jack Crow. Sheryl Lee will be an unlucky prostitute that becomes a sucker of a different bodily fluid. To give you an idea of the level of intensity for this project, Preacher Dan said that the Team Crow members are armed with crossbows with bolts that have steel cables attached to the rears of them. When a team member fires the bolt into a vampire, Preacher Dan says that the team member will notify another member to reel the vampire out of the abode and into the searing sunlight. On their way to death the vampires will attempt to grab onto immovable objects, only to have their limbs diminished until they are cinders outside. Very intense and very very cool, Preacher Dan says. By the way, if any of you get the Preacher Dan reference I'll be shocked.

News as of 29th April The advert below mentions Team Crow and Jack Crow, both names used in the Vampire$ novel by John Steakley. This seems to finally clear up the fact that John Carpenter's Vampires is based Vampire$. From Te: ... as for the info on Vampires, I have the Variety and have also just borrowed the novel VAMPIRE$ by John Steakley. In comparing the ad copy with the novel synopsis, it's pretty obvious that the movie comes from the novel ...

And courtesy of the ever excellent Harry Knowles and his Aint-It-Cool-News page "VAMPIRES (directed by JOHN CARPENTER; LARGO ENTERTAINMENT) This film starts in April and I know of no cast members!!! It will be shooting in Canada and Rome,Italy. Ok. There is a Largo Entertainment person that reads this page a few times a day. Time to give back dude. I wanna know. By The Way it is "VAMPIRES not Vampire$ according to all production info including a two page ad they took out in Variety a month or two ago. Fill me up with your coolness. WHO IS IN IT!?!?!? ".

News as of 15th April I have some snoop information on Vampire$, its actual title will be Vampires. 'While the projects plotlines do seem similiar it has not been confirmed, and according to a two page ad a couple of months back on the project it will be titled Vampires. So go figure.' Does anyone have a copy of this two page advert? So, it may not be based on the Steakley novel after all. Anyone have any extra info on this?

News as of 19th March Largo Entertainment are the company in charge of developing VAMPIRE$. They currently advertised for new projects, mentioning the fact that they only take projects viable for 'international release' and that will make a good profit. They are currently developing GI Jane, the films starring Demi Moore. No mention of VAMPIRE$.

News as of 6th February Some extremely interesting news from Stephen Cody : Just writing to let you know that, according to Harry Knowles' "Ain't it cool" site, the film JC is currently working on is "Vampires" about a Vatican priest's mission to track down and destroy vampires. It's been written by Don Jacoby who is now apparently rewriting it with Carpenter. Hope this sounds authentic to you. Sounds interesting. Pity Donald Pleasence is not around anymore as it sounds like a role tailor made for him. The above site is an excellent resource for rumours about the movie industry. The next news segment is a direct quote from their page, so cheers. John Carpenter Behind the Camera Again!!! A new John Carpenter film is coming!!! Yes, I know he hasn't been in top form recently, but that doesn't matter. Ya see, Carpenter is one of them film makers that makes ain't it cool movies. Now they might not be for everyones' taste, but they sure as shooting are up my alley. Carpenter will be directing VAMPIRES, which tells the tale of Vatican hired crucifix-carrying holy water spewing garlic breathed vampire exterminaters that hunt down the ancient bloodsuckers. Sign me up. I'm ready. This is the type of film he needs to be making. Carpenter is currently rewriting the Don Jacoby screenplay, juicing it up with his trademarked cool attributes. Now if only he could get Kurt Russell to star. This film definitely sounds like it will be very interesting. I would appreciate any info or more news on this development. Don Jakoby (notice the different spelling) is credited as one of the writers of Arachnaphobia. Here is the IMDB page on Don Jakoby. The most interesting snippet is that Jakoby wrote the story for The Philadelphia Experiment, an enjoyable sci-fi yarn. Carpenter was executive producer of this film, indicating that the two do have some sort of relationship. This sounds better all the time. Even more information! As always, the excellent Corona Website is on the ball with a Vampires page. Loads of info there. The scoop from their page :"February, 1996... John Carpenter climbs aboard the project as the film's director. Carpenter seems set to jump-start the, uh, nearly-dead project. Carpenter will re-write Don Jacoby's screenplay and get the $20 million dollar project on the go soon." All I can say is, thank god JC is finally doing another film. The corona site lists Jacoby as the writer, so maybe he is not the same guy as Jakoby. The film is based on a John Steakley novel.