John Carpenter's Vampires
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by Don Jakoby
Based on the novel Vampire$, by John Steakley
Starring James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, and Thomas Ian Griffith
107 minutes. Rated R. Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1. 1998
DVD cover    When JC's Vampires starts, it looks pretty promising. The music, cheesy as it may be, sets the mood perfectly, and James Woods looks like he's ready to kick butt. The shot of Woods staring at the door of an old house that holds a nest of vampires just screams "this is a John Carpenter movie!!" Then Woods and his crew of slayers (including yet another Baldwin brother) storm the nest, shoot the vamps with stakes attached to a winch outside, which drags them out into the sunlight where they burst into flames. Innovative, eh? Although it seems a bit lazy to me. No one wants to just stake a vampire in the heart anymore. They make the sun do all the work. But I digress.
    Sadly, that's about as cool as it gets. I was looking forward to the slayers and the vampires turning the southwest into a wasteland with their war, but all I got was the "master vampire performs a drawn-out ritual to ___________(insert really bad thing here)" that seems really typical to vampire movies nowadays. The movie is pretty slow-moving, and the small bursts of action are ruined by incessant dissolves.
    The bottom line: Carpenter-esque, but slow-moving.
    My review: C+
    My advice: Worth a look, but I can only think of two reasons you'd want to watch this movie: either you're in the mood for a John Carpenter movie, or in the mood for some vampires. In those cases, I'd suggest you either rent John Carpenter's Christine or some episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Get the movie poster!