Film Review — John Carpenter’s Vampires
★★☆☆☆ Late-career Carpenter horror bites
A no-nonsense hunter and his team race to stop a powerful vampire who is searching for an ancient relic that will allow his kind to exist in sunlight.
Give me Ghosts of Mars over this any day. That might be a highly controversial admission, but while John Carpenter’s 2001 horror/sci-fi career-ender crashed and burned, this just…burned.
I can only assume the fun was sucked out along with the blood. James Woods looks like my old geography teacher at a wedding reception, his toxic macho bravado lacking the self-awareness and crucial rootability of a classic Carpenter hero.
Sheryl Lee is painfully wasted, shackled, figuratively and literally, as a sideshow attraction, trapped in a laughably unbelievable romantic tryst with the fourth-best Baldwin. Thomas Ian Griffith’s villain lacks any ferocity, coming across as a discount Marilyn Manson with the dramatic presentation of an episode of Power Rangers.
Carpenter’s direction lacks the zeal of his earlier efforts; clearly a man rapidly falling out of love with his craft after years of studio intervention. His brilliance shines through in a couple of spots as he evokes a western vibe, but his handling of the apocalyptic motel confrontation in the first act is a dissolve-washed mess. Greg Nicotero’s gruesome practical effects almost make this worth the pain. Almost, but not quite.
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