Released in 1998, Vampires achieved decent box office success, but as per usual with John Carpenters films, it garnered greater cult status through repeated cable viewings and on home video, particularly during the DVD era. Review. They also regularly remind each other of the rules of vampire hunting ("Rule No. What we did get was James Woods acting like a complete a**hole and beating people up a lot. I love vampire films and this is one of them, that I just love to death! WebJohn carpenter has done it with this vampire flick great story action and gore cant beat James woods performance and Thomas Ian who did a great job who was also the bad guy in karate kid 3 it blew my mind about that didnt even recognize him. 4.Dentition. JAMES WOODS IS FANTASTIC. This has become such a problem in our society that I hereby propose a Uniform Code of Vampire Standards and Practices. The blood they crave is the nectar of immortality, their thirst insatiable as needy fangs tear through the flesh of innocents. And, occasionally, that is enough. You bet. Crosses don't work their nerves. Would audiences placidly accept such a frivolous reordering of nature? Cruise gathers Brad Pitt into one of many homoerotic embraces in Interview With the Vampire and soars with him high into the night sky. Guiteau volunteers as 'bait' for the masters, allowing Jack to harpoon them and Montoya to drag them into sunlight. There isn't a second of brooding loneliness in their existence. Starring: James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell Crow leads a Vatican approved group of Vampire slayers who have met their match in the form of Valek, the very first bloodsucker. [3][4] Many proposed drafts for the film existed, including one that took place entirely at The Vatican and featured a vampirized Pope as the villain, and another that took place in a distant high-tech future where vampires are commonplace and vampire hunters are as abundant as police officers. I like Carpenter's earlier work like The Thing, Halloween and The Fog among others but Vampires fails to be a great horror film. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more! Principal photography began during June 1997 in New Mexico[9] and concluded on August 4, 1997. Jack Crow is tough as hell & very smart, Woods hammers the role with intensity & anger & he's excellent & should be up there with other Classic Carpenter Characters like Mcready, Plisskin & Burton. Confronting Satan in a Dark Spanish Castle. "Carpenter goes for the throat in 'VAMPIRES', "Review: 'John Carpenter's Vampires' stinks worse than garlic", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vampires_(1998_film)&oldid=1146157586, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles with dead external links from October 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 23 March 2023, at 03:07. Top notch 90's experience not much like it. See production, box office & company info, (hotel where Montoya and Katrina are staying until Jack Crow's arrival), Siskel & Ebert: Pleasantville/The Alarmist/The Lion King II: Simba's Pride/Apt Pupil/Life is Beautiful, Historic Plaza Hotel - 230 Plaza Park, Las Vegas, New Mexico, USA. Cardinal Alba reveals himself as Valeks ally; having grown to fear death, he has agreed to help Valek recreate the original ritual in exchange for becoming a vampire himself. John Carpenter in top form with film "Vampires" (no spoilers). Like any other species, it should manifest a certain behavioral logic that moviegoers can rely upon. In the blood-chilling tradition of Halloween and Village of the Damned comes John Carpenter's unique vision of the ultimate killing machines, VAMPIRES. The Strain. It has many great gore effects but nothing more. Suspecting that his team was betrayed, Crow interrogates Guiteau and dispels his heroic notions of vampire hunting, showing him a map of vampire activity that indicates the vampires are searching the southwest for an unknown object. They're a western clich. WebA vampire hunter must retrieve a cross before it falls into the hands of the undead, producing dire consequences for humanity. A contemporary and blood-chilling take on the gothic legend, horror master John Carpenter's Vampires stars James Woods as the ultimate vampire slayer on his most dangerous mission ever. Therefore German video distributor VCL also released a cut version (rated "Not under 16") which misses 3 minutes and can be bought everywhere. "Forget everything you've ever heard about vampires," warns Jack Crow (James Woods), the leader of Team Crow, a relentless group of mercenary vampire slayers. Ever since first renting this on it's first release on video i absolute loved it, went out & brought it straight away. John Carpenters Vampires. Transmogrification. The arrows are linked to cables and a winch to drag the impaled creatures into the sunlight, where they burst into flames. Motility. Twilight vampires have some other unique attributes, too. In the original Dracula novel, the hero notices Count Draculas peculiarly sharp white teeth that protruded over the lips almost at once. However, these vampires also have a hierarchy, something thats not unheard of in vampire media. Who says the B-picture is dead? Horror, Action & Adventure. Recovering from an ambush that killed his entire team, a vengeful vampire slayer must retrieve an ancient Catholic relic that, should it be acquired by vampires, will allow them to walk in s Read allRecovering from an ambush that killed his entire team, a vengeful vampire slayer must retrieve an ancient Catholic relic that, should it be acquired by vampires, will allow them to walk in sunlight.Recovering from an ambush that killed his entire team, a vengeful vampire slayer must retrieve an ancient Catholic relic that, should it be acquired by vampires, will allow them to walk in sunlight. Morbius, the Living Vampire is not like other vampires because Morbius is a living vampire. WebThe vampire slayers in John Carpenters Vampires (based on the book Vampire$ by John Steakley, despite the movie's possessive slug-line) crack jokes, not bones. In order to turn this person, it is necessary for the vampire to drain the victims tank and top it off at the crucial moment with a quart or so of his own blood, whereupon the thirsty recipient becomes a new-born vampire weeping at the beauty of the night. In Bram Stokers Dracula, by contrast, the new recruit must also drink the vampires blood, but the transformation is far pokier, requiring weeks and weeks, and if the vampire happens to get stuck with a bowie knife before the process is completed, it immediately goes into reverse. Directors. But only a few centuries later he bounces right back. A lot of people complain about James Woods being too camp in his rolesince when did that become such a bad thing? He had seen Sheryl Lee on Twin Peaks and cast her based on her work on the show. 6.1 1 h 47 min 1998 X-Ray R. A contemporary and blood-chilling take on the gothic legend, horror master John Carpenter's Vampires stars James Woods as the ultimate vampire slayer on his most dangerous mission ever. Music Composer: John Carpenter The RPGnet Staff. A stake through the heart will kill them. Only few men are able to face them and one of them is Jack Crow, leader of a group called Crow Team. Sustained flight permissible if vampire takes the form of a bat, owl, or other authentic nocturnal species. It's about killers for hire. I don't know how to answer this other than what I love about it: James Woods! The new film from director Ben Affleck, starringMatt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, and Viola Davis. Yes, it turns out that not all vampires in pop culture operate by the same rules. Despite disposing of nine 'goons', Jack is concerned about not having found their older, more powerful 'master'. The plot is centered on Crow's efforts to prevent a centuries-old cross from falling into the hands of Jan Valek (a reference to Valac, played by Thomas Ian Griffith), the first and most powerful of all vampires. Thank you for your time and kindness, Who says the B-picture is dead? Proposed Standard: vertical flight only, to a maximum of 20 feet above the ground. Plot Holes is an occasional column about logical inconsistencies in movies. 2017 John Carpenter. When all is quiet once again, Team Crow retreats to lick their wounds and celebrate a victory short-lived. Find their cellphone and/or little black book. In Interview With the Vampire, Tom Cruise informs us that the stake-to-the-heart method is nonsense. Later he suffers a slit throat, is eaten by an alligator, and then what is left of his body is consumed in a fire. Carpenter's still got "it.". The audience at the screening I attended was out for blood, too. As Valek nears the climax of his 600-year search for the Berziers Cross, Jack and the new Team Crow do everything humanly possible to prevent him from possessing the only thing that can grant him and all vampires the omnipotent power to walk in the daylight. You wanna kill one, you drive a wooden stake right through his fuckin' heart. Jack Crow (James Woods) is such a man. It was funny and tough and didn't have to resort to sub-From Dusk Til Dawn type mayhem that Blade did as it had a plot also. National Center for Jewish Film Annual Festival. I believe Carpenter works best with a little larger budget, but he should stay away from the typical Hollywood giant budget, he works best with a smaller production. Montoya and Guiteau rescue Crow as the sun rises, and Crow confronts Valek, impaling him with the Berziers cross and destroying him in daylight. Why, for instance, would a vampire who can hover a good 20 feet above the pavement have to scramble frantically over a chain-link fence when being chased by Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Vampires in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books and the film adaptations dont have to worry about pretty much any of the classic vampire weaknesses. Valek now nears the end of a centuries-long search for the elusive Berziers Cross, the implement of ritual that can give him and all vampires succeeding him omnipotent power to walk in the daylight. The film was originally released to varied critical reviews, appearing on both best-of-the-year and worst-of-the-year lists. 2023 TV GUIDE, A FANDOM COMPANY. The site's consensus was: "Nothing but one showdown after another. This is one of the best scenes of the movie and sets the viewers up to think, "Hey, these guys know what they're doing. Robert Gonsalves of efilmcritic.com gave the film four out of five stars, calling Vampires "grungy, disreputable funa beautifully shot, yet nightmarishly haunting spaghetti western/horror." Bundles containing this item. ET, right after the Season 2 premiere of SYFY and USA Networks Chucky. It is in their final confrontation that the fates will be decided. Music Composer: John Carpenter. At the end of the year, he placed James Woods as his pick for his "Best Actor" suggestion to the Oscars. Vampires (also known as John Carpenter's Vampires) is a 1998 American neo-Western action horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter and starring James Woods. The legendary Carpenter directs the hell out of his dusty western action Horror & gives us some Beautiful images of the lonely, desolate & rundown New Mexico landscape that's all tinted in popping reds & oranges & it looks fantastic, really Cool cinematography throughout. He chews scenery with relish, handles his character's off-color humor with panache, and never lets up his colorful performance for one minute. James Woods is the kind of guy you'd believe could and would chew off the leg of a vampire. Theres a baseline of vampire rules that well call the Standard Vampire or rather, standard pop-culture vampire, as common understanding of what a vampire is draws more from Dracula than the folkloric monster. The networks censors wouldnt allow for any neck-biting or even mention of the word blood, so instead Morbius sucked plasma from victims via some gross-looking suckers on his hands. Q&A with Brandeis Professor Jonathan Sarna, film interviewee. The beautiful but unlucky prostitute (Sheryl Lee) is their sole psychic link to Valek, and through her senses they will track down the leader of the undead. Vampires is a movie brought to us by horror mastermind John Carpenter who almost gave up film making because he became disgusted by how Hollywood got so greedy. He really does some inspired improvised riffs, and when he's not kicking ass Woods has a lot of fun with it all. The Vampire Master in John Carpenters Vampires can fly down the road fast enough to catch a speeding car and can stick to the ceiling of a motel room. He would give me one take as it's written and I would let him improviseMany of his improvisations were brilliant. And they don't sleep in coffins lined in taffeta. He also got improved health and some impressive abs out of the deal. "The story is set up like a western. If John Carpenter retired with Vampires, it'd be enough to call him one of the great masters of horror, Woods at his absolute best. I wasn't disappointed. In this movie theyre paid to kill vampires. Vampires Theatrical Trailer (02:06 in HD) Vampires TV Spots (03:16 in SD) Five original television spots are included. But every millennium or so a vampire meets that special someone. After Crow's team is murdered by a 600-year-old Master Vampire (Thomas Ian Griffith) and his legions, Crow tracks the powerful master to his lair, with the help of a young priest and a woman "turned" by the vampire's bite.