Customer Reviews

John Carpenter's Vampires

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(60)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(55)

 

 

Vampires, also known as John Carpenter's Vampires, is a 1998 American western-horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter. Adapted from the novel Vampire$ by John Steakley, the film stars James Woods as Jack Crow, leader of a Catholic Church-sanctioned team of vampire hunters.

John Carpenter takes Vampires to a whole new level in this excellent movie! If you want to see a traditional vampire movie, this is not for you! If you want action and lots of it then this is the best vampire movie for you! Jack Crow (James Woods) and his vampire slayers are ready for action, and the first 20 minutes of this movie shows them at work killing the vampires in their own hideout, even though the head vampire should be there he is nowhere to be found. They don't have to wait long because the head vampire Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) finds them and kills most of Crow's vampire slayers, So Crow and Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) with the help of Katrina (Sheryl Lee) a hooker who was at the party which Valek interupted go in search of him and with the help of the Church they hope to finally be rid of Valek.

DVD HAD NO AUDIO - but was given immediate credit back by Amazon - great service! This is a great movie but would find a different version.

I love this movie because of the guns,musics,story,place,James Woods and Daniel Baldwin.Guns:there are lots of good guns in this movie bowgun,spear,rifles.Musics:John Carpenters great west acoustic guýtarre style.story:vampires are in every where on this world and there are hunters to kick them down.place:movie takes places in very good states Texas,New Mexico James Woods and Daniel baldwin:they are very charismatic actors. I watched this movie about 22 times this is the one of the greatest movies that cant forgot in my whole life.

A group of nine men (James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Mark Boone Junior, Cary Hiroyukitagawa, Tommy Rosales, Henry Kingi, David Rowden, Clarke Coleman, Gregory Sierra) are vampire hunters. Starts like any other film. Abandeon-looking house. Vampires inside. Shooting spree. Drag them outside and burn them. Gregory Sierra (Barney Miller tv series) plays a priest who offers a blessing before the hunt and after they burn the vampires. They think all the vampires in New Mexico are accounted for except for the Master (Thomas Ian Griffith). The Master finds them, kills everyone except for James Woods, Daniel Baldwin and a freshly-bitten Sheryl Lee who are now on the run. Maximillian Schell plays a Cardinal. Filmed in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

First saw a piece of this movie when I was at a friend's, never was able to finish it until I got it off of Amazon.com.

First, the effects are great, at least for its time period. Blood, gore, toplessness. . . yes, it's all there. However, in a movie with vampires, the plot is pretty predicatable. Big hero chases master vampire, friend becomes enemy, hero wins.

The reason it gets four stars, however, is because of its effects, the actors, the script, (Yes, the script was probably one of the better parts to the movie.), and its unique display of exactly how the vampire came to be.

Over all, it's a decent movie. Worth watching once or twice, but in the long run, not worth owning for $15 or more.

this movie was good because i love vampire movies and daniel bladwin looked so good. i really liked this i hope they make another one contuning the first one or remke it

This movie has vampire fans cut down the middle, but I think this movie will have to stand the test of time before people look back on it and say, "Man, that was actually pretty good." Forget what negative criticism you've heard about this, and take a good look at it. Vampire films have really taken a nosedive in recent years, and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe they try to be too hip with the techno era(Queen Of The Damned, Blade), or too romantic(Interview With The Vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula) or just too artsy(Nadja, The Addiction). Maybe my head's just too far up you-know-where, but I always grew up with the notion that vampires were nasty evil, brutal mothers-MONSTERS! Monsters like zombies or giant mutant ants, but with more intelligence. I grew up with vampires that actually were badass and scary like Jerry from Fright Night or the gang from Near Dark. Well, John Carpenter gave us the this kind of Vampire film that's been missing for quite some time. It doesn't pretend to be some dark romantic epic, it's a B film. It's tough-as-nails vampire hunters after tough-as-nails vampires. It's got the trademark John Carpenter macheezmo we all love. It goes back to the roots of 80s vampire flicks by passing on the CGI and going for good ol' prosthetics, courtesy of the good guys at KNB FX. There are some good performances here; I love Carpenter for the fact that he didn't choose actors who are flavor of the month, but relied on actors that he felt were the best for the job. The standout here being Thomas Ian Griffith as Valek-The Master Vampire. Griffith(still unappreciated. Could you imagine VanDamme playing Valek?) is still trying to break away from the action flick typecast to do some different roles, and he does a great job. He's one of the best vampires to come across the silver screen in a long time. He's not the wussy, blonde, pretty boy Lestat. He's got the viciousness of a From Dusk Till Dawn vampire, but just enough of the classic goth tinge to satify the Anne Rice fans. Basically, the right mix of ingredients to make the kind of vampire that's actually scary. Like Ghosts Of Mars, this is the kind of film that would have been received better had it come out in the 80s. We've become too accustomed to recent vampire movies that it's easy to blow this off as corny coz it doesn't fit into one of the three vampire movie categories that are so hot right now. Enjoy this for what it is-and it is good.

I'm not big on Vampire movies but I always enjoy a John Carpenter flick. Or so I thought. If I hadn't known this was Carpenter I would have never guessed it by watching it. Usually you can identify one of his films immediately by the cinematography alone. No one fills a widescreen picture frame like Carpenter. I don't think I saw one innovative shot in this whole movie. The music sounded like an tired replay fron the They Live soundtrack, where it worked much better. I didn't think James Woods brought anything to his part and he cannot carry a movie by himself. Baldwin looks like he was too busy eating double-cheeseburgers to care about his supporting role. The burning vampires were cool I guess. I wonder if Carpenter thought to solicit Kurt Russell for the lead in this. Mighta worked better. The thing that bothered me the most was the lack of nice widescreen shots that signature ALL of John Carpenters other films. And another thing, and the transfer on this DVD is absolutely lousy. Very blurry image for a 1998 film with very poor color. Total distraction, as if the distraction of the film itself wasn't enough. Ultimately, very disappointing and not worth owning. Get In the Mouth of Madness for a real Carpenter film....

The movie takes the concept of a vampire hunting team from John Steakley's Vampires. The manner in which it is adapted to the screen is appaling bad. The characters of Crow and Cat are more masculine and assertive. Guns are not used till the very end of the book and then the Character of Felix is the only one to really use guns. He is also blackmailed into taking the position with the team.
The hooker in the movie is a bad play in that the book's character is a debutant which throws on a more interesting twist to the story. I mean hooker vampire is a cliched idea to start. Then the sunlight thing.
I mean give me a break so many people have played on that idea. The original idea was to have vampires controling areas through finacial power and influence once they got to a higher levels in the chain of power. Then they deal with money enough to buy senators.
The preist in the book is more of a kick ass take names type of person and is directly from the vatican but the vatican is not mentioned right away. That way they can keep the level of mystery going.
So for everything there is in the book, the movie fails to delivery and the original release of the movie actually mentioned Steakley's novel but believe the author wanted his name taken off after it show because of how badly they translated into a movie