Vampires

Starring: James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell, Tim Guinee
Directed by: John Carpenter
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Horror, Thriller
1998

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: A vampire hunter (James Woods) faces off against an ancient vampire trying to obtain the power to walk in sunlight.

Review:

Tim: John Carpenter's Vampires is a movie that I like better than I should (although I don't like it all that much). It's a decent action horror movie. We've had a ton of different vampire movies over the years. This isn't one of the better made ones, but it manages to entertain more often than it doesn't. It's the kind of movie you won't leave feeling especially good about yourself or what you watched, but you wonn't be complaining too loudly about the time you invested, either.

It's fun to see James Woods fully embrace this vampire hunter role. Woods certainly seems to be an odd guy in real life, and he taps into a bit of that quirkiness for this role. He takes it hyper seriously, but you kind of get the sense that he's in on the joke. Still, he fully commits to this role, even though his performance tends to meander into over-the-top territory. It's still entertaining to see him chewing scenery right and left. When the second main cast member is Daniel Baldwin, you know things aren't going to be that great. Baldwin is fine, but his lack of talent shows up too often. He has some good moments, but it's not a performance you really care about at all. Thomas Ian Griffith makes for a believable vampire. It was nice to see Maximilian Schell here, but you do feel bad that the movie wasn't worth his talent. Outside of these four, the cast gets pretty bad, pretty quickly.

There's something inherently fun about watching humans hunting vampires. I liked the detail into the team approach to vampire hunting. The attitude the hunters took towards their undead prey felt believable- they'd think of them as vermin, and they the exterminators. The opening hunting scene in the old house was fun to watch. John Carpenter certainly has a flair for visuals and that sequence was one of the strongest of the film. The rest of the story feels less effective, unfortunately. It simply feels too redundant, like a movie we've seen many times before. The idea of vampires wanting to walk in the day is an old one. This movie didn't seem to throw anything especially new at this equation. It felt like there was much going on and not much of it was effective. I still wasn't convinced how the ritual would allow vampires to exist in the sunlight. There's the whole mental telepathy connection, betrayals, some questionable character behavior. It felt like a lot without much really hitting home. It translates into nothing more than a decent film. The ending of the movie felt somewhat anticlimactic, although all the actors involved were trying to sell it like it was this big, dramatic conclusion. I was kind of shrugging my shoulders at the whole thing.

Vampires is admittedly not a very good movie. However, it still had its moments. The idea of a Western horror vampire movie is worth exploring. Carpenter didn't quite realize the film's full potential, but the movie is still worth checking out.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



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