Assault on Precinct 13
Turtle Releasing | Release Date: November 5, 1976 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
89
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 7 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Time Out LondonStaff (Not Credited)
Carpenter scrupulously avoids any overt socio-political pretensions, playing it instead for laughs and suspense in perfectly balanced proportions. The result is a thriller inspired by a buff's admiration for Ford and Hawks (particularly Rio Bravo), with action sequences comparable to anything in Siegel or Fuller. It's sheer delight from beginning to end. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNick Schager
As incisive as it is thrilling, Carpenter’s film is also gorgeous. Carpenter’s imagery is a thing of propulsive beauty that both enhances suspense and expresses his characters’ ever-changing relations to one another. It’s a fleet, ferocious piece of genre craftsmanship. Read full review
90
The DissolveNathan Rabin
In combining the dread and survival politics of George Romero and The Night Of The Living Dead with the macho heroics and succinct wit of Howard Hawks, Carpenter found his own voice and changed the course of genre filmmaking. Read full review
90
The New York TimesVincent Canby
Assault on Precinct 13 is a much more complex film than Mr. Carpenter's Halloween, though it's not really about anything more complicated than a scare down the spine. A lot of its eerie power comes from the kind of unexplained, almost supernatural events one expects to find in a horror movie but not in a melodrama of this sort. Read full review
80
IGNSean Carlson
The film was designed to be an homage to the John Wayne classic Rio Bravo directed by Carpenter's idol Howard Hawks.The parallels between the film and the westerns that Carpenter holds dear are clear from the get go, none more so striking then the sight of the gang warlords mingling their blood in a bowl in for a symbolic blood oath that echoes similar scenes that found Indians becoming blood brothers in westerns long since forgotten. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
The shadowy photography, great editing, snappy dialogue, and a moody synthesizer score by Carpenter himself make this one of the most successful homages to the Hawks brand of filmmaking--and a very impressive film in its own right. Read full review
70
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
Novelty of a gang swearing a blood oath to destroy a precinct station and all inside is sufficiently compelling for the gory-minded to assure acceptance. John Carpenter’s direction of his screenplay, after a pokey opening half, is responsible for realistic movement. Read full review
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