Vampires

Name: Vampires
Genre: Action, Thriller, Fantasy, Horror
Released: October 30, 1998
Duration: 108 min
Rating: 42
Cast: Daniel Baldwin, James Woods

1998

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Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 319 Ratings

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6.3	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 319 Ratings

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John Carpenter's Vampires

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Movie Details & Credits

Columbia Pictures | Release Date: October 30, 1998 | R

Starring: Daniel Baldwin, James Woods

Summary: In the blood-chilling tradition of Halloween and Village of the Damned comes John Carpenter's unique vision of the ultimate killing machines, Vampires. (Sony)

Director: John Carpenter

Genre(s): Action, Thriller, Fantasy, Horror

Rating: R

Runtime: 108 min

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Critic Reviews

Liam Lacey

Crude, rude, nasty fun. Read full review

Lisa Alspector

With a distinctively middle-aged zest, Carpenter retools even the hopeless cliche requiring action heroes to spout bad puns while dispatching bad guys; his eminently stylish movie proves that new blood can flow from an old vein. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

There's a surprising amount to relish about this gleefully self-conscious, disposable romp through horror's sexiest subgenre, mainly the film's grasp of its own terms. Read full review

Bob Graham

The lead actors on both sides of the vampire divide are all strong personalities. Read full review

Empire Simon Braund

For all the exploding gore, graphic eviscerations and combustible corpses, it’s not shocking, not sexy and not scary. Read full review

Joshua Klein

Profoundly disappointing--though Carpenter's score is, as usual, good fun. Read full review

Susan Wloszczyna

Anemic. [30 October 1998, p.8E]

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User Reviews

Acquit77

Jul 16, 2021

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1 of 26 users found this helpful125

Ulna319

May 16, 2021

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2 of 32 users found this helpful230

Uvula

Apr 11, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. John Carpenter had a good working relationship with James Woods on set. Apparently Woods has a reputation for being difficult to work with, but Carpenter got along with him just fine. They had a deal: Carpenter could film one scene as it was written; the other Woods could improvise. Carpenter found to his delight that many of Woods' suggestions were brilliant.… Expand

47 of 52 users found this helpful475

frederik1478

Jun 21, 2020

A very good enjoyable John Carpenter film, From his 90s output this is not the worst he has made a very fun Action horror film I would say that all this cinematography is as good as you can expect from him so it is not bad to look at, I would recommend it strongly

0 of 46 users found this helpful046

JLuis_001

Nov 15, 2018

I had been told that here began John Carpenter's decline and I finally had the chance to see it for myself. Even though he had already shown his failures in Village of the Damned.

1 of 57 users found this helpful156

Spangle

Sep 20, 2017

John Carpenter's Vampires is one of those 1990s action films that honestly gives audiences a constant state of deja vu. Though we may know we have never seen this film before, the plot, characters, action, and dialogue, are so intensely generic that it feels very familiar. Fortunately, inJohn Carpenter's Vampires is one of those 1990s action films that honestly gives audiences a constant state of deja vu. Though we may know we have never seen this film before, the plot, characters, action, and dialogue, are so intensely generic that it feels very familiar. Fortunately, in this cheese and camp, Carpenter does manage to make a rather entertaining film but to call it any good would be quite the over-statement. As resident gun and stake-toting badass Jack Crow, James Woods and crew are tasked with hunting down vampires for the Vatican. However, upon finding a nest in the desert and not finding its "master", Crow and crew stumble upon a supremely powerful vampire, Jan Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith). A 12th Century Priest who renounced God and was turned into a full-on vampire by a botched exorcism done with a black cross, Valek is searching for this cross once more to complete the ceremony which would allow him to become immune to the effects of the sun. Though possessing interesting twists to vampire folklore, Carpenter's film is just so cliche it is hard to truly endorse this film as anything better than aggressively average.

Turning vampires into a Hawksian western, John Carpenter does add a nice bit of stylistic flair to the lore. This element is certainly bolstered by the strong cinematography from Gary B. Kibbe, which gives the film the gritty and decidedly western look that Carpenter so desires. This visual element is just one of the appeals of the film, as Carpenter's additions to the vampire story are often rather interesting. Dispatching of the lore regarding garlic or crucifixes, Carpenter's vampires can only be killed via the sunlight or a stake through the heart. Though revealed through rather grating exposition right after we learned all of this information, these interesting touches make the vampire a far more formidable foe and one that must be fought via action, not with words. This crusade, as a result, becomes one with great stakes and purpose as these are not, "a bunch of **** **** hoppin' around in rented formal wear and seducing everybody in sight with cheesy Euro-trash accents." Rather, they are strong and powerful beings that are fully endowed with the dangerous power their sin has brought them.

However, Carpenter approaches this film is such a generic fashion. With an action lead loaded with one-liners, a tragic past that influenced him to become a vampire slayer (and one he mentions every five seconds to give him a backstory), superiors who want to hold him back, a crew of friends who mostly die, an ally who stabs him in the back at the climax, and a super villain who wants to become super strong and is searching for that which will complete his strength, Vampires is a film that feels more akin to one made by Marvel than John Carpenter. Known for his unique worlds filled with cheese and adventure, Vampires is one with a great look that just never establishes worthwhile characters or a valuable plot. Instead, it is just more of the same in the action genre, complete with a badass tragic hero, a fun friend, and a damsel, all of whom must go into battle against this wicked being.

Carpenter's action scenes further betray his established style by simply being generic and repetitive. Each gory showdown with the vampires is exactly the same as the last one as Carpenter relies too heavily on the crutch of dragging them out into the sun or the in-close hand-to-hand combat preceding them being out by the Jeep. The scenes play out the same each time and never really have any tension. Though they may look cool, there is very little substance to them. Instead, it just feels as though Carpenter is running through a checklist on how to make an action scene without any inclination to innovate or change anything. Relying upon his deus ex machina of the sunlight until the very end as the only way to kill them or Valek, especially in the heavily lazy final showdown between Valek and Jack where he fortunately himself in a weakly structured building that can collapse in just the right way to only expose Valek to the sunlight and not bring the whole building down. Lazy, predictable, and exceedingly dull, this action scene exemplifies everything wrong with this film. For such a formidable foe to have such an easily accessible kryptonite simply never inspires any thrill or excitement, robbing the film of a climactic and triumphant feeling of victory.

The film is further betrayed by cheesy one-liners and juvenile jokes, namely when the Priest is on the screen ironically enough. Asking the Priest if he got "wood" when Jack threatened to beat him up, the film returns to this as the Priest confesses to getting some "mahogany" at the end of the film at the realization that he could fight these vampires as well. With other cliche one-liners littered throughout this film, the dialogue feels exceedingly lazy as Carpenter reaches deep into his bag of cliches to find ways to lighten the mood.… Expand

0 of 29 users found this helpful029

Rcavey92212

Apr 23, 2020

When originally seeing this movie I hated it. Revisiting it so many years later I have to say it's even worse than I remember. Most of it's mainly due to an unlikable performance from James Woods (The Getaway) and a terribly written character. Poor Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks Fire walk with me)When originally seeing this movie I hated it. Revisiting it so many years later I have to say it's even worse than I remember. Most of it's mainly due to an unlikable performance from James Woods (The Getaway) and a terribly written character. Poor Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks Fire walk with me) gets thrown around, punched, slapped and stripped. She doesn't even have a character and the blatant misogyny made me feel very uncomfortable. Than there's The other Baldwin brother Daniel who has some overly mediocre moments but the character is just so badly written. Only Thomas Ian Griffith as the head vamp and Tim Guinee as Father Adam offer any real likability, charisma or depth. And as for the film itself. It's pretty much a disaster. It tries to be a sort of biker vampire flick. Its mean spirited but lacks any real engagement and because of that its boring and you could just care less. A definite dark spot in Carpenter's accomplished career.

Budget: $20m
Box Office: $20m

1/5… Expand

1 of 64 users found this helpful163

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