Vampires (1998)

Or known as 'John Carpenter's Vampires' if you wish. This film starts off really well with Woods and his vampire slaying team cooking up some vamps in their own unique way. They find em, harpoon em and drag them out into the sunlight via a winch on a truck. What I really liked about the film was this cool vamp slaying team, there were a few well known faces in there, character actors that really made a unique cool looking unit. Its such a shame that they all get wiped out early on.

This leaves Woods and Baldwin galloping up diarrhea drive without a saddle. It also seems to diminish the film before its even started, but wait! all is not lost. Woods character is a solid hard ass, he looks unashamedly cool with his black leather coat, blue jeans and shades, he's got a mouth on him, a wicked name and knows his way around most weaponry, in short he's an older 'Snake Plissken' with a short back n sides.

The plot is simple enough, its Woods v vampires, good enough for ya?. When I say vampires I mean just one badass head vampire (who looks suspiciously like the head nutter from 'Ghosts of Mars') and a lot of faceless stake fodder. Its all about Woods really, yeah he has the typical wet sidekick pushed on him, a newbie priest to look after, and there's Baldwin but to be honest they don't figure. You wanna see Woods swearing and kicking vampire ass.

When I first heard of this I didn't think too much of it, after 'Escape From LA' most were in shock and this really didn't sound very inspiring. But this does turn out to be a pretty decent western vampire flick along the lines of 'From Dusk Till Dawn'. There is plenty of blood and gore with some nice body part effects, obviously violence is high, nice visuals and your obligatory cowboy-like musical score.

Not your obvious Carpenter flick as it does seem more glossy than most, still looks a bit 'made for TV' here and there but generally its a tad more Hollywood. Doesn't add much new to the vampire lore either, only the way they harpoon vamps and certain weapons have a face lift of sorts. All your usual types of deaths, leaping around, decapitations, vampire pov, bone snapping sound effects etc...are present and correct.

Better than you would expect but mainly down to Woods, without him who knows. Its cheesy and not quite up to the standards of other more original quirky Carpenter films but it certainly holds its own amongst other vampire films. It does always amuse me though how all the characters know regular bullets don't have any effect on vampires, yet they continually empty clips into them as if it will do any good hehe.

'Can I ask ya somethin, Padre? When I was kickin your ass back there...you get a little wood?'