VAMPIRES (1996)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


1996's VAMPIRES (I'll pass on using the possessive "John Carpenter's") is like his BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA an ensemble-like film in which one major character leads a bunch of lesser sidekicks against a common enemy. In my mini-review of the original book by John Steakley, I found that the author went so overboard with his nattering about the male bonding between the kickass vampire killers that he neglected to make their battle against a "super-vampire" compelling. Carpenter seems to have kept about the first three-fourths of the book's main plot and deep-sixed most of the rambling asides I didn't like.

This time, while main hero Jack Crow still works with a bunch of male vamp-hunters, most of them aren't given much to do in the non-action scenes, which is all to the good. The one exception is the character of Montoya, who becomes Crow's primary buddy. James Woods and Daniel Baldwin make all the "cowboy samurai" stuff go down easy, and Carpenter ups the ante on the action-scenes that the original author neglected. That said, no one in the film is particularly appealing, even within the sphere of the "tough professional" ethos being evoked here. VAMPIRES also failed to "stake" any claims at the American box office, and despite an energetic Woods performance, doesn't seem to have taken on cult status as yet.