Stars: James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell, Tim Guinee, Thomas Rosales, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Marjean Holden, Mark Boone, Frank Darabont

Director: John Carpenter

Summary: The Vatican enlists a team of vampire-hunters to destroy the vampires before they find the crucifix.

Prolific director John Carpenter takes on the vampire genre in his action-horror film VAMPIRES. Bitter, tough-as-nails vampire hunter Jack Crow (James Woods) leads a specialized team, funded by no less than the Vatican, that is dedicated to destroying the race of vampires that inhabit the earth. The team is successful, and becomes lazy in its success, eventually falling victim to an elaborate ambush set up by a powerful master vampire. Crow and two others of his team are the only survivors, and are determined to get revenge for the massacre. Carpenter takes the genre to new heights with powerful action scenes, nifty vampire-killing weapons, and great special effects. Woods is wonderfully over the top as the head vampire hunter who has no love for the Vatican and a mysterious past that is never far behind him. VAMPIRES is based on the book by John Steakley, adapted for the screen by Don Jakoby. The score is creepy and powerful, a typical characteristic for a Carpenter film.

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The first few minutes of John Carpenter's Vampires--in which James Woods' vampire killer leads a dawn raid on a New Mexico "goon nest" of bloodsuckers--not only suggests a horror movie that refuses to pull its punches, but even evokes some of the more disturbing dream-memories of American Westerns. Muscular and uncompromising, the sequence suggests a new Carpenter classic unravelling before one's eyes. Things don't quite work out that way, but this is still a film to reckon with. There are a few serious (and surprising) misjudgements on the director's part, particularly a mishandling of Sheryl Lee's role as a prostitute poisoned by the bite of a "master vampire" (who pretty much wiped out Woods' team of goon terminators). But aside from some weaknesses, the action is jolting, the suggested complicity of the Catholic Church in destroying monsters is provocative, and the traces of Howard Hawks' continuing influence on Carpenter's storytelling are in evidence. -- Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	None
Subtitles:	Dutch, English, Hindi
Year:	1998
Release Date:	September 8, 2003
Runtime:	103 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C S B 27476
Keywords:	John, General, Vampires, Wide, Screen, Horror, Occult, Sci, Fi, Carpenter's, Superbit
Genre:	Horror/Occult