FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| FILM John Carpenter's Vampires Director John Carpenter is the last of a dying breed - thank God for small favors. A manly man's man of a man, Carpenter probably carves his own two-by-fours and prefers charcoal grills over gas barbecues because his food tastes "more burnt." He also makes movies beloved by 14-year-old boys of all ages. Like Vampires, for instance. It's the story of Jack Crow (a gaunt, snarling, memorable James Woods) and his team of vampire hunters sponsored by the Catholic Church with orders to kill the infected creatures before their tainted blood can spread. (Sorry, no bonus points for guessing the subtext here, but add this flick to Carpenter's thinly veiled anti-immigration flick They Live and you've got the perfect Young Republican double feature.) Vampires boasts some incredibly brutal effects, avoiding the already boring digital tricks for a more traditional approach to special effects: buckets and buckets and buckets of blood. Add some over-the-top, ridiculously offensive scenes and idiotic, trashy dialogue ("These are real vampires, not some romantic Eurotrash fags dressed in formal wear!") and it all makes for some guilty fun for the first half (let's face it, who didn't want to kick Tom Cruise's wussy little ruffled vampire ass?), but it gets pretty tired pretty quick. When the film is wall-to-wall macho Bad Boys, when every death scene is a separate article in Fangoria magazine, when every single word that comes out of your mouth is an offensive one-liner designed to piss people off (Woods to corrupt priest: "While I was kicking your ass, Father, did you get a woody?"), it tends to dull the edge. Even the lippy 14-year-old at the back of your Grade 8 bio class knew to keep his mouth shut once in a while for effect. |