“Howdy. I’m gonna separate your head from your shoulders. Hope you don’t mind none.”
Severen- Near Dark
There are two genre’s that I am a complete sucker for (no pun intended). The horror and western genres are my absolute favorites. These two genres don’t mix very often, but I can guarantee I’ll watch it when they do. While Vampires isn’t Near Dark, it is a lot of fun.
James Woods, a Baldwin brother, vampires, and John Carpenter, what could go wrong? Well, as it turns out, not much. John Carpenter is one of my favorite directors, but I will admit the 90s weren’t good for him. In fact, almost everything after In the Mouth of Madness wasn’t good. Vampires is the only bright spot.
Woods and Daniel Baldwin are a pair of vampire slayers tasked by the Vatican to hunt and kill bloodsuckers in the southwest. They stumble upon Jan Valek, played by Thomas Ian Griffith. Valek is the first vampire and is on a mission to turn his biggest vulnerability into his greatest strength. Wood and Baldwin are fantastic together. Without their chemistry, this film wouldn’t work because the rest of the cast is subpar. Griffith isn’t scary, and as much as a badass as his character is, he never feels unbeatable.
The script, direction, and cinematography are all good to varying degrees. I wish the film was a little longer and built the mythology a little better. Carpenter always does a great job making the gore believable. The deaths are brutal, and action is nonstop. But the best part of the film is the score. Carpenter is also a master at scoring his films. Vampires is no different, and it feels, unlike anything he’s done before.
The biggest issue with Vampires is that it isn’t scary. I struggle even to call this a horror film. If you replaced vampires with an alien or robot, it wouldn’t change the film. It’s much more an action western. My other problem is the script doesn’t focus on the mystery lying at the center of the film. The film has a lot going on, and it feels like it maybe should have been turned into multiple films.
Vampires might be John Carpenters last hoorah. He finally got to make a western, and as a western, it’s good. The film doesn’t work as a horror film, but that’s not a big issue. Woods and Baldwin are magnetic on-screen, and the action is fun. Vampires isn’t Carpenter’s best work, but it is a beautiful love letter to the spaghetti western.
