I invite you to imagine a team of vampire hunters. There’s the leader, Jack Crow (James
Woods) who’s been killing bloodsuckers since childhood, and his partner Anthony Montoya
(Daniel Baldwin). They’re joined by soon-to-be vampire Katrina (Sheryl Lee) and Father Adam
Guiteau (Tim Guinee), who was assigned by the catholic church to supervise. Together, these
four disastrous excuses for human beings try to take down the oldest vampire in the world, Valek
(Thomas Ian Griffith), before he completes a ritual that will make himself unkillable. This is
John Carpenter’s Vampires.
Vampires is a wonderful blend of western and monster movies. I don’t particularly enjoy
the portrayal of vampires as purely mindless animals that serve one master, however in this case,
it’s not a problem because Vampires isn’t actually about vampires. The approach to monsters is
classic; they go around wreaking havoc until they’re slayed. The real interest is in the slayers.
The film follows bad-mouthed-absurdly-named Jack Crow and his crew of vampire slayers who
are a bunch of ugly bastards doing ugly work. They’re not your friends, but they’re not your
enemies either. Their lives are simple; they follow the work. They’re reminiscent of old western
gunslingers who drift from place to place, only stopping to earn some money. Classic monsters,
meet classic cowboys. The combination is incredibly appealing; however, these are two genres
that thrive on subtle depth, which Vampires doesn’t exactly have. I never found myself pausing
to wonder what a certain line or facial expression was trying to tell me, but this could always
change on a rewatch.

There are still interesting aspects to this movie, particularly with Katrina, who gets bitten by a vampire early in the film and only has a few days before she loses control of herself. Sheryl
Lee unquestionably has the most engaging performance of the movie. Her character slowly rots
physically and mentally while trying to survive being roped into a gang of vampire hunters who
didn’t really see her as human even before she was bitten. Lee physically conveys the turmoil
she’s going through with intense movements and facial expressions. The actual vampires are
mindless creatures, but it’s made clear through Katrina and Montoya (Crow’s right-hand man
who is eventually bitten as well) that all vampires used to be thinking, feeling, individuals.
There’s an inherent tragedy to this film because the monsters aren’t evil by choice, but
nonetheless, they must be killed. This tragedy is made clear but isn’t explicitly explored because
there’s work to do, no time for feelings.
Although Katrina may be interesting, she’s not exactly treated well. There’s essentially a
fake-out rape scene where technically nothing really happens to her, but the film frames the
scene as though she’s being threatened with assault by one of the leads. The entire scene is
gratuitous and uncomfortable. Now, it does make sense for Katrina to receive unkind treatment
from the film’s male leads. Crow and Montoya aren’t nice people, they’re rude, cold, and they
don’t exactly care about respect. Still, there’s a difference between characters in a movie treating
someone poorly and the movie itself treating someone poorly. This scene exploits the fear of
sexual assault without any care for the potential damage its portrayal could cause. At the same
time, horror and westerns aren’t exactly known for being kind to women and in the case of
Vampires, it’s only one scene that’s a problem. If the scene was removed, nothing about the film
would change which turns the scene into a giant distraction from everything enjoyable about the film. There are certainly movies that are far worse to their female characters, but it’d be
irresponsible of me to ignore that aspect of this film.
While Jack Crow exemplifies the difference between a hero and a protagonist, he’s not
unlikable or necessarily unheroic. He leads a group dedicated to killing monsters, but at the same
time, he’s killing vampires out of a personal vendetta. His parents were killed by vampires when
he was a child, so his career is essentially a never-ending quest for revenge. Crow doesn’t have
pure heroic motivations, but he’s still accomplishing something good, and he’s skilled enough to
be trusted by an entire team. There’s also a set of rules the vampire hunters all stick to that
ensure everything goes smoothly, so he’s not a wildcard shooting first and asking questions later.
Crow is both oddly compelling and a simple tough guy protagonist. There’s a great moment
where Crow is tied to a pyre and instead of trying to escape or trick anyone, he just tells Valek to
untie him so they can fist fight. Crow doesn’t care if he wins, he just wants to punch this guy. I
can’t help but respect the awareness and honesty of it all.
Valek is the first vampire to ever walk the earth. He became a vampire when the Catholic
church performed some reverse-exorcism ritual that went horribly wrong. This movie has classic
vampire rules: cross, stake through the heart, holy water, and sunlight. Valek is after an ancient
artifact that will make him immune to sunlight. He’s not a particularly interesting villain, but
he’s clearly dangerous. The stakes (ha ha) are believable enough that they make up for the lack
of depth to the film’s big bad. There is something to be said for the ultimate unholy creature of
evil being created by the Catholic church. Something refreshing about the horror genre is a
willingness to criticize major establishments, and this film is no exception, but it’s left for the
audience to come to their own conclusions on condemnation of religious establishments. Is the
real villain the monster, or the system that created him? That’s up to you. It’s a question brought up in classic monster stories like Frankenstein, but in this film the answer almost doesn’t matter
because either way, we’re still killing the vampires.
John Carpenter was a perfect directing choice. Practically every element of this movie
works well with his skill set as a director. Obviously by 1998 Carpenter had plenty of experience
with the horror genre; he knows suspense, he knows scares. Carpenter also has a certain
stillness/steadiness to his movies that blends perfectly with the western genre. Westerns tend to
have a deliberate slowness to them, a cowboy who shoots with a steady hand needs a steady
camera to follow him, and Carpenter is a director in complete control. His partiality to synth
scores, to my surprise, works quite well with a western aesthetic as well. The slow, smooth synth
music blends with the steady camera work and movement of every shot.
Also common with Carpenter films is the use of morally ambiguous characters, but he
knows just when to reel it back in and stop the protagonist from going too far. MacReady isn’t a
hero in The Thing, he’s just the guy who kept it together the longest. Crow goading an immortal
monster into a fist fight he knows he’ll lose? That’s pure Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little
China. The antagonists in Carpenter films are almost always something inhuman. They also tend
to be the title of his films. The Thing, The Fog, Prince of Darkness, Vampires, etc. The audience
is lured in by the promise of whatever evil Carpenter is going to showcase, but we stay in the
hopes of seeing the humans survive.
I can’t necessarily say this is Carpenter’s best film, but that’s purely because he’s made
some amazing movies in his lifetime. Vampires is an exciting western-vampire hybrid that I had
an absolute blast watching, but it’s not The Thing. Still, Vampires is interesting. There are
compelling characters, high stakes, and Carpenter’s distinct filmmaking style. As a vampire fan,
I recommend this. As a western fan, I recommend this. As a John Carpenter fan, I recommend this. If you don’t like any of those, you’ll probably hate this movie, but you should watch it
anyway. I’m also partial to watching westerns and vampire flicks during summertime, so I
especially recommend Vampires for the months ahead. If you’re looking for a good time, you’ve
got it.