Vampires

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Year:	1998
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	John Carpenter
Genre:	Vampire Western
Starring:	James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Gregory Sierra
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120877/
Tagline:	From the master of terror comes a new breed of evil.
Favourite line:	"Can I ask ya somethin' Padre? When I was kickin' your ass back there... you get a little wood?"

Carpenter's much maligned take on the vampire mythos.
James Woods plays Jack Crow, a cranky, world weary vampire hunter, paid by The Vatican along with a team of other Slayers to hunt down and eradicate the bloodthirsty menace.
One evening, partying, the team are set upon, and all but Crow and fellow Slayer Montoya (played by one of the minor Baldwin brothers), as well as a party girl who had the misfortune of being bitten by the master vampire. Worse still, it seems clear that someone betrayed them, and the only people who could have known their whereabouts are all members of The Clergy.

Chuck into the melting pot a backstory involving Crow's parents being transformed into vamps when he was young, and the master vampire's quest to find an ancient religious artifact to enable him to move around in sunlight, and what you have is seemingly generic vampire tale, but it's both the script and the cinematography that lift this above the mediocre, not to mention Carpenter's trade mark laid back, yet somehow creepy soundtrack. Woods is in fine form - when is he ever not? - coming across like Steve Buscemi's angry older brother, and some of the vampire set-pieces are simply superb, in particular the 'arising sequence' which smacks of prime Fulci, with the undead creatures emerging from the New Mexico desert to stand in line, looking for all the world like a promo poster for a new Fields of the Nephilim album.
But the main focus here isn't horror, as this is more Western than monster movie, and is all the better for it.
Intelligent, with a lovely line in wit, though of the blackest variety, this is far, far better than the reputation may have you believe.