I saw Vampires. It sucked. John Carpenter's
propensity to try and convert every plot into a Western is a
little tiresome; in addition, the movie was marked by very poor
editing (one of those where a character makes a statement early
in the movie that clearly indicates knowledge that he doesn't
have until the end of the movie) and, well, general crappiness.
One of those movies where you go, 'gee, that was a really
interesting idea, what happened to it?' And the ending was
anticlimactic and a tad improbable, not to mention trite.
Part of the allure of the vampire genre is the
powerful sense of mystery, sensuality, and power that surrounds
the myth (at least, surrounds the myth as we understand it). The
movie was very perfunctory in that regard. The most interesting
parts of the story were ignored or very briefly treated with; it
was as if Carpenter were deliberately taking the vampire out of
the vampire movie, and trying to tell a straight up action story
in which the villian and a few others happened to be
bloodsuckers. I can respect the experiment, I guess, but not on
my dime when the results are as they were in Vampires.
And, make no mistake, the result was crap --
there were a few funny lines, interesting scenes and ideas, and
James Woods isn't as bad as you might think in the lead role,
despite a contradictory script and little chance to develop a
powerful character -- but overall, it's not Scottish, folks.
Christ, I liked Blade more than that.
