Although referred to as “Vampires,” the film was also released as “John Carpenter’s Vampires,” which conveyed a hyperspecific directorial vision of a genre that has been drained and revived several times. Expectations attached to the film were majorly positive, given Carpenter’s track record of making powerful, moving stories that came equipped with brilliant social commentary.
However, 1998’s “Vampires” is quite listless in terms of depth, which transformed its gore-infested action into the only talking point around the time of its release. I must emphasize that there’s nothing wrong with that at all, as Carpenter was more than happy to highlight how far he had to go to up the violence-meter (via The San Diego Union-Tribune):
“I pushed things to the limit because that’s what this movie calls for. I pushed the violence in every scene, pushed it over the top.”
This is true, as the advent of the very first vampire, Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith), immediately heightens the stakes (quite literally), prompting Crow and his crew to kill droves of vampires to get to him. Just like Crow is the apex hunter, Valek is the apex predator who rips his victims to shreds without remorse, now eagerly in search of a Christian relic that will turn him into a daywalker. Crow cannot let this happen, of course, so he indulges in impulsive fights that unfold like one would in a Western, the only difference between the copious amount of blood and guts left behind in the process.
Unfortunately, some of these scenes were a bit too much for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which pushed Carpenter to prune some of the bloodshed so as to avoid an NC-17 rating. Per producer Sandy King (also Carpenter’s wife), just a few scenes were shortened to avoid the stricter rating, as they “didn’t want to ruin the movie and spoil its rhythm.”
As a result, “Vampires” is a perfectly violent, coherent flick that frames its bloodthirsty creatures as terrifyingly inhuman, without resorting to any kind of complexity or romanticization. While the film definitely pales in comparison to the best that Carpenter has to offer, it still promises a bloody good time.
