Vampires (1998) Review: A Beautiful Mess
“Prepare for the Dawn.”Synopsis: Recovering from an ambush that killed his entire team, a vengeful vampire slayer must retrieve an ancient Catholic relic that, should it be acquired by vampires, will allow them to walk in sunlight. | ![]() Watch now on Amazon |
Calamity Brains:
John Carpenter‘s Vampires is all over the place. Though it does some things very well, the movie is dragged down by a lot of poor choices.
Cons:
-Vampires is a quintessentially male movie, both in casting and in tone. It feels a lot like a Western or gritty buddy cop movie. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s going to feel lacking for a female audience – the only female character is a prostitute who spends most of the movie vamp-stoned out of her mind.
-The length. Vampires could (and should) be much shorter and tighter.
-The plot. Though the concept is good, the story is very predictable once you understand the world.
Pros:
-The cinematography. Though the gorgeous shots and careful camerawork often seem out of place in this movie, they are always appreciated.
-The effects. With the exception of the vampire’s sparkler-like deaths, the effects are generally solid.
Watching Vampires, you can’t help but feel the scriptwriter and director were making two different movies. Vampires has all the hallmarks of a cheesy buddy cop take on Buffy, but it’s presented seriously, with artistic flair – and it’s hard to reconcile the two sides. It’s intrinsically too silly to quite take seriously, but the main actors (James Woods and Daniel Baldwin) lack the chemistry or gravitas to help pull that off. It’s not a bad movie – but neither is it great, and it could have been.
Calamity Brains’ Rating: C+
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