Vampires (1998)

VAMPIRES is the best bloodsucker since, well, BLADE.  It's also 
director John Carpenter's best film in a decade.  James Woods and 
fat Daniel Baldwin play a pair of Vatican-sanctioned, Southwest- 
stationed stake-and-ailers, tracking a "master vampire" (a creepy 
Thomas Ian Griffith) through New Mexico.  Lackadaisically paced, 
this one has a nice emphasis on atmosphere over action.  Good 
gore, too, but the dialogue (and a lot of the acting) is pure 
cheese.  (Woods is the "master chewer" here.)  Be the B-movie is 
the point, though, and Carpenter gets the ratio of straight to 
silly just right.  Very fun, if overlong...  With Tim Guinee, 
Sheryl Lee (who appears nekkid and in bondage!), and for a few fun 
scenes, ol' Maximilian Schell.  Screenplay by Don Jakoby, based on
the novel "Vampire$" by John Steakley.  (Rated "R"/104 min.)

Grade: B-

Copyright 1998 Michael J. Legeros
Movie Hell is a trademark of Michael J. Legeros

Originally posted to triangle.movies as MOVIE HELL: November 8, 1998