John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)

It's back to the movies and back to 1998 on the latest
Precinct 13, as Chris and Nick sink their
fangs into John Carpenter's action/horror/western hybrid,
Vampires. Starring James Woods as the
leader of a wild bunch of slayers hired by the Catholic church to
exterminate the unholy undead, this film was a rare commercial
success for Carpenter in the 90s. But, with last-minute
studio-imposed budget cuts, a tangle with the MPAA over its
bloody mayhem, and the blockbuster Blade
breathing down its neck, could this movie live up to the
Carpenter classics -- or, at least, to the earlier
From Dusk Till Dawn, which covers a lot
of the same territory? We've got lots to say about this one --
not all of it positive -- and, along the way, we get into
everything from the influence of classic westerns to the crazy
"could've beens" on of the casting to the film's uniquely
explosive way of dispatching its villainous bloodsuckers. Plus, a
few off-the-beaten-path recommendations of genre films that the
Carpenter crowd might enjoy, whatever their feelings on this
attempted return to form.