John Carpenter's Vampires

James Wood, one of the Baldwins. 1998. Columbia-TriStar.

One of the styles of vampire movies that I particularly enjoy - that of the hard-bitten vampire hunters tirelessly chain-smoking and staking the snot out of the vile creatures. This movie comes in second only to Near Dark, which to this day reigns in my personal canon as the best of this genre.

My favourite take is the vampire hunters being a sort-of mercenary hire from the Catholic Church - with teams all over the word, doing the Lord's work. The film has great dialogue, great action, lots of blood n guts and a good vs evil mentality, with of course the underlying premise that sometimes good has to be just as mean as evil, but hey! It's vampires!

Check it out.

VG