Ian’s review published on Letterboxd:
64/100
" Isn't it beautiful? Something you'll never forget? I know I won't."
Completely relentless and in full effect of being one of the most b-movies I have ever seen. Not always in the best way, but if you gave this film to any other director not named John Carpenter, you would have gotten a big pile of nonsense. Carpenter infuses so much of that weirdness and genre-mashing that he has done effectively for so long that this strange horror movie that is really a western that is really a camp fest turn into something so out of the ordinary that it really is hard to not only take your eyes off of it, but to not admire it at all. I'm not at all saying I loved it, in fact I think most of it doesn't make any sense, but Vampires is something everyone needs to see once.
James Woods is the biggest asshole and the dirtbag this film needed all at the same time. He *is* this film and there would not be much of a reason to want to see what happens without his constant presence being just pissed off all the time and I just really wish there was a bit of a stronger script here. Something I've noticed recently, and I am not sure why, but sometimes I'm really noticing just how many times a vampire movie just doesn't make sense. They set some rules, then say other rules don't make sense; like the bad guy never really felt like a threat, but he killed so many people so quickly and yet, he doesn't just beat 1 James Woods. Like it didn't take any part of the film away from what Carpenter did, but something about the way this film had its "rules" and sort of structure felt a bit all over the place. BUT! I will never say no to checking out a John Carpenter flick and Vampires does deliver on a few fronts.
