vampires starts out almost in the style of a spaghetti western with an attack on a small homestead in new mexico . the house has a nest of vampires and jack crow ( james woods ) is leading a team of vampire hunters in to clean them out . while the initial imagery is a little over-dramatic , it gives way to what is a fairly decent action sequence . that is enough action to last us a while and we could , director john carpenter would let us , get to a story line . but it is not very long and there is not much plot until the next big action scene . then there is only a bit more of plot before the next action scene after that . <NEG> the plot is kept to a minimum and the interesting ideas in the plot really get the short end </NEG> . and that is <NEG> something of a pity </NEG> because the film , based on the book vampire$ by john steakley , gives us a myth for the origins of vampires and explains why vampires are so intertwined with religious imagery . this could be an interesting departure from the standard vampire film , but carpenter decides to tell us about it rather than to show it . what carpenter saves his serious screen time for a sequence of spectacular fights between hunters and vampires . there is a lot of fighting and lots of gore . <NEG> anything intriguing is kept to a minimum </NEG> to so it does not get in the way of pleasing the action film fans . this has not always been carpenter's style . his 1981 version of the thing has action but also challenges the viewer to do a little thinking about the film's central science fictional question . jack crow heads a vampire swat team , cleaning up nests of vampires with high-tech spears and crossbows . in the early part of the film his team is wiped out by a particularly mean vampire valek ( thomas ian griffith ) who has been tipped off to who crow is . now crow team is gone and he is down to himself and his sidekick tony montoya ( daniel baldwin ) . to make matters worse , he does not know the people on his own side , tony and his backers , he can trust . meanwhile jack is sure the vampires are looking for something that must be hidden somewhere here in new mexico . if this is sounding like <NEG> a very tired police corruption plot with a few obvious substitutions </NEG> , that's exactly what it is . the same story looks just as well with two partner cops looking for a gang of hood who are themselves looking for a packet of heroin . but carpenter goes against a familiar principle of film : show people , don't tell them . just about everything in the plot other than the fights we are told about in the dialog and not shown . fundamental questions in the plot like where does crow get his funding , why are the vampires in new mexico--what do they want and why do they want it , what is the connection of the vampires and the catholic church , how did crow come to be a vampire hunter and why devote his life to it ? the answers to any of these questions could have been dramatized , but instead are revealed through dialog . now <NEG> if all this was not bad enough , carpenter misuses </NEG> the james wood persona . woods plays a particular sort of cool lowlife very well . but carpenter leads off the film by having woods do some sergio-leone- style mythic posturing . while his crew prepares for an attack he stands staring fixedly through shades at the house that will be his target . woods <NEG> does not work </NEG> as a larger than life mythic hero . that is not his style and it just does not work very well . there are some simple things that carpenter should be looking for as director that he misses . in one scene we are looking at a motel room with dead people on the floor . one female corpse is on the floor in front of a chair so that there is about an inch of daylight between her and the chair . as the actress breathes the gap widening and narrowing makes it obvious her arm is moving up and down . one also wonders how the existence of vampires is kept secret . these vampires do not maintain a low profile . <NEG> there are arguably logical flaws in the film </NEG> . there is some question in my mind whether carpenter has a consistent policy on what effect bullets have on vampires . it would take some rationalization to explain why in some scenes sunlight has a dramatic effect on vampires , yet in a scene toward the end a vampire can walk under a burned roof that lets him be swept by beams of sunlight . i suspect that the book on which this film was based was better thought out . while i might recommend this film to an action audience i would say that what i look for in a vampire film vampires rates a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale . perhaps i will read the book .
