There's probably nothing in it, but with this film and the upcoming
Elizabeth, anti-papism and priest-bashing seem on the cinematic rise. By
far the biggest offender is Vampires, whose targets range from the
mightily mitered to a monastery full of squealing friars. Throw in a wearisome
misogyny, witless dialogue, an inane plot, tedious special effects, and a total
lack of suspense and the only reason to watch this farrago from the overrated
horrormeister is the occasional wisecrack from James Woods.
He's Jack Crow, head of a Vatican team of vampire hunters. Armed with a
combination of high tech and medieval weaponry, they prowl the American
Southwest (inviting unfortunate comparisons with Kathryn Bigelow's far superior
Near Dark), raiding nests of revenants and dragging them snarling out of
the darkness to sizzle and burn in the daylight -- over and over again. Crow's
nemesis, a heretic priest from the 14th century turned undead by one of those
pesky exorcisms gone wrong, has surfaced with a scheme to make his kind
invulnerable to the sun. Helping Crow is his partner, played by a Daniel
Baldwin on the descending evolutionary scale from Jim Belushi and Tom Arnold,
plus Sheryl Lee as a hooker/vampire victim and a greenhorn priest who's the butt of most of Woods's wit. "Hey padre," goes a typical
riposte, "did you get any wood sticking that broad with the stake?" If so, he'd
be the only one to get a rise out of this rubbish.
--Peter Keough
Interviews
Vampires 
Full Length Reviews
Vampires 
Capsule Reviews
Vampires 
Vampires 
Other Films by John Carpenter
Escape From L.A. 
Halloween 
In the Mouth of Madness 
Prince of Darkness 
The Thing 
They Live 
Village of the Damned 
Film Vault Suggested Links
Deep Rising 
The Sixth Sense 
The Thirteenth Warrior 
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