Vampires (R)
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Also known as "John Carpenter's Vampires" (since Carpenter directed it). It came out in 1998, but I didn't see it until 2015. I could swear I had read a good review of it, back in the day, so I've always thought I'd like to eventually get around to seeing it. But now that I finally have, I'm pretty disappointed. It started out somewhat promisingly, with a group of vampire hunters led by a guy named Jack Crow (James Woods), taking out a nest of vampires. They seemed pretty badass, but also professional. I mean, like... it was a job, you know? Something they were well trained for, and had a lot of impressive weapons, but the team seemed more modern than you'd expect vampire hunters to be. My first impression was they seemed like a team of commandos or something. Of course, they did have a priest with them, and we'll later learn that they were funded and overseen by the Catholic Church. So it's not completely lacking in familiar vampire tropes, but still it seemed like a nice change of pace, I thought. And there is an original mythology, here, about the origin of vampires, and different types of vampires. The ones the team took out at first were all "goons," or low level vampires. But Jack was looking for a "master," and they didn't find one in the nest.

Well, that night Jack and his team are all celebrating at a local motel, with lots of alcohol and prostitutes. But then the master shows up, and kills almost all the vampire hunters (including the priest), as well as the prostitutes, and also I guess a sheriff or deputy. The only people who survive are Jack, and one of his team members, Tony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin), and a prostitute named Katrina (Sheryl Lee). Katrina had been bitten by the master, which meant she would eventually turn into a vampire herself, though that would take a few days. Meanwhile, she'd have a telepathic link to the master, and Jack wanted to use her to track him down. However, he was also sure his team had been set up, because the master had known his name. So he goes to his contact, a cardinal named Alba (Maximilian Schell), who assigns him a replacement priest named Adam Guiteau. From Cardinal Alba, Jack learns that the master who killed his team is Jan Valek, who was several centuries old. I don't want to try to explain his whole backstory, but the upshot is that he's the first vampire ever, and so the strongest. And Valek is looking for a black cross that was involved in the ritual that turned him into a vampire. Because the ritual was never completed, he (and all vampires after him) was left vulnerable to sunlight. If he got the cross, he could complete the ceremony, and then be able to move about freely during the day. Alba orders Jack to wait to rebuild a new team before going after Valek, but Jack refuses. He wants to stop Valek as soon as possible. But that's all I want to reveal of the plot.

Anyway... the story is basically a decent setup. And it's nice to see vampires that are just monsters, as opposed to... some of the more gothic trappings we've become familiar with. (Even though I do like me some gothic vampires.) And... I guess the movie is trying to be a western, as much as it is a horror movie. Personally, I just didn't get that vibe while I was watching it, but I read it online, and I could kind of see it in retrospect. But I still don't really buy it. I mean, not to a great degree. But whatever... it's an incredibly violent movie, of course. And um... I'm not sure what else I can say, specifically. I just think the movie had a lot of potential, and yet I really didn't care for it. Even if I liked the ideas, I didn't think much of the writing, nor the acting. And I really didn't like any of the characters.

There are two direct-to-video sequels, Vampires: Los Muertos and Vampires: The Turning.