Test Screening Reviews

Reviews from people who have seen test screenings or special previews of upcoming movies. If the reviews contains spoilers, there will be a warning.

Review by Knut B on October 28th 1998 (Minor Spoilers.)

An open letter to the director John Carpenter:

Dear Mr. Carpenter,

I admire your earlier films. „Halloween", „Assault on Precinct 13" and „The Fog" rank among the best movies of their kind. Unfortunately you have never directed a really gripping movie since „Escape from New York". I was wondering if you have lost your talent? During the past fifteen years your direction became more and more uninspired and your stories relied mostly on special effects rather than your ability to create sudden, unexpected shocks to make the audience jump at the appropriate moment. As the years passed, my hope to see a worthy film of yours was constantly diminishing. All the movies you have directed lately merely contained a few flashes of the old genius. But the rest was quite boring.

I have now seen your newest film „Vampires" Fascinated by the theme of vampirism I was really looking forward to watch the movie. Perhaps it would finally be the long-awaited comeback of the master of horrors. Unfortunately my expectations weren´t entirely fulfilled. Your latest opus has all the little problems I have noticed on your other movies of the last one and a half decades. Again you didn´t seem to trust your own intuition. Instead you made a movie which you thought might match the expectations of your audience.

The setup is quite interesting. The idea of vampire slayers working for the Vatican is really funny, but you are trying to make it scary and at the beginning that doesn't work. The „good guys" are to cool, which makes them over the top heroes who cannot possibly come into deep trouble. Only the James Woods character is provided with a believable reason for his coolness. Your approach begins to work after nearly all of them were slaughtered. What follows is a typical revenge plot which certainly works though it is surely not very original.

Woods delivers the goods- as always. He succeeds in giving his windy character some depth. Maximilan Schell also has his moments. He is able to express through body language what your images do not really make clear. Especially your master- vampire doesn't work. He is played by a bad actor. And the rest of the vampires are one dimensional. There is the underlying tragical element. The erotic point of the bite is also not present, though it is mentioned by one of the characters. Your vampires are sometimes shoot em up monsters and sometimes intelligent individuals. The latter would have worked better.

And then you use gore violence. It does not fit in the concept. The effects may be really good, but they are just not necessary. They do not begin to lend the film the much-needed tension. Maybe you didn´t want to sacrifice the gore hounds of your audience, though they surely won´t be satisfied because of the rare use of gore violence . The „normal" viewer however will perhaps consider it to be too much.

But nevertheless the „Vampires" is a watchable film. For most of the running time I liked it and compared with your last films it is an improvement. The cinematography is great. Your images are composed perfectly and establish a scary atmosphere. Unfortunately you are not able to use its potential. The story and the characters destroy most of the it. And then there is the very intense music. You composed it by yourself. And so it works perfectly with the fluent cutting. I had the chance to enjoy the action and the atmosphere, something many of the young directors like Michael Bay may never learn.

But I mourn for the unused potential of some sequences, especially at the end of the film. There could have been so much more in the jail...

As a Carpener- fan I was disappointed. The film did not work as well I hoped it would. If some unknown director had made the movie, perhaps I would have praised his talent. But I know you can do better. Maybe in the future the producers should reduce your budgets, so you are forced to make the horror invisible, like you did in „The Fog" and „Halloween". Then you can't count on big f/x, you have to make something out of nothing. This time it was just a fine watch... which is almost enough if I consider your present situation.

Sincerely,

Knut B. (a former admirer)

Help on translation: Ralf Behet. (We both are not native- speakers, so please excuse mistakes)