Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
directed & written by John Carpenter
Carpenter's second movie is a trashy homage to one of the greatest Westerns, Rio Bravo (1959, dir Howard Hawks). A curiously multi-ethnic gang in LA is put out when some of the members are gunned down by the police. Retaliating, they go on a murder spree that culminates in the siege and titular assault on an isolated police station that's closing down and is only protected by a skeleton crew.
Carpenter, especially when his budget's tight, knows how to get the most out of the situation. The action scenes are tense and it always looks like there's a big horde attacking the station than I suspect there really was. He also knows how to really jolt the audience with creepy, disturbing scenes that don't rely on gore or cheap jump scares. The ice cream truck sequence is famous for a reason - 46 years later, it's still a heavier jolt than anything in a dozen torture-porn horror movies because it gets the idea of real fear, not just cheap Grand Guignol carnage.
The movie benefits greatly from its solid b-movie cast, particularly Austin Stoker as Lieutenant Ethan Bishop, Darwin Joston as Napoleon Wilson, and Laurie Zimmer as Leigh. The villains, as befits a movie partially inspired by Night of the Living Dead (1968, dir George Romero), are largely faceless and personality-less. Instead, they're largely a sadistic murderous horde.
Assault on Precinct 13 is exactly what I want in a pulp thriller; a cool setup, snappy, quotable dialogue, and great action and mayhem. I don't like a lot of Carpenter's later films, but the run from Dark Star (1974) through They Live (1988), is fantastic.
No comments:
Post a Comment