Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

 

“L.A.'s deadliest street gang just declared war on the cops” [1]. A small group of cops and prisoners must band together and try and defend a police station from an attack by deadly gang. The films influences cross genres and include Forbidden Planet, Rio Bravo, The Birds, and Night of the Living Dead. The film was written, directed, scored, and edited by John Carpenter. He is arguably one of the great directors of the 1970’s and 1980’s, creating a ton of movies with cult followings including Dark Star, Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, and They Live. 

This was a very low budget film but it really stands out for the directing, editing, sound, and acting. There is a strong story and good dialogue, with the sort of western last stand theme going on. Carpenter said that the whole movie “came up very quickly. An investor from Philadelphia had some money and sad, ‘Let’s make a movie.’ And so, I said, ‘Let’s  go,’ and I wrote the script in eight days. I wanted to do a western, and it was the closest thing to it. Of course a lot of movies I made are westerns” [2]. This is the film that provided us with the “horrifying situations, compelling rhythms, and haunting set pieces” that have come to be associated with Carpenter and his films [2]. Before this film, his two others had more comedic elements in them.

The two main characters, Bishop and Wilson are great and mesh well together. Both actors are relatively unknown and didn’t go on to become big stars, but they are the right people for these roles and they end up being quite memorable. The score on all of Carpenter’s movies is good, and in here it adds that extra element of suspense that would be missing without it.

It initially received mixed reviews and didn’t do well at the box office, but has a very strong cult following. It was really limited to mostly festival viewing when it was released in 1976 through 1979, until Halloween came out and it finally got a New York Times review [2]. Had it been seen earlier by a larger audience, this film would’ve declared Carpenter to be competent and rising director.

 A remake was made in 2005 starring Ethan Hawke and Lawrence Fishburne, but is nowhere near as good as the original. If you’re a fan of the remake, the director, or action films, then you really need to watch this one. Personally, it is my favorite Carpenter film and I love them all.

Works Cited

[1]	"IMDB," IMDB, 22 2 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074156/?ref_=nv_sr_3. [Accessed 22 2 2016].
[2]	Cumbow, Order in the Universe: The Films of John Carpenter.