41 years ago, John Carpenter conceived a rabid, urban fever dream in "Assault on Precinct 13"
There's lots of moving parts to terror.
A premise that's universal, or at least relatable, is key of course. Violence and dread usually trudge in the same territories. Atmosphere, though, might be chief among them all. The kind of sweat you feel practically behind your eyes, telling you to look away--yet you remain. Director John Carpenter has been passing like a ghost in between these types of stories for almost half of a century. To this day, his 1976 cult favorite "Assault on Precinct 13" remains a bare-bones, yet unrelenting fever dream of surprising resonance.
A modern, urban take on the Western with a strong backbone in Horror, "Assault on Precinct 13" takes place in transition. A barren metropolitan in flux; a last-of-the-heroes archetype (who is also a person of color) placed in charge; prisoners going from cells to shackles, and a gang war bleeding into the safety of the system. There's a seeming sort of rage beneath all of the film's empty space and quiet bursts of savagery. And when it plunges, it aims to sting
The film is set in the middle of the city, in a police station that is being decommissioned and is under siege. While its desolate nature is a sight to behold, the film's haunted settings and locations are teeming with nothing but decay. Bursts of blood and all out war are what it deals in primarlily. However, it is not without its John Wayne-inspired charm, old-world heroics or Damsel-not-so-in-distress virtuism. All ultra violence and nihilism, "Assault..." has the blood of a true exploitation film, but doesn't forget its cinematic debts to films like "Rio Bravo."
A simple, South Central Los Angeles crime story, the plot is basic Horror survival. The local gang "Street Thunder" acting as gollums invading the space of our heroes at various intervals, sometimes feasting and sometimes failing. All the while, Carpenter's chilling, repetitive (self-composed) score pulses in the background, providing an effectively eeire tone in that way it...kind of always does in Carpenter movies.
The performances are all Hollywood journeyman; not a lot of familiar faces, but a wealth of charisma and one-liners. The film's dual leads played by Austin Stoker's Lt. Bishop: a pragmatic cop charged with manning a dead station for the night, and Darwin Joston's Napoleon Wilson: an infamous and charming convict with a silver tongue on his way to his ultimate fate come together like fire igniting on a candle whick. It's a short burst, but makes perfect sense.
The dead-eyed street gang walking through the frames of the film with no remorse and (and no dialogue) end up providing a more pointed existential dread to the proceedings. This is in the most literal sense, sure, but also in a forboding, "a change gonna come" kinda way, which is endlessly creepy. "Assault..." uses attributes like this time and time again to effectively mine its horror from practical elements of modernity. Much like the concept of "The Shape" in Carpenter's later "Halloween," it's the inevitability that is so frightening.
Throughout his career, Carpenter has exploited minimalist elements for maximum atmosphere. These are the building blocks from which he constructs his towers of terror. With "Assault...," Carpenter showed very early on in his career that his knack for the sort of mundane but terrifying theatrics was something that would not only work, but prove to be downright influential. Much like the looping, ominious score Carpenter composed, which provides the film with its own ghostly dread, "Assault on Precinct 13" staggers and stays with you, lending itself to timelessness.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LS7k3G_6IjE
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