Sunday, August 31 screening: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) d. John Carpenter

Los Angeles, 1976. The city is under siege from a growing number of dangerous youth gangs at war with the police. After a violent altercation with a civilian, the gangs surround a nearly abandoned police precinct occupied by a new lieutenant and two felons being transferred to death row. The unlikely pairing of cops and criminals must work together to stave off the nighttime invasion until backup can arrive.

Assault on Precinct 13 is the second film from John Carpenter, who wrote, directed, scored and edited the movie with a budget of $100,000. It was Carpenter’s dream to make a Howard Hawks-inspired western, but with the miniscule budget he was given, he quicky rewrote his script to a setting of gangland LA, using friends and relatives as cast and crew to shoot as quickly as possible.

Belying its modest origins, Assault on Precinct 13 has stood as one of the great independent and action films of the 1970s. Its tight pacing, classic Hollywood-style of visual storytelling, and the ironic, detached dialogue from its aloof antiheroes, was more than just a worthy successor to the western films Carpenter hoped to emulate – it helped bring the genre to modern audiences, setting a template that action films would copy well into the 1980s and 90s.

While Assault on Precinct 13 is an action film, inspired by westerns, watching it today, it’s not surprising to see why Carpenter made his name in the horror genre. The big middle-of-the-movie action sequence, as our heroes try to ward off the seemingly endless gang members trying to break into the police station, is as exciting as it is terrifying. There’s a sense of dread, almost supernatural, the permeates throughout Assault on Precinct 13, and a tone that would serve Carpenter well in films like Halloween and The Thing.

Carpenter’s style, like his hero Howard Hawks, proved to be durable. Critics who dismissed his films because of the lowbrow genres he worked in still had to admit that Carpenter was a master visual storyteller whose films were never dull or without excitement. Carpenter would go on to create bigger movies, but Assault on Precinct 13 is proof that he could make a genre picture that would put films with ten times the budget to shame.

If you like Assault on Precinct 13, check out…

Escape From New York (1981)

d. John Carpenter

Carpenter’s most famous films are in the horror genre, but he never abandoned action movies. Escape From New York, starring Carpenter regular Kurt Russell, combines action and science fiction, and was shot for $6 million, scaling way up from his no-budget days just six years prior. The film takes place in a dystopian future where Manhattan has become a maximum-security prison. Ex-solider and convict Snake Plissken is recruited to infiltrate the island to save the U.S. President, whose plane has crashed inside the city. Escape From New York doesn’t have the same gritty, kinetic energy of Assault on Precinct 13, but it does show off what Carpenter is capable of with a bigger budget and a bigger star.

Rio Bravo (1959)

d. Howard Hawks

With the help of unlikely allies, a small-town sheriff, played by legend John Wayne, must hold a dangerous prisoner in jail while fending off the outlaw gang determined to free him. Sound familiar? The similarities between Assault on Precinct 13 and Rio Bravo are sometimes overstated. But there’s no denying that Howard Hawks, with his economic approach to action, quippy dialogue and focus on flawed heroes, was a huge influence on the style of John Carpenter. Long after westerns lost their mass appeal, Hawks and Rio Bravo were still being name checked by directors as far apart stylistically as Jean-luc Godard and Michael Mann – a testament to the legacy of one the greatest American filmmakers.  

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

d. George A. Romero

One of the most important films in horror history, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead introduced audiences to the modern zombie – slow moving, seemingly unstoppable undead beings amassing from every direction. The gang members in Assault on Precinct 13, who don’t speak, don’t seem to care if they get shot in the head, and never stop coming, bear more than a passing resemblance to Romero’s undead. More importantly, Carpenter tapped into the sense of doom and slow creeping dread of Night of the Living Dead when crafting Assault on Precinct 13, matching Romero’s level of terror even without the supernatural presence.