Special Coverage The Photo IssueThe Must List2008 Fall TV2008 Fall Movies2008 Fall Music

STARRING James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith

DIRECTED BY John Carpenter

In Carpenter's western-horror hybrid -- based on John Steakley's 1992 novel Vampire$ -- Woods plays vampire hunter Jack Crow, who hightails it to the desert to go mano a bloodsucker with a posse of plasma-happy night prowlers. Hired by the Vatican, Woods and his stake-wielding squadron are aided by a freshly bitten prostitute (Lee) with a telepathic link to the undead. ''It's The Wild Bunch meets Vlad the Impaler,'' says Woods. ''And my character is like John Wayne and William Holden wrapped into one.'' So why has it taken Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog, The Thing) so long to make a vampire flick? ''I've always been frightened of getting stuck in a castle having a bunch of people in costumes walking around with candles through cobwebs at night,'' he says. ''There are so many cliches. I never really knew how to do it till this came along.'' (Oct. 30)

THE LOWDOWN Vampires is doing gangbuster business in France.... Is that a good thing?


Sign up for EW.com's The 25 newsletter!

Stay in the know and get EW.com's top 5 stories, 5 days a week (sent weekday afternoons).
Posted Aug 21, 1998 | Published in issue #446-447 Aug 21, 1998 | Order Article Reprints