HALLOWEEN 2K20: John Carpenter Tribute - A Review of "Assault on Precinct 13"

"You guys think we can make that Wendy's from here? Shoot first, get Baconators second,
'naw what I'm saying?"

Why HELLO fellow Halloween nuts and spooky boos. It's the October season once again and I am absolutely giddy. Not to dress in like a witch's costume to go take a midterm (which did happen in one of my classes, by the way), but enough to get into the mood to start busting out my Blu-ray collection and getting into some creepy viewing pleasures. Since we're talking about the man, the myth, the legend Mr. "JC" John Carpenter, the master of horror movies in my opinion, we're going to review most of his major movies in order of release from now until the end of October to celebrate Halloween in 2020, probably the lamest year I've ever been alive (Thanks COVID).

Someone should dub over every silenced gun sound
with a guy going "Pew, pew, pew"

Such that, we're starting off with surprisingly not really a horror movie but instead more of a western/thriller film, made on a budget of about $100,000. Assault on Precinct 13 tells the story of a decommissioned, shutting down police station in the ghettos of L.A. that comes under siege by a street gang on the warpath. It was a radical premise that surely captured moviegoers' imaginations. Let's take our first look at John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, a movie that teaches us the cop's continuously go for the guns at all the wrong times. Was that a bad joke? A lame attempt to relate real-society into this blog post? A little of both? Hell yeah. Let's roll!

In South-Central Los Angeles, a local gang called Street Thunder, steals a cache of assault rifles and pistols. At 3 AM on a Saturday in Anderson, a crime-infested ghetto, a team of heavily-armed Los Angeles Police officers ambush and kill six members of the gang. Later, the gang's four warlords swear a blood oath of revenge against the police and the citizens of Los Angeles. During the day, three sequences of events occur parallel to one another: First, Lieutenant Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker), a newly promoted California Highway Patrol officer, is assigned to take charge of the decommissioned Anderson police precinct during the last few hours before it is permanently closed. The station is manned by a skeleton staff composed of Sergeant Chaney (Henry Brandon) and the station's two secretaries, Leigh (Laurie Zimmer) and Julie (Nancy Loomis).

"Hey guys, we killed 'em all for you."
"Just like officers, none around when you want one."

Across town, two of the Street Thunder warlords, along with two other gang members, drive around the neighborhood looking for people to kill. One of the warlords shoots and kills a little girl, Kathy (Kim Richards), and the driver of an ice-cream truck. Kathy's father, Lawson (Martin West), pursues and kills the warlord and the other gang members chase him into the Anderson precinct. In shock, Lawson is unable to communicate to Bishop or Chaney what has happened to him. Just before this, a prison bus commanded by Starker (Charles Cyphers) stops at the station to find medical help for one of three prisoners being transported to the state prison. The prisoners are Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston), Wells (Tony Burton), and Caudell (Peter Frankland), who is sick. Back then, we could've assumed a mild head cold, as they do in the film. Nowadays, a guy is coughing rampantly and you can't help but wonder if he's got the COVID. Heh, people in the 1970s would probably just smoke COVID away.

As the prisoners are put into cells, the telephone lines go dead, and when Starker prepares to put the prisoners back on the bus, the gang opens fire on the precinct, using weapons fitted with silencers. In seconds, they kill Chaney, the bus driver, Caudell, Starker, and the two officers accompanying Starker. Bishop unchains Wilson from Starker's body and puts Wilson and Wells back into the cells. When the gang members cut the station's electricity and begin a second wave of shooting, Bishop sends Leigh to release Wells and Wilson, and they help Bishop and Leigh repel an attempted invasion, though Julie is killed in the firefight. Which is sad... I don't think Nancy Loomis deserved that... besides we all know that she'd just pop up again in two years in arguably Carpenter's most well-known film but WE WILL GET TO THAT.

All she wanted was Vanilla Twist and instead
she gets Vanilla and a bullet. Goes to show you
never get what you really want.

Meanwhile, the gang members remove all evidence of the skirmish to avoid attracting outside attention. During the firefight they pushed cars out into the streets to use as cover, which now appear to have mysteriously disappeared. Bishop hopes that someone has heard the police weapons firing, but the neighborhood is too sparsely populated for nearby residents to pinpoint the location of the noise. Much less be in the ghetto. I guess the group could always hope and pray that crackheads with guns show up to their defense. Wells is chosen to sneak out of the precinct through the sewer line and hot-wire a car to run for help, but is killed by a gang member hiding in the back seat. However, two police officers responding to reports of gunfire find the dead body of a telephone repairman hanging from a pole near the police station and call for backup. As the gang rallies for an all-out final assault, Wilson, Leigh, and Bishop retreat to the basement, taking the still-catatonic Lawson with them. The gang then storms the building and rushes the survivors, who protect themselves with a large, durable sign. Bishop shoots a tank full of acetylene gas, which explodes and kills all the gang members in the basement. That's what we call a "pro gamer move". The remainder of the gang flees as more police support arrives to secure the station. Venturing down into the basement, the police officers find dozens of dead and badly-burned gang members strewn about the hallway; the only survivors are Bishop, Leigh, Wilson, and Lawson. Lawson is wheeled out on a stretcher, while Leigh refuses medical help for the gunshot wound in her arm and walks off. An officer tries to cuff Wilson, but Bishop angrily stops him and asks Wilson to walk out of the station with him.

Kyle Rittenhouse practicing for his big day! Wait...
wait... my sources on this one are wrong. Hang on...
I'll get back to you...

Assault on Precinct 13 is a masterpiece of thriller cinema. It's tone is very much that of an old Howard Hawks' western, someone who John Carpenter worshipped as a filmmaker, and the influences were there. It's also unique in that the film's two protagonists are two men who should never team up in day-to-day life; a California Highway patrolman and a death-row inmate. It's interesting to me to see these two unite with a common goal to survive the night. Assault on Precinct 13 also makes use of hardly and set changes and the last forty to fifty minutes of the entire movie all take place in the same setting, the decommissioned jail. I love movies that can save setting changes (and thus save their own costs) by doing that, and it keeps the story simple yet fascinating at the same time. You feel the story's eeriness as the characters themselves are isolated from the rest of the world. Carpenter loves to use this theme in his movies, including most of Halloween II, Escape from New York, and especially and most notably The Thing. As for the score, it's Carpenter's first major score for his own major film, and it's pretty catchy. If it sounds familiar, Carpenter has stated he got the tune for the main title and recurring theme from Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song". You're welcome! All in all, everything considered Assault on Precinct 13 is a must-see for any film fan, certainly any western or thriller fan. While the acting is a bit cheesy at times, and the lines of dialogue can be a little cornball, it's a lot of mindless exciting fun. Not for all ages of course, but still, a classic staple of American cinema. Stay tuned as HALLOWEEN 2K20 continues on the 5th with arguably the biggest and baddest horror film of all time.

Right-wing protesters on their way to an Antifa
rally and... wait, wait... this one's wrong too. I'll
get to the bottom of this, DON'T YOU WORRY!

Oh yeah, there's also the infamous "ice cream scene" to cover before we go. So, funny story behind the ice cream scene. In the film, as stated, Kathy is 10-something year old girl who we see get shot in the chest. That is something rare in movies, you never see the children bite it. Children always have some kind of "plot shield" on them. Again, look at Halloween. Michael Myers ignores the two kids and just attacks Laurie, whereas I feel like a true psychopath would also hunt the children. Of course the sequels would also explain why, but that's another thing altogether. Well, obviously the Motion Picture Associate of America, those devilish fun-ruiners of modern cinema, threatened an "X" rating if the "ten-year-old girl taking a bullet" scene wasn't cut. The distributor advised John Carpenter to give the MPAA a version with the scene excised to get an "R" rating, and then simply distribute the original version complete with the scene. You know something? It worked. Carpenter, in his first major outing as a writer/director, tricked the MPAA and ignored their request to cut out the shocking scene. What a badass.