Assault on Precinct 13

‘All you do is answer the telephone and send over any strays’.

 I’m a fan of John Carpenter’s films, and especially this lean, sinewy siege thriller, which tips its hat to Rio Bravo and Night of the Living Dead, where all one cop has to do is see through a standard Quiet Night at a soon to be defunct precinct.

Carpenter’s the master of retuning the frequencies of his world; things might feel familiar, but you slowly realise everything’s gone to shit. Every the ice-cream van is under siege.

 ‘We want to stay here and hold until somebody comes, okay? We’re in the middle of a city, inside a police station. Someone is bound to drive by eventually!’

 In the city, despite all the noise and people, you’re invisible. That’s still a frightening thought. It may be a thriller at heart but there are hints of horror throughout.

Exploitation films were quick to react the changing world. Made for cheap and for younger audiences they were the films your parents didn’t want you to watch, lest you be corrupted. In some ways Blumhouse continues the financial model for horror, though with less controversy. Some exploitation movies were so good they burst out of the straightjacket that contained them. This is one of them.

And there’s that nasty day-horror moment that got the film in hot water. An act of violence early on that the film never quite confronts.  I remember the shock of watching it for the first time as a teenager thinking: did that really happen? Thereafter, it’s alluded to only once. It’s so shocking that the only witness has been rendered mute. And yet it hangs over the film. It’s a morality code for us, the audience, when judging the Bad Guys. It’s for us to remember: they did that – so they deserve the punishment they get (which is never embellished. A kill is a kill for Carpenter). And the bad guys are never named. They just respawn, in greater numbers, with fiercer weaponry.  

Also: ice-cream vans in movies. From Ghost Dog to Trees Lounge. I don’t question why this ice-cream van is here, in this no man’s land, where there are no kids, as it’s menaced by the gang. There’s another film, for another time, that explores the lives of the gang as children, and the time they weren’t allowed ice-cream. That’s not really a film I want to see.

 It’s the attitude contained in both Carpenter’s character and his worlds that I love. The cynical quips, the liberal use of smoke, the gang culture. Attitude in spades. It’s got that nasty 70s vibe, but our heroes are a cop and a murderer who unite under siege, but still can’t put the world to rights, as the ambiguous morals of this joint spill all over the place.