Now you'll notice I'm not writing about new releases. I'm writing about films as and when I watch them and as it happens I have access to plenty of gnarly classics like this one at the LMU libary.

I'd watched the Ethan Hawke/Laurence Fishburne remake at the cinema. I remember pruning my mustache beforehand to get in although I was under the 15 year requirement. It worked and what I saw was passable, entertaining enough for a 14 year-old boy. I remember enjoying frequent sex and Ja Rule slicing up a mofo with some sort of samurai blade.

So I came in expecting more of the same exploitation that made this a cult classic. But it's for quite another reason that it has garnered such a status.

It's short, which is nice. And sharp. It doesn't really leave enough time for it to cover up the plot holes (like, why not escape through the sewers?) but this siege scenario is shocking not because the station secretaries get their tits out before getting carved up but because of the fear it represents. It perfectly snatches the stifling anti-youth-hippy-communist-revolutionary atmosphere straight from the Cold War 70s.

So a bunch of hippies make a blood pact and go on a killing spree eventually laying siege to the very very much closing down Precinct 13. Obviously just before the hippies turn into a coup-sized mob several very dangerous criminals have to be put in the cells already giving our very likeable black-man-done-good rookie cop too much to deal with. 

Yes, this film never strays far from the stereotypes, my favourite being Che's evil twin, but it's handled with the style and finesse of an ambitious young John Carpenter and oozes his brand of cool. Politically it sends out some very mixed messages but we'll forgive it largely because of the resounding Carpenter score. It's often a shame to say that the music is the best part of a film (eg: The Social Network - yesss! Trent Reznor) but when the man behind the camera is the composer as well it just proves how well he knows and loves his work. An auteur in every sense it's enjoyable to stray from my regular Kurt Russell/John Carpenter dose and see some of his earlier work.

http://bit.ly/kylct1 - John Carpenter's Original Theme