Assault on Precinct 13

Writer/director John Carpenter, when he's on his game, does some of the best genre stylings in the business. His name is virtually synonymous with horror. You're probably familiar with his genre-defining HALLOWEEN from 1978. Two years earlier he made a compact little thriller called ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, a minor classic that may first appear to be merely just another low budget exploitation exercise designed to kill an hour and a half. Give it a chance and tell me this isn't an eerily effective, potent movie. The genre here? Not the sort of slashing and bloody horror for which the director became infamous, but rather a lean, sober, and visceral crime drama that tips its hat not only to horror but also the Great American Western.

Even as a teenager who watched hours and hours of dreck, I was skeptical as to the quality of this one at first, skipping several airings on pay cable back in the day. I eventually decided to tape it. Wow. I think I watched it twice in one day. Damned if Carpenter didn't knock it out of the park. I love it when I'm blindsided by a work that seemed less than promising. Firstly, the director managed to convey a variety of moods, shifting gears seamlessly throughout. For me, the primary attribute, the single most important aspect of any film is the atmosphere. If a filmmaker cannot evoke time and place convincingly, it's difficult for me to appreciate anything else. The acting may be stellar, the screenplay Pulitzer worthy. Such things may make a film worth seeing; the truly great ones get the stage set correctly, the place on which the action occurs. Maybe this movie isn't great in the traditional sense (whatever that is), but it certainly scores by getting the first rule of great filmmaking down.

In PRECINCT 13, this success owes much to the electronic scoring (done by Carpenter), with its hypnotic synthesizer drones. That's what continues to make this picture memorable for me. I'm hearing it now. I recall the slower, more meditative bars during the low key (but still emotionally draining) moments. The main theme thunders over the story's set-up and subsequent development: the plight of a small group of people trapped in an almost empty police station, forming unusual alliances against a bloodthirsty mob armed with serious weaponry. Precinct 9 in District 13 is a South Central Los Angeles substation that is about to be closed. Highway patrol cop Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker) is given what seems to be an easy assignment: oversee the quiet station for its final night. With only a smattering of staff and empty jail cells, it appears to be a cakewalk. Meanwhile, a local gang has gotten its hands on a cache of automatic weapons during a robbery, but not before the fuzz bring down several members. The gang leaders swear vengeance, on everyone, it seems. We see them plunge switchblades into their forearms and spill and mix their blood into a bowl, a deadly symbolic rite known as "Cholo." 

A little later, we follow a man and his daughter through the ghetto as he cautiously tries to find someone's house. An ice-cream truck happens by and of course, the little girl wants a cone. The father heads to a phone booth. In what is one of the most shocking and unexpected scenes in any movie I've seen, the little girl is shot and killed by one of the gang members. Cold blood, no expression of any kind on the assailant's face. Nothing. The ice-cream man is also wounded, and lives long enough to inform the dad that there's a gun under the dash. The father hunts down and kills his daughter's murderer. He seeks refuge at the police station. The gang follows. There will be violence. There are more plot details that I will let you discover on your own. Suffice it to say that Bishop and the crew, which includes some convicts who were rather unexpectedly brought to the station, find themselves under attack. Those odd alliances form. Societal rules literally go out the window in a bid for survival. A full-on siege wages against the precinct. Gang member after gang member empties their rounds at the windows, eventually trying to break in. They are positively kamikaze in their efforts. As we learn, "Cholo" means "to the death." 

The attackers are merely soldiers whose goal is to take the fort, and waste everyone in and around it. They succeed to some degree, again, left for you to discover how. Before that, there is a lot of retaliation. The "quiet" precinct won't go, um, quietly. Along the way, we meet each of the desparate defenders of that fort, the aforementioned cop, criminals, grieving father, as well as other cops, secretaries. In between the explosive action, there is reflection, hope, even boredom. I said the movie is lean, and it is, but Carpenter still allows his characters to breathe, to be dynamic. Usually, characters in films like this are cardboard cut-outs, mere bodies to fire off bullets and wisecracks. We don't learn anything about the gang members. They are voiceless, anonymous automatons, stalking like the zombies in George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. This movie owes a lot to that one.

I also mentioned how Carpenter pays tribute to Westerns. If you've seen a few, you'll see note more than a few similarities to them in the plot. The dialogue among the principals also reminded me of Henry Hathaway and John Ford pics. For his work as the film's editor, Carpenter even used the pseudonym John T. Chance, the name of John Wayne's character in RIO BRAVO. Additionally, the themes of machismo are an unavoidable undercurrent throughout PRECINCT 13. Witness the behavior of convict Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston) and his fascinating conversations with Leigh (Laurie Zimmer), a secretary. The unknown cast is excellent. The script is airtight. The editing, brisk. Carpenter continued the promise he showed in 1974's DARK STAR (sci-fi). HALLOWEEN would make him a household name. He would go on to have a wildly uneven CV, with some bright moments (CHRISTINE) and clunkers (VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED). But like that of Walter Hill, even the lesser films were still directed with verve. His ability to evigorate lesser material is only the work of some sort of master. Ultimately, PRECINCT 13 may be a B-movie, but it puts a lot of "A"s to shame. That likely includes the 2005 remake, which I haven't bothered to watch. Not in a hurry. Maybe you can tell me about that one.