Vampires (also known as John Carpenter's Vampires) is an action / horror film directed by John Carpenter in 1998. Adapted loosely from the novel Vampire$ by John Steakley, the film stars James Woods as Jack Crow, leader of a Catholic Church-sanctioned team of vampire hunters. The plot is centered on Crow's efforts to prevent a centuries-old cross from falling into the hands of Valek, a master vampire. Vampires also stars Daniel Baldwin (as Montoya), Sheryl Lee (as Katrina), Thomas Ian Griffith (as Valek), Tim Guinee (as Father Adam Guiteau) and Maximilian Schell (as Cardinal Alba). Vampires is characterized by its strong Western overtures and allusions and its unapologetically masculine leads. Two sequels direct to video followed : Vampires: Los Muertos and "Vampires : The Turning" in 2002 and 2005.

The film starts off with the two vampire hunters Jack Crow (James Woods) and his partner Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) in the middle of New Mexico, United States staring at an old abandoned farmhouse. Montoya asks him what he thinks of the place whilst Crow is glaring at it through his binoculars. Crow replies by giving him a coarse answer and soon after that they both go to the van and release the rest of the slayers. They then put on their equipment such as stakes and crosses etc. and quietly enter the eerie farmhouse. For about the next two minutes nothing happens and the farmhouse seems to be empty until a female vampire flies and pounces on one of the hunters.

Desperately trying to get her off he does eventually manage to do so and the rest of the men shoot her, she then collapses on the floor. She then raises her head with dark dead blood pouring out of her mouth.

As Crow is about to shoot her, another vampire (this time a male) comes through the roof from the second floor and starts to have a fight with the rest of the slayers, all the slayers fail to restrain him until Crow shoots him in the chest with his gun and then stabs him in the heart with a stake killing him.

The hours pass and they kill all the vampires by shooting them with Jack's crossbow the bolts are attached by a cable to a winch on the vehicle and pulling them into the sunlight. All the other men cheer as they feel they have done a good days work but Crow is perplexed that all that was there was weaker vampires called Goons and worried that the Master vampire wasn't there. The sun is setting and as the Slayers are leaving the Master bursts out of the ground outside the house, the Slayers were standing only feet from his resting place.

Time passes again and now night has fallen, the time when it is only safe for vampires to go outside and feed. The slayers stay at a motel in the middle of a desert, getting drunk, smoking and courting with women as they celebrate their victory. Many of the women are prostitutes including Katrina (Sheryl Lee). When the master vampire, Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith), turns up at the motel, bites Katrina and massacres the slayers, during this attack Valek sees Jack and calls him by name which astonishes Crow. Crow and Montoya run outside and grab a weak and nearly unconscious Katrina, take a pickup truck and drive off as fast as the engine can carry it. As the truck travels at high speed driving through a desert road in the middle of nowhere, Valek catches up with them, jumps on the back of the truck and smashes his fist through the back window.

As things seems to turn out from bad to worse for desperate humans, Montoya reaches his revolver and shoots Valek in the forehead sending him flying. After that dawn begins to appear and Valek must find shelter from the sun which is the only thing that saves the trio.

They keep on driving for a few more hours until daylight fully arises when suddenly out of nowhere they spot a broken down car in the middle of the road blocking their path. Due to panic Montoya swerves the wheel and they go spinning down a hillside. Coming out of the pickup dazed and slightly confused, they grab Katrina once again and start walking along the roadside in the blistering sun hoping to pick up a ride. Later they come to a gas station waiting for a random automobile to come by, when one does Montoya threatens the driver with his pistol and they steal the car. They then drive back to the motel to where they were staying and after one big argument Crow stays at the site, while Montoya takes Katrina to the nearest hotel. Crow stabs all the corpses of his fellow slayers in the hearts of the victims with a wooden stake and beheads them. This will prevent them from turning into vampires. Crow then burns down the motel and buries the heads out in the desert.

While Jack is doing this Montoya has gotten another hotel room and Katrina awakens finding herself stripped naked and tied to the bed, Montoya assures her that he hadn't touched her in a sexual way. They get into a conversation and Montoya tells Katrina that she has been bitten by a vampire and that soon she would be one to if they didn't find and destroy the one that bit her in enough time and that also a master vampire has a telepathic link to their victims, he also offers her a hamburger but she's somewhat repulsed at the scent but she asks for a cigarette.

Cut back to Jack who has come to what appears to be a church and is one his way in to see his boss Cardinal Alba (Maximilian Schell)who introduces Jack to Father Adam Guiteau Tim Guinee, Jack reports that his entire team has been destroyed and that only one vampire did this, Jack describes him as being like a machine. Cardinal Alba and Father Guiteau show Jack a centuries old painting of a man which turns out to be the master vampire that attacked and killed Jack's crew, the Cardinal and Priest exchange worried looks and tell Jack that the man's name is Yahn Valek but that they know nothing more about him other than he is the first documented case of vampirism and is most likely the progenitor of all vampires, Jack then announces that he's going to go after this Valek but is told that he will wait for his new team to get in before he does that but that Father Guiteau would be replacing the Priest that was murdered at the hotel. There is an argument and Jack leaves to get Montoya and go after Valek, Alba instructs Guiteau to go with him and keep an eye on him, Guiteau rushes out the door after Jack.

Cut back to Katrina and Montoya and shes asking of she can have a shower and get dressed Montoya unties her so she can and she goes into the bathroom and tries to shut the door but Montoya stops her, she protests and he tells her that she doesnt have anything that he hasnt already seen, then he tells her to leave it open a little.

Cut back to Jack, he and Father Guiteau are driving heading to the hotel where Montoya is and Guiteau is telling Jack how honored he is to be working with him and that it had always been something that he has always wanted to do, it seems the more he talks the more irritated Jack becomes and he pulls the truck over and pulls Guiteau from it knocking him around a bit and shoving him to the ground where he draws a gun and tells the Priest to stop lying to him and tell him what he knows about Valek or he's gonna kill him, Guiteau replies that he's told him all he knows and that if he doesnt believe him them go ahead and kill him.

Cut once again to Montoya and he's resting on the couch with his eyes closed and when he opens them he sees a dressed Katrina walking out on the ledge of the hotel trying to get away from Montoya, Montoya reacts and breaks through the window grabbing Katrina and pulls her back into the room the both of them falling to the floor, Katrina sees a cut on Montoya's arm and the vampire blood in her takes over as she grabs his arm and bites him before she knows what shes doing, Montoya jerks his arm back and slaps Katrina hard enough to knock her out, he then uses a Zippo cigarette lighter to burn the wound closed.

Back in the van Jack and Guiteau are driving again the Priest looking a little worse for wear after his beating at Jack's hands, Jack shows him a map that contains every vampire attack in the United States over the last one hundred years he then tells Guiteau that things like crosses and garlic have no effect but that the legends about stakes and sunlight are true.

Cut to Valek once again rising from under the ground like he did at the beginning of the movie.

Finally Jack and Guiteau get to the hotel were Montoya and Katrina are holed up, Katrina is laying on the bed still knocked out from being slapped and Jack introduces Guiteau and asks why Katrina has a black eye and why he has a bandage on his arm, Montoya tells Jack that she tried to escape and she cut his arm on the broken glass and the he got mad at her for all this and hit her and that it was no big deal.

Finally Katrina awakens having linked to Valek and Jack gets her to tell him whats going on. There is a montage scene between the hotel room and Valek's point of view which shows a large fire and Valek holding a map out to the Priest telling him to show him, the priest points to a location on the map and then Valek decapitates the old priest to the horror of Katrina, she sees a sign that says San Miguel and Jack tells Guiteau to call all the churches in that area asking of any are missing any old priests soon after Katrina looses the connection to Valek but Guiteau finds a church that has a missing priest.

Jack then takes Guiteau into the bathroom and tells him that he's beginning to like him and that he doesnt want to hurt him but he will if he doesnt start telling him the truth right now, Guiteau tells him that Crow wont hurt him and in response Jack shoves a towel in Guiteau's mouth and cuts the palm of his hand with a knife pulling the towel out he then tells the priest some of his past about how his father was bitten by a vampire, killed his mother and came after Jack and that he killed his own father so he would have no problem killing Guiteau. He then asks what it is Valek's after and Guiteau tells him that hes after an ancient relic called the Black Cross of Berseires and that Valek was once a priest that was thought to have been possessed by demons and the Berseires Cross was used in an exorcism that was cut short but the result was that Valek was forever changed into the first vampire and that the priest Valek killed was the only person that knew of the location of the Cross. Jack and the rest head to the old priests church to try and see of they could find out the location of the Berseires Cross now that Valek has had to stop due to the sun.

However the next night Valek rises but is not alone he has six companions and thanks to the link Katrina has the Slayers learn that they are all Masters as they converge on an old spanish mission but there is nothing that can be done against vampires of that power and soon Valek has the Cross in his possession. The next day Jack and the others find the Spanish mission and while their there Jack and Montoya get into a fight over Jack berating Katrina and Jack asking Montoya if he's falling in love with her, the fight is broken up by Guiteau who tells them that Valek wants the Berseires Cross to complete his exorcism which was cut short the first time and that completing the ritual would make him able to walk in the daylight and that would make him unstoppable. Jack and Montoya put aside their differences but vow to pick them up later when their job is done. They then travel to a nearby town that seems to be deserted.

They group decide that the most secure building in the town would be the jail and go in to investigate, the security cameras are still on and finally Jack spots one of the Master vampires walking around and they work out a plan Montoya would stay outside and work the wench attached to the Jeep and keep an eye on the continually weakening Katrina while Jack would stay on the ground floor to shoot them with his crossbow leaving Guiteau to be the bait to lure them to Jack, they manage to get a couple of the Masters but not before the sun sets enough for Valek and the other Masters to come out as well as the towns missing population who have been turned into Goons. Jack yells at Montoya to get out of there and Guiteau manages to find a place to hide without being seen but Valek and the rest get ahold of Jack knocking him out.

Cut to Montoya and Katrina, the sun has set and suddenly Katrina leaps up in the seat and bites Montoya on the neck he makes no move to stop her she then gets out of the jeep and starts walking back to the town, when Montoya awakens he loads a sub-machine gun and fires a volley and smashing the hot barrel against the open wound on his neck.

Jack awakens to find that hes been tied to the front of his truck that hes surrounded by the recently turned towns folk, the Masters and Valek, Jack starts berating Valek but then Valek tells Jack what hes planning on reproducing the first exorcism and that Jack is needed and who it is thats going to be doing the exorcism which is Cardinal Alba, again Jack starts berating Valek but Valek silences him when he sees the now vampiric Katrina walking back into the town, Jack and Valek think that she has killed Montoya, seeing this seems to take the fight out of Jack and the Cardinal begins the ritual.

Guiteau is hiding in one of the stores there and finds a shotgun and shells under the counter and loads the shotgun, he then gets up on the roof where he shoots and kills Cardinal Alba, Valek then tells Guiteau to finish the ritual and Guiteau refuses placing the shotgun against his head, just then Montoya's jeep comes roaring onto the town and Montoya uses Jack's crossbow to shoot the cross that Jack has been tied to the cable attached to the bolt tightens and pulls the cross out of the ground taking Jack with it and dragging him behind the jeep. Guiteau then brings Valek's attention to the fact that the sun is rising and that hes waiting to long, Valek tries to get the Berseires Cross but the sunlight reflecting off of the jewels in the cross burns his hards and he cant get ahold of it so he leaves it and heads for shelter, Jack now cut loose grabs the Berseires Cross and heads off after Valek.

Valek runs into a open building with the only thing between him and the sun is a corrugated tin roof Jack and Valek face each other and Jack rams the cross though Valek's chest then throws himself through the support post for the roof causing it to collapse allowing the sun to get to Valek and he dies in a spectacular fireball.

After the battle and Valek's death we see Montoya kneeling down by the once again weakened Katrina who appearently hasnt completely turned as she is out in the sunlight and not burning, Montoya gets the jeep and as he's getting ready to leave is confronted by the shotgun wielding Guiteau who is telling Montoya that he cant let him and the girl leave but Jack gets Guiteau to agree to a one day head start, Montoya and Katrina leave and the movie ends with Jack and Guiteau heading off once again to the jail to kill the rest of the vampires that made it to shelter.

Shortly after finishing work on Escape from L.A., John Carpenter was thinking about quitting filmmaking because as he said, “it stopped being fun.” Largo Entertainment approached him with a project called Vampires, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by John Steakley. They gave him two screenplays – one by Don Jakoby and the other by Dan Mazur. Carpenter read them both and the novel and saw the potential for a film he’d been interested in making. “I went into my office and thought, ‘It’s going to be set in the American southwest and it’s a western – Howard Hawks.’” Vampires gave Carpenter the chance to do a western disguised as a horror film. He said, “the story is set up like a western. It’s about killers for hire. They’re a western cliche. In this movie they’re paid to kill vampires.” In terms of tone and look, Carpenter felt that his film was “a little more like The Wild Bunch than Hawks in its style, but the feelings and the whole ending scene is a kind of replay on Red River.”

He wrote his own screenplay taking elements from the Jakoby and Mazur scripts, the book and some of his own ideas. For this film, Carpenter wanted to get away from the stereotype of gothic vampires as he said in an interview, “My vampires are savage creatures. There isn’t a second of brooding loneliness in their existence. They’re too busy ripping and tearing humans apart.”

Carpenter cast James Woods as Jack Crow because he wanted “the vampire slayer to be as savage as the prey he’s after. James Woods is the kind of guy you’d believe could and would chew off the leg of a vampire.” Woods was interested in doing the film because it was something different for him. Contrary to his reputation, Carpenter didn’t find the actor difficult to work with because “we had a deal. He would give me one take as it’s written and I would let him improvise...Many of his improvisations were brilliant. When I needed him to be more focused and disciplined, I had the take from the script that was straighter.”

Carpenter had not seen any of Daniel Baldwin’s work and had the actor read for him. He had seen Sheryl Lee on Twin Peaks and cast her based on her work on the show. Carpenter’s wife and the film’s producer Sandy King cast Thomas Ian Griffith because she and the director wanted “someone who looks formidable, but is also alluring. There always has to be something alluring about the evil nature of the vampire.”

The MPAA took issue with the film’s over-the-top violence, threatening to give it an NC-17 rating unless some of the gore was cut. King said, “We satisfied the ratings board by just cutting short of a few things that went into really gruesome stuff.”