John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Sometimes the most positive aspect of a remake is that the original movie gets a DVD release in the wake of the remake. Assault on Precinct 13 is horror director John Carpenter's second feature film and has been remade in 2005. I've no real interest in the remake (which is purportedly one of the better efforts as far as remakes go), but the original has been on my to-watch list for quite some time.

Carpenter wanted to do a western but didn't have the budget, so he took the basic story of Rio Bravo and transposed it to 70ies Los Angeles. A police precinct about to be shut down is besieged by a street gang because a guy who killed one of the gang leaders (who previously shot down the guy's little daughter in cold blood, a scene that was rather controversial back in the day) took shelter in the precinct.

Inside are the few people overseeing the shutdown as well as a few prisoners who made station at the precinct while being transported from one prison to another. Getting to the actual siege takes quite some time. Carpenter himself apologises for the slowness of the movie quite often on the commentary track. When the siege is actually underway finally, the movie becomes quite night-of-the-living-deadish. The gang members don't talk, they are just out for blood and the people inside the station are constantly fighting for their lives. The whole thing is accompanied by a typical Carpenter synthesizer soundtrack that started to annoy me quite soon. But maybe that was the intention.

There's some good chemistry between the lead actors (Austin Stoker as cop Ethan Bishop and Darwin Joston as prisoner Napoleon Wilson as well as Laurie Zimmer as Leigh), I especially liked the bit on the end when Wilson just follows Bishop out of the cellar after they've been rescued. No escape attempt, no pleading, no help from Bishop. Overall nicely done, if a bit slow for today's tastes.