Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Directed by John Carpenter. Starring Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, Charles Cyphers, Tony Burton, Nancy Loomis, Martin West, Peter Franklin, Henry Brandon, Kim Richards, John J. Fox. [R]

A newly-decommissioned Los Angeles police precinct manned by a skeleton crew is under siege by a violent street gang; without power or communication inside to call for help, the police staff and criminals have to work together to fend off the attacks and survive the night. John Carpenter’s sophomore effort is a lean, mean action thriller made on a shoestring, but it doesn’t show; the only aspect in the bargain bin is the periodic wooden acting—Stoker and Joston are so imperturbable as a square-jawed hero cop and tough-guy antihero crook there’s almost no room for anxiety or desperation, and the latter isn’t quite charismatic enough to pull off the “Got a smoke?” running gag. Wears its influences on its sleeve, from the Westerns of John Ford and Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo in particular) to the horror films of George A. Romero and Roger Corman, and points the way to the stripped-down approach Carpenter would employ in steely genre gems to come like Halloween and the first “Snake” Plissken picture. Carpenter composed the chilly, propulsive synth score, and also edited the movie under the alias John T. Chance. Loosely remade in 2005.

79/100