Assault on Precinct 13

Story

Assault on Precinct 13, the second feature by John Carpenter (Halloween, Vampires), has a group of cops and convicts joining forces as they're besieged in an all-but-abandoned police station by Street Thunder, a gang armed with automatic weapons and silencers. The relationships of those holed up in the police station as they try to survive the onslaught form the better part of the movie, borrowing liberally from the films of Howard Hawks, especially Rio Bravo, to make the point about who's "good enough" and who isn't. The action is taut and shocking for its time (1976). Street Thunder is more an irrational force, an embodiment of pure evil, than a clearly motivated group with a political agenda, drawing comparisons with Assault's other main influence, the zombies in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. More than an action-exploitation flick (though it more than holds its own on that level), Assault on Precinct 13 is a disguised Western with a horror aspect that Carpenter would later work out more rigorously in such films as Halloween and The Thing. The DVD is a true Collector's Edition, preserving the film's original Panavision aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and including a fascinating commentary track by John Carpenter. --Jim Gay

DVD Features

• Audio Commentary by Director John Carpenter
  
• Trailer

Cast

Austin Stoker	Ethan Bishop
Darwin Joston	Napoleon Wilson
Laurie Zimmer	Leigh
Martin West	Lawson
Tony Burton	Wells
Charles Cyphers	Starker
Nancy Kyes	Julie