Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) Turtle Releasing/Action-Thriller RT: 91 minutes Rated R (strong bloody violence, intense scenes of terror, language) Director: John Carpenter Screenplay: John Carpenter Music: John Carpenter Cinematography: Douglas Knapp Release date: November 5, 1976 (US) Cast: Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, Martin West, Tony Burton, Charles Cyphers, Nancy Loomis, Kim Richards, Peter Bruni, John J. Fox, Marc Ross, Alan Koss, Henry Brandon, Frank Doubleday, Gilbert De La Pena. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ****
Don’t be so quick to dismiss Assault on Precinct 13 as just another low budget urban exploitation flick. It’s actually one of the best action movies of the 70s. It’s only the second film from writer-director John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape from New York) and it’s mighty impressive. He brings a lot of skill and style to what might have been an otherwise forgettable movie. It’s definitely a kick-ass action flick, but Carpenter throws elements of horror into the mix and creates something truly original.
One can easily see the influences of two other movies, Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks) and Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero). Made on a shoestring budget of $100,000, this minimalist action-thriller is more exciting and more suspenseful than most movies with a budget of $100 million. Who needs a bunch of fancy special effects when you have a filmmaker capable of creating an atmosphere of genuine suspense? It permeates the entire film and never lets the viewer off the hook for a minute. Throw in some dynamite action sequences and you’ve got a movie that transcends its B-movie origins.
Assault on Precinct 13 opens on a Friday night when a team of heavily armed LAPD officers kill several members of a local street gang known as “Street Thunder”. The next day, the gang’s warlords swear a Cholo (a blood oath of revenge) against the police and the citizens of Los Angeles. That evening, Lt. Ethan Bishop (Stoker) reports to the old Anderson police precinct to oversee its final night of operation. It’s about to be closed permanently. There’s a skeleton crew consisting of a desk sergeant, Chaney (Brandon), and two secretaries, Leigh (Zimmer) and Julie (Loomis). They’re there to finish packing and redirect calls to the new precinct.
Meanwhile, a man (West) gets lost looking for a relative’s home and stops to use the pay phone. His young daughter (Richards, the Witch Mountain movies) goes to buy ice cream from a truck parked nearby. The nervous driver (Bruni), who’s being terrorized by gang members, gives her the wrong thing. She goes back to complain (“I wanted vanilla twist.”). One of the creeps (Doubleday) shoots her point blank in the chest. It’s still the film’s most controversial scene. The distraught father grabs the driver’s gun and pursues the gang members. He chases them down and kills the scumbag who murdered his little girl. The remaining gang members chase him to the nearly abandoned police station where he can’t even communicate what just happened (he’s in shock). At the same time, a bus transporting prisoners to Death Row pulls in. The commander (Cyphers) asks Bishop if he can keep the prisoners in the precinct’s cells while he seeks medical attention for a sick prisoner.
With great efficiency, the gang members cut the building’s phone lines and power before open firing on the place. What’s really freaky about the attacks is that they use weapons outfitted with silencers. That way, they don’t attract the attention of the few remaining residents of the sparsely populated area. When the dust settles after the first attack, the only survivors are Bishop, Leigh and two of the prisoners- Napoleon Wilson (Joston) and Wells (Burton, the Rocky movies). They must work together to stay alive and fight off the vicious (and silent) gang members until help arrives. If help arrives, that is. They have no way of communicating with the outside world. The electricity has been cut, the building is surrounded and they’re running out of ammo. There appears to be no way out of this deadly situation.
The coolest thing about Assault on Precinct 13 is the notion of the silent enemy. None of the gang members ever say a word; they don’t need to. We already know what they want (the guy that killed one of their own). The protagonists, on the other hand, have no idea what they want; they’re literally and figuratively in the dark. The gang members stay hidden in the shadows as they shoot at the police station. There’s nothing scarier than an enemy that you can’t see (remember the combat scenes in Platoon?). Carpenter makes excellent use of darkness and shadows, especially in the scenes where the gang members attempt to gain entry into the police station. These sequences are reminiscent of the zombie attacks in Night of the Living Dead with the idea of an endless army of silent unstoppable killers. Just like the zombies, the gang members move in a slow and deliberate way. When you incorporate this into what’s essentially a modern-day western (good guys barricaded in a fortified structure, fighting off a siege of bad guys), it results in one of the best B-movies of all time.
In addition to writing and directing, Carpenter also contributes a brilliant score that would become one of the trademark aspects of his subsequent films. It’s an electronic score (synthesizers and drum machines) that’s best described as minimalist. Its distinctive sound enhances the terror and suspense of the movie.
Darwin Joston contributes an interesting performance as the sardonic multiple killer who greets everybody with the same question, “Got a smoke?”. He’s a memorable character because we never learn too much about him; all we know is that he killed some men and is headed to Death Row because of it. We don’t know why or how many. Austin Stoker does a good job as the hero of the movie. It’s his first time out as a lieutenant. He wants to successfully complete his first assignment, a seemingly mundane one that becomes anything but. Carpenter made a wise choice by not casting any big names. He couldn’t have afforded it anyway. It makes it easier to believe the performances in the movie. Two of the actors in this movie, Charles Cyphers and Nancy Loomis, would go on to appear in Carpenter’s next movie, the original 1978 classic Halloween.
I won’t lie; Assault on Precinct 13 is grindhouse fare all the way. But it’s extremely well made and it’s a lot of fun, pure B-movie fun. This is the right way to make an exploitation flick. Thanks for the lesson, Professor Carpenter.
