5 Star

Early Carpenter Genius.

Following the success of writer/director John Carpenter‘s (Halloween, Escape From New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China) first full film Dark Star (1974), he was given the money to make a film, but on a limited budget. This was the cult result.

Saturday 3:10 am Anderson, South Central Los Angeles, there is a large robbery of assault weapons and automatic weapons and the media believes they are on the bloody streets of LA. The police are on the case though and they gun down six multi-cultural gang members who are carrying assault weapons.

Meanwhile at 4:50 pm in West LA Lieutenant Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker, Battle for the Planet of the Apes) is just leaving his house to start his shift. He reports in to his captain and is told that he is to take over the closure of District 9 Precinct 13 police station.

The events of that night have a profound effect on the four warlords. White Warlord (Frank Doubleday, The Big Fix), Chicano Warlord (Gilbert De la Pena, Trackdown), Oriental Warlord (Al Nakauchi) and Black Warlord (James Johnson, Bloodrage) of the ‘Street Thunder’ gang swear a blood oath of revenge, known as a “Cholo”, against the police and the citizens of Los Angeles.

The four warlords are tooled up with the weapons and all with silencers as they cruise the streets looking for victims.

Meanwhile in California prisoners are about to be transported across the country to Sanoma. Special officer Starker (Charles Cyphers, The Fog) is talking to the warden (John J. Fox, The Reivers) about the three they are transporting, Wells (Tony Burton, Rocky-Rocky Balboa), Caudell (Peter Frankland, Rocketeer) and deathrow bound Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston, The Fog). He finds out that Caudell isn’t well but the warden tells him it’s just a cough, however, it’s the infamous Wilson that he wants to see. After some banter they set off.

As Father (Martin West, Hellhole) and daughter duo try to find a street in Anderson, they drive around looking for the street but he cannot remember it’s location so he pulls over at a phone booth and Kathy (Kim Richards, Race to Witch Mountain) spots an ice cream van and goes to get a cone. The ice cream man is distracted as he has seen a black car full of guys cruising up and down the streets.

All the pieces are set as Bishop takes over the defunct police station as he awaits the power and phones to be turned off tomorrow morning. At the station there is duty Sgt Chaney (Henry Brandon, War of the Worlds) and secretaries Leigh (Laurie Zimmer, American Raspberry, as Laura Fanning) and Julie (Nancy Kyes, as Nancy Loomis Halloween III: Season of the Witch).

Things are about to get bad for all parties and as it gets dark the blood will flow.

This definitely a cult classic and one for the shelf. It’s a good way to start a John Carpenter collection and with a plethora of Special features (see below) this is great value.

“Got a smoke?”

Available to Order Online Now.

Special features:

·       Newly restored from High Definition 1080p transfer

·       DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Uncompressed PCM original mono audio options

·       Return to Precinct 13: A new interview with actor Austin Stoker

·       Producing Precinct 13: A new interview with executive producer Joseph Kaufman

·       Filmmaking with John: A new interview with art director and sound effects editor Tommy Lee Wallace

·       ‘Captain Voyeur’: John Carpenter student short (Blu-ray exclusive)

·       Do You Remember Laurie Zimmer documentary (Blu-ray exclusive)

·       Interview with John Carpenter and Austin Stoker

·      The Sassy One with Actor Nancy Loomis

·      Audio Commentary with John Carpenter

·      Audio Commentary with Tommy Lee Wallace

·      Trailer

·       Radio Spots

·       English subtitles for the hard of hearing