Assault on Precinct 13

Plot synopsis:
The story takes place on a Saturday in Anderson, a crime-infested ghetto in South Central Los Angeles. Members of a local gang known as 'Street Thunder' have recently stolen a large number of assault rifles and pistols. The film begins at 3 a.m. that morning, as a team of heavily-armed LAPD officers ambush and kill six members of the gang. Later, the gang's four warlords swear a blood oath of revenge, known as a "Cholo", against the police and the citizens of Los Angeles.
During the day, three sequences of events occur parallel to one another: First, Lieutenant Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker), a newly promoted CHP officer, is assigned to take charge of the decommissioned Anderson police precinct during the last few hours before it is permanently closed. The station is manned by a skeleton staff composed of Sergeant Chaney (Henry Brandon) and the station's two secretaries, Leigh (Laurie Zimmer) and Julie (Nancy Loomis).
Across town, two of the Street Thunder warlords, along with two other gang members, drive around the neighborhood looking for people to kill. One of the warlords shoots and kills a little girl (Kim Richards) and the driver of an ice-cream truck. The girl's father, Lawson (Martin West), pursues and kills the warlord, upon which the other gang members chase him into the Anderson precinct. In shock, Lawson is unable to communicate to Bishop or Chaney what has happened to him.
Just before this, a prison bus commanded by Starker (Charles Cyphers) stops at the station to find medical help for one of three prisoners being transported to the state prison. The prisoners are Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston), a convicted killer on his way to Death Row, Wells (Tony Burton), and Caudell, who is sick. As the prisoners are put into cells, the telephone lines go dead, and when Starker prepares to put the prisoners back on the bus, the gang opens fire on the precinct, using weapons fitted with silencers. In seconds, they kill Chaney, the bus driver, Caudell, Starker, and the two officers along with Starker. Bishop unchains Wilson from Starker's body and puts Wilson and Wells back into the cells. When the gang members cut the station's electricity and begin a second wave of shooting, Bishop sends Leigh to release Wells and Wilson, and they help Bishop and Leigh repel an attempted invasion, though Julie is killed in the firefight.
Meanwhile, the gang members remove all evidence of the skirmish in order to avoid attracting outside attention. Bishop hopes that someone has heard the un-silenced police weapons firing, but the neighborhood is too sparsely populated for nearby residents to pinpoint the location of the noise. Wells is chosen to sneak out of the precinct through the sewer line and hot-wire a car, but is killed by a gang member hiding in the backseat. However, two police officers responding to reports of gunfire find the dead body of a telephone repairman hanging from a pole near the police station, and soon begin to call for backup.
As the gang rallies for an all-out final assault, Wilson, Leigh, and Bishop retreat to the basement, taking the still-catatonic Lawson with them. Protected with a large durable sign, the gang then storms the building and rush the survivors. Bishop shoots a tank full of acetylene gas, which explodes violently and kills all the gang members in the basement. The remaining gang members soon retreat as more police support arrives to secure the station. Venturing down into the basement, the police officers find dozens of badly burned and killed gang members strewn about the hallway, as the only survivors remain are Bishop, Leigh, Wilson, and the comatose Lawson. As the others leave another officer tries to cuff Wilson whom Bishop waves off but ignores the order. Bishop angrily stops him and asks Wilson to walk out of the station with him rather than be led away in chains.

Tags: comedy, suspenseful, neo noir, murder, violence, cult, good versus evil, claustrophobic, tragedy, revenge, sadist

Review:
Set in gang-riddled Los Angeles in the 1970s, director John Carpenter was inspired to make a film that was basically a combination of Rio Bravo (1959) and Night of the Living Dead (1968) with rookie cop Ethan Bishop in John Wayne's Rio Bravo role/Duane Jones' Ben, a recently vacated police precinct as the small town jail/farmhouse, and with gang members in place of Night of the Living Dead's zombies/Nathan Burdette's men.For some viewers, that premise alone may be enough for them to not be able to grant this film a 10, but Assault on Precinct 13 is yet another example of why quality isn't correlated to having unprecedented ideas.One of the first striking things about Assault on Precinct 13 is that it looks beautiful.
The police station also reflects the suburban wasteland look in terms of its spaces and their relationship to each other, its sparseness and its colors.The low budget nature of the film forced a very successful straightforward, brutal and realistic approach to the action, especially the violence.
Carpenter and company create the perfect scenario with just a couple ingenious moves, and the unending threat, combined with the unusual pacing of the zombie-like menace make Assault on Precinct 13 as frightening as any horror film could be..
Carpenter self-consciously uses Hawks' 'Rio Bravo', adds a touch of Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead' and comes up with arguably the most exciting siege movie of all time.
Relative unknowns Austin Stoker ('Abby') and Darwin Joston ('Eraserhead') are both outstanding as the stars of this taut and unpredictable thriller, and the supporting cast includes Laurie Zimmer (sadly her only movie), Nancy Loomis ('Halloween'), Kim Richards ('The Car' - in the movie's most controversial and memorable scene), and Carpenter semi-regular Charles Cyphers ('Escape From New York').
I long for the days when John Carpenter was ingenious enough to make such excellent films as his classics like Halloween, Escape From New York, and of course, The Thing.
"Assault on Precinct 13" deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as "Dawn of the Dead," or perhaps the overrated "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," as a very low-budget horror/thriller that takes a cast of unknowns, places them together, doesn't really delve into their backgrounds, but lets everything just work itself out like clockwork.
But it still has an addictive sense of urgency and frantic pacing that makes the movie feel like one long, non-stop, brutal assault - even though the setup for the film takes over forty minutes.
Basically it's a faint mish-mash of other movies, the dialogue is reminiscent of great westerns as a black policeman and a white convict battle against gang members in a Night of The Living Dead re-working.
It's also tempting to draw Vietnam allegories (as with many American movies of the mid 1970's and after); the faceless, nameless gang members die in the droves but keep attacking the besieged police station and the lawmen and the lawbreakers, black and white, must unite to defeat them and escape with their lives.The real joy of this movie, however, is the playing of the two virtually unknown leads, Austin Stoker and the late Darwin Joston.
Because there are no 'stars', there are no real expectations, and the shocks when they come (including the famous ice cream sequence) are more shocking for it.The representation of women leaves a little to be desired (the two female characters obviously shop at the same sweater store!) but the character Lee shows some inner strength and resolve, and even has time for some kind of upper hand in terms of sexual tension between herself and Joston's Napoleon Wilson.If you haven't seen this movie I urge you to watch it; in terms of B movies and cult thrillers it's the yardstick in my opinion; simple, stylish, violent, witty and not remotely sentimental..
This is possibly one of Carpenter's best films,with the exception of The thing.It is one of the great siege films of all time.The scene with Kim Richards(escape to witch mountain) is one of my favorites.This movie proves you don't have to have a multimillion dollar budget and big name stars to make a great movie.The performance by Laurie Zimmer was incredible.I can't believe she was never cast in another film(but thats Hollywood for you).If you like action and thrillers this film is definitely worth a look.Its not perfect, the plot has some holes, the premise is at times shaky, but all of the actors produce believable performances,especially Austin Stoker,Darwin Joston, and of course Zimmer..
This is one of the definitive "siege films," a deft, low-budget blend of the American Western (let's say '3:10 to Yuma (1957)') and a zombie movie ('Night of the Living Dead (1968)' being an obvious influence).
In modern-day Los Angeles, the lone inhabitants of a closing-down police station – among them police officers (Austin Stoker), secretaries (Laurie Zimmer), and prisoners (an ice-cool Darwin Joston) – are affronted by dozens of armed gangsters, who are waging a bloody war with the authorities as payback for recent gang-member deaths.After an extended prologue, in which disparate story lines fatalistically converge on each other (and featuring one particularly nasty moment than nearly landed the film an X-rating) the siege scenario begins and the tension rarely lets up.
This effective delivery is also aided by Carpenter's own score that is nicely pulsating and still sounds great even if it is dated  the important thing is that it still fits the film and therefore works.The dialogue is trashy but this fits the slight b-movie feel the film has.
It's quite clear where the visual style would end up lending itself to in later years too (i.e. Reservoir Dogs).When taking aside the occasional misstep, like an unneeded (suggested) sub-plot (not that Joston or Laurie Zimmer are bad actors, but they lack chemistry), Assault on Precinct 13 comes out without many scratches at all.
`Assault on Precinct 13' shows Carpenter in the fine creative form of his earlier days, when he produced such thriller and horror gems like `Halloween', `The Thing' and this little movie.
As usual he eschews a complex plot in favour of a great little central concept - in this case a group of civilians, prisoners and police trapped in a deserted police station under siege from a mysterious gang who want to get at one man inside.The acting in these movies is generally bland, but Carpenter at least breathes some dimension into his characters.
The last block of film itself plays like George Romero's "Night Of The Living Dead," only with thugs rather than zombies cornering our beloved characters.Cast: Austin Stoker plays the wholesome hero officer, in sharp contrast to the self-assured and cool-as-a-cucumber alpha-criminal, as played by Darwin Joston.
John Carpenter's no-budget pseudo-remake of "Rio Bravo" (with heavy doses of "Night of the Living Dead" thrown in--the zombies replaced by inhuman hordes of street toughs) set in a besieged 1970s LA police station scheduled to be closed the next day, is a flawed but worthwhile 90 minutes from a flawed but worthwhile filmmaker.The best thing about "Assault" is its bare-bones construction.
There's precious little backstory, no real explanation for the heinous actions of the gang members, no extraneous "character development" for the protagonists, no scenes where they talk about how they have a wife and kids at home or are retiring tomorrow, and very few cutaways from the main action once it gets going (the lone exception being a few sequences with couple of clueless cops patrolling the neighborhood who keep missing the siege on the supposedly abandoned precinct).
This is my second favorite film from my favorite movie director John Carpenter, it's also one of my favorite action movies and films in general.This was his first silver screen film, I'd say it was one helluva start and has aged well over the decades, yeah there has been many movies and TV shows that have utilized this formula but this film, does it with perfection and I still feel is the best.I love the fact that it's done on a low budget which is fine by me because that helped give the film the right look and feel, it also feels like the filmmakers really put effort to their work.
John Carpenter is, without any doubt, a filmmaker capable of making tense and suspenseful films that are straight to the point, and "Assault on Precinct 13" (1976) is one of the best examples for the man's talent for action-packed, hard-boiled excitement.
Though arguably best known as a master of the Horror-genre ("Halloween", "The Fog", "The Thing"), Carpenter is just as great when directing Action films as films like "Escape from New York" and this gem prove.
Carpenter's second feature-length film (after the 1974 Sci-Fi parody "Dark Star"), "Assault on Precinct 13" is a fantastic action thriller that was apparently done on a modest budget.
The entire cast delivers good performances, Austin Stoker is very good as the hero whereas Darwin Joston fits equally well in the role of the Death Row convict Napoleon Wilson, one of the anti-hero characters that have sometimes earned Carpenter comparisons with Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns.
Laurie Zimmer is great in the female lead, I have no idea why she has only appeared in three other films; Tony Burton, Martin West and Charles Cyphers also fit well in their roles.Overall, "Assault on Precinct 13" is one of Carpenter's most effective and greatest films, and should by no means be missed by any fan of suspenseful, violent and hard-boiled action cinema.
John Carpenter is the master of the B-Movie genre, making well-liked films such as Halloween (birth of the slasher film), Big Trouble in Little China and Escape to New York.
The gang lays siege on the station, and the cops and criminals have to work together to survive.It's a simple premise and plot, and works as a suspenseful horror like film.
Darwin Joston, for example, is totally lacking in the wit his character's dialogues seem to imply he has; Austin Stoker and Laurie Zimmer are also bad, and only Tony Burton is salvageable among the main actors.I would like to know if Carpenter (or anyone who worked in this film) has ever used a silenced weapon.
The movie takes its time in the beginning, sure, but Carpenter knows how to create a mood; the assault is quite tense (despite its silly moments and sometimes out-of-place dialogue), as well as some earlier scenes (even if they, too, make no damn sense, like the killing of the girl).
Made on a shoestring budget, it was unfairly gnawed at by critics and yet eventually cemented itself as a cult classic (which is a sentence that can be attributed to half of Carpenter's filmography) The plot, like all the best Carpenter movies, is a simple one – A group on inhabitants in an abandoned police station find themselves under attack from an unstoppable street gang.
For all the outing's B-movie shroud, Carpenter's Panavision propriety, with accent on intermingling space caught in hermetically sealed halfway points, demonstrates a lucid severity to bring into disrepute many costlier, more "highly regarded" films, a hammering of conceptual, strangely expressive effects squeezed out of people chucking guns to each other, a bullet popping through a braided tyke's ice cream cone and into her chest, a police station cut to garlands throughout a hushed shooting gallery.
This thin premise of a police station that, the night before its shutdown, is beset by a mystifying band of hooligans identified as Street Thunder, Carpenter's young career accomplishment is at the same time a unsentimental and bracing action film and an able, finely hinted parable of 1970s ethnic frictions.
The Assault on Precinct 13' main theme tune is dark, menacing and awesome in it's simplicity while the other major tune still remains menacing but adds a hint of despair therefore fitting the movie perfectly.Borrowing aspects from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead' (1968), John Carpenter is able to create a nightmarish setting with his own unique brand of suspense.
Smart-ass over the top characters with big brass balls, excellent cinematography, creepy but easily recognizable music, and no shortage of memorable lines ("Got a smoke?") This movie was made on a shoe string budget with a majority of unknown actors and actresses (Laurie Zimmer being the ultimate "What happened to her" actress of the 70's) Despite that, the story is solid, the focus is simple, the cinematography is killer, the action is great and the ladies are all babes.
Suddenly the precinct is under siege and violent attack of street gangs."Assault on Precinct 13" is one of the first good movies in the successful career of John Carpenter as director and musician.
In my opinion it is John Carpenter's masterpiece of course Halloween (1978) is a huge masterpiece but Assault on Precinct 13 is my personal favorite 70's action film.
The remake with Ethan Hawke was a okay action movie in my mind until i saw the original Assault on Precinct 13 directed by John Carpenter i'm now completely hate the remake cause it ruin all the stuff make the original so special.The movie very intense very atmospheric and fill with strong performance thought out the movie make it a classic action movie of the 70s.The bad guys is human but this movie portray them in a very sinister way that give me the creep everytime they appear on screen with the hollow eyes and zombie movement.
While Lieutenant Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker) who is leading a prison bus has 3 prisoners named Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Jotson), Caudelle (Peter Frankland) and Wells (Tony Burton) on their way to a new prison driven by bus- driver Starker (Charles Cypher) as one of the prisoners is sick and needs a place to stay for the night at the nearly closing down police station known as Precinct 13 for medical help.
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) is a classic John Carpenter's action horror movie that still scares me today.
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) combines elements of the classic western and modern thriller to create a cult favorite-one John Carpenter's best films.What stands out is the dialogue and subtleties.
The relatively unknown cast and music work very well.Before he hit the big time with the classic Halloween, writer/director John Carpenter gave us Assault on Precinct 13 a story about a cop with a war on his hands with an army of street killers and his only ally is a convicted murderer.
Assault on Precinct 13 is a 1976 American action thriller film written, directed, scored and edited by John Carpenter.
It's all set to an incredible score by John Carpenter, who also directed, edited and wrote the film.When I first saw the movie, I didn't really know what to think.
Written, directed, edited & scored by John Carpenter, it is one of the finest works of his career & arguably the most transparent reflection of this director's filmmaking style.Set in a crime-infested ghetto in South Central Los Angeles, Assault on Precinct 13 covers a series of events taking place within the same day & begins with covering three plot lines which later merge into one.
On a superficial level, it tells the story of a police officer who, with the help of convicted prisoners, defends a nearly decommissioned police station against a ruthless attack by a seemingly unstoppable criminal gang.Written & directed by John Carpenter, the film is gripping from start to finish and never loses its steam even in the moments that has no action.
The gang is out for blood and a lone cop (Austin Stoker) must defend the station with help from two prisoners (Darwin Joston, Tony Burton) and a secretary (Laurie Zimmer).John Carpenter's urban Rio Bravo is a low-budget classic.
Virtually ignored on initial release, it was not until its success in Europe that American critics decided to take another look at this low-budget update of Rio Bravo, and sure enough, they realized it was actually a pretty good little flick...John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 gives us a few separate plot threads, which eventually collide for one stunning night of suspense and thrills.
Assault on precinct 13 can be easily defined as the movie that put Carpenter on the map.The movie itself was his tribute to Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo and George A.Romero's ahead of it's time horror classic Night of the living dead.Assault has all the basic elements we love to see in a Carpenter movie;Carpenter's magical low budget creativity,non stop action,a tight script full of memorable dialogues,a dark and witty atmosphere,great characters including an anti hero and a great Carpenter score with his unique storytelling as a director.The movie is about a group of unfortunates led by a lieutenant stucked in a police station on it's closing night and surrounded by a powerful street gang called street thunder seeking for revenge.The plot may seem simple but the movie's definitely not.
With the help of lots of fresh ideas coming out from Carpenter's mind,Assault on precinct 13 became one of the greatest action movies ever made and even thirty years later,it's still looking great!That's an experience you shouldn't miss..
It's not really a horror film like you'd expect from Carpenter, but it is a really good action movie.Assault On Precinct 13 is about a police station that's closing down after many years.
Stoker and the rest of the staff must not only rely on their own expertise, but the ability of the prisoners (including Darwin Joston and Tony Burton), to strike back and beat off the gang bangers.As is often mentioned, ASSAULT was written and directed by Carpenter as an urbanized reworking of director Howard Hawks' 1959 western classic RIO BRAVO (to the point where he also edited the film under the pseudonym of John T.
John Carpenter's 'Assault on Precinct 13' is a simplistic, low budget but very effective action movie.