SOURCE: Newman, Kim. Review of Vampires, by John Carpenter. Sight and Sound 9, no. 12 (December 1999): 60.

In the following review of Vampires, Newman observes that Carpenter's film represents a significant shift in the vampire film genre in the way it moves the narrative focus from the vampires themselves to the band of vampire hunters.

Along with the comic-book-based Blade and the television spin-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, [Vampires,] this adaptation of John Steakley's disposable novel Vampire$ reflects a significant shift of emphasis in the vampire sub-genre. It's comparable to the mutation of the gangster movie whereby the flamboyant hoods of the early 30s were replaced as central figures later in the decade by equally flamboyant G-men, often played by the same actors (Cagney, Robinson). This current cycle similarly recasts the villains themselves as old-fashioned monsters of the night without any redeeming features and concentrates on the vampire slayers, whose...