John Carpenter takes on vampires of the Southwest in the horror/western hybrid VAMPIRES, on Blu-ray from Scream Factory.

Jack Crow (James Woods, VIDEODROME) is the leader of a Monterey-based group of vampire-hunting mercenaries whose activities are blessed and financially-sponsored by the Vatican. On a trip through the American Southwest, they take out a nest of "goons" but not their master who has flown the coop for reasons that unnerve Jack. Their celebration at a local motel is ambushed by vampire Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith, EXCESSIVE FORCE) who proves more powerful than any they have encountered before as he massacres the hunters – as well as their padre Father Giovanni (BARNEY MILLER's Gregory Sierra) – leaving only Jack and his second-in-command Montoya (Daniel Baldwin, KNIGHT MOVES) alive along with stripper Katrina (TWIN PEAKS' Sheryl Lee) who has been bitten by Valek. Knowing that vampire's victims who have not yet turned have a psychic link with their masters, Jack takes her along as they seek refuge. While Montoya reluctantly takes Katrina into hiding, Jack learns from Cardinal Alba (Maximilian Schell, THE EIGHTEENTH ANGEL) that the vampire hunters' European faction has been entirely wiped out and that the culprit is Valek, a thirteenth century priest who lead a rebellion against the church and became the first vampire during an "inverse exorcism" in which the physical body is destroyed but the possessed soul remains. Alba assigns archivist Father Adam Guiteau (Tim Guinee, COURAGE UNDER FIRE), but Jack does not warm to him quickly as he believes that someone in the church set them up for the massacre. Meanwhile, Montoya watches over Katrina as she starts to experience visions of Valek's activities and is accidentally bitten by her when he prevents her from committing suicide, leaving him on borrowed time as well when the four learn that Valek and his gang of master vampires are looking for a fabled black cross that will allow him to walk the Earth during the day as an unstoppable killing machine.

Based on the novel by "Vampire$" by John Steakley – as scripted by Don Jakoby (who had previously adapted Colin Wilson's "Space Vampires" with Dan O'Bannon for the Tobe Hooper film LIFEFORCE – VAMPIRES is part of director Carpenter's scattershot filmography from the nineties onwards following the impersonal MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN and the back-to-back flows IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS and VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, the Showtime anthology BODY BAGS, and the big-budget groaner ESCAPE FROM L.A. While VAMPIRES is nothing like vintage Carpenter, it is a hell of a lot better than follow-up GHOSTS OF MARS. Although the film is carried for the most part by Woods, Guinee, Lee, and Baldwin do respectable work while Griffith is only given slightly more screen time than the other masters who are no more dimensional than their "goons." The film moves at a good clip but and has some nice callbacks to Carpenter's own PRINCE OF DARKNESS with an ancient artifact kept secreted by the Catholic church in the new world, Carpenter's bluesy score recalls THEY LIVE, and a bit in which a character cauterizes a neck bite recalls BRIDES OF DRACULA. The effects of Kurtzman, Nicotero, and Berger are surprisingly grisly but parsed out a bit more than what horror viewers would come to expect of R-rated horror post-HOSTEL.

Released to DVD by Columbia Tri-star at the dawn of the format in an anamorphic widescreen transfer with commentary by Carpenter along with a barebones Superbit edition with a DTS track, VAMPIRES makes its fourth bow on Blu-ray from Scream Factory following Twilight Times' out-of-print limited edition from 2015 and an all-region special edition from the U.K.'s Powerhouse Films Indicator line (they also issued a barebones double feature with GHOSTS OF MARS but that may be region B-locked). Scream Factory's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray utilizes the same HD master as the older editions, but that is not a bad thing since the Sony HD master has always looked pretty good when one takes into account the deliberately warm color bias of the entire film and Carpenter's regular cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe's "heavy duty" use of filters throughout the film from graduated filters to give a red look to the dusk and dawn skies. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track and 2.0 downmix give what one expects of a Carpenter film with active surrounds throughout the action sequences, plenty of directional effects, and a bassy presence to the bluesy score and gun blasts. Optional English SDH subtitles are included (since Sony likely provided the file, I assume that the various (mumbles) notations are the result of being unable to decipher improvised lines rather than whoever did the subtitles not consulting the screenplay or dialogue continuity script).

Ported over from the DVD is an audio commentary by Carpenter who cites Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, Howard Hawk's RED RIVER, and Sam Pekinpah's THE WILD BUNCH among his inspirations, noting that he even adjusted his style to ape that of the latter in terms of editing. He reveals that he made a deal with the actors to give him one take that followed the screenplay and then allowed them a few more where they could ad-lib and also addresses critical and audience remarks about the film's violence – wanting to make the vampires more savage than gothic as well as the hunters – as well as praising Lee's physically-demanding performance. He also provides some background on the novel and the aspects that were left out of the adaptation including more of a backstory for the hunters.

VAMPIRES fans can dump the Twilight Time disc since Scream Factory has carried over the disc's isolated score, a feature often missing from other companies' reissues of Twilight Time titles, as well as the EPK extras including the original behind the scenes (6:10), B-roll footage (8:57), and four short interviews with Carpenter (2:17), Woods (2:26), Baldwin (2:03), and Lee (2:03) in which much of their short timing is eaten up by the same introductions. New to the Blu-ray is "Time to Kill Some Vampires" (12:25), an interview with John Carpenter, producer Sandy King Carpenter (BODY BAGS), and director of photography Kibbe. Carpenter reveals the project had been making the rounds with other directors attached before he was offered it and saw it as a chance to do something "really vicious" while producer King (who also notes his liking for antiheroes and Woods' desire to play an action hero) also expresses a preference for the non-sparkly type of vampire, and Kibbe discusses the working relationship he has developed with Carpenter in which they are pretty much in sync on ideas of lighting and camera movement (with both reflecting on the backdrop and qualities of light in the New Mexico locations).