Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie Review

The wild, wild west.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 18, 2013

John Carpenter seems to be one of those directors who is reassessed with a fair degree of regularity. Yesterday’s misfire soon becomes tomorrow’s masterpiece, only to be relegated to middling status when some new “expert” critic comes along. But Assault on Precinct 13 is unusual in how quickly the initial reassessment came. When the film premiered in the United States in 1976 it received at best mixed reviews, and many found the film overly violent and trite. As so often seems to be the case, European critics and audiences warmed much more significantly to the film, and when Assault on Precinct 13 started playing the festival circuit in 1977, suddenly there was a new “consensus” that the film marked a storytelling high point for Carpenter. The intervening years have seen a rather radical backpedaling by at least some who initially dismissed the film, and Assault on Precinct 13 is now generally agreed to be one of the most viscerally gut wrenching films in Carpenter’s long and sometimes odd career. Carpenter has sometimes been accused of being intentionally obtuse and for indulging in hammy histrionics (especially in his horror outings), but Assault on Precinct 13 is a lean, mean and spare film that sets up its premise quickly and clearly, and then moves its characters about on a rather complex but always easily understandable chessboard of simultaneously unfolding events. The film has a sort of quasi-documentary feel to it, and if some viewers found the overt violence of a street gang on steroids wreaking havoc on an isolated neighborhood police station, intervening events for better or worse have shown that the basic setup of the film is not so farfetched after all.

John Carpenter wasn’t quite yet “John Carpenter” when Assault on Precinct 13 opened in 1976 (Halloween, Carpenter’s first bona fide hit, didn’t premiere until 1978), though his initial mainstream directorial effort, 1974’s Dark Star, proved that Carpenter was a filmmaker with a distinctive point of view and rather considerable technical mastery (even if a lot of Dark Star looks considerably “lo-fi” to modern day eyes). Assault on Precinct 13 found Carpenter once again working within the confines of a miniscule budget (reportedly only $100,000), but managing to overcome this seeming obstacle by focusing on a certain minimalism which actually helps the film to remain incredibly taut, without the bloat that regularly accompanies bigger budgeted action spectaculars (including, might be added, some of Carpenter’s own later entries like Big Trouble in Little China—which is not to imply that this film, or other “bigger” Carpenter outings, aren’t hugely enjoyable).

Assault on Precinct 13 was supposed to be a Western, but the paltry budget wouldn’t allow for that setting, and so Carpenter, who initially titled his screenplay The Anderson Alamo to indicate its western roots, matriculated the story to South Central Los Angeles in a contemporary timeframe. A relatively inexperienced cop named Bishop (Austin Stoker) is assigned to oversee the waning hours of a nearly deserted police station that slated to close later that day. Unbeknownst to Bishop, in the wee hours of the morning a SWAT team had wreaked havoc on a local street gang, killing several members in a bloody and vicious shootout. The surviving members of the gang have sworn revenge, not just on the police, but on Los Angeles in general. Already Carpenter has given the audience just enough information to create an ominous sense of foreboding, one that will soon explode into a maelstrom of violence.

Two sets of parallel events ultimately collide at the precinct. First, a prison bus carrying inmates to their new home at a state penitentiary stops at the precinct because one of them is supposedly ill. Meanwhile, some of the surviving street gang members have begun a spree of senseless random killings, including what is arguably the most disturbing moment in the entire film which results in the death of a little girl. That girl’s father, Lawson (Martin West), is actually able to quickly get his vengeance, but when he realizes not only what he’s done but also that his own life is now threatened, he stumbles into the precinct in a virtually catatonic state, stunned to the point that he’s unable to clearly articulate what has just happened. And so Carpenter has lined up his chess pieces in artful rows. We have a disparate group of police, criminals and civilians in the isolated precinct, with a gang of vicious predators descending on the place to even some imaginary score in their twisted minds.

Bishop ends up enlisting one of the prisoners, Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston), to help stave off the incursion of the street gang (who barely utter a word throughout the entire film, adding immeasurably to their almost otherworldly ambience). Several deaths and less mortal injuries take place, as the survivors have to figure out a way to reach the outside world (this was of course years before the advent of cell phones, and the gang cuts all phone lines as well as electricity to the station). Assault on Precinct 13 isn’t a perfect film, and it in fact has a certain amateurish quality in some of the performances, but it’s one of the most consistently taut and suspenseful films of Carpenter’s now long and storied career. Carpenter nicely modulates the fear with his trademark cheeky sense of humor, pointing the way to some of his more successful films which were soon to follow.

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout! Factory has confirmed that Assault on Precinct 13 was sourced from the same AVC encoded 1080p high definition master (in 2.34:1) utilized for the Image Blu-ray, which my colleague Dustin Somner reviewed here (I've included a couple of screenshots taken from around the same frames that Dustin included in his review so that "screenshot perusers" can do some comparison shopping. I tend to generally agree with Dustin's assessment of the image, which I, too, would rate as surprisingly solid given the low budget (and often low light) roots of the film. There is persistent crush, especially in the opening sequence and, later, when the electricity has been cut to the precinct. No egregious DNR seems to have been applied, as there is a very fine but natural looking layer of grain which actually spikes considerably in the darker sections. There are a couple of noticeable anomalies, including some fairly abrupt changes in contrast (see screenshot 16 for a good example).

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original sound mix is delivered via a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono Mix (offered in 2.0), and a well done surround mix is presented via DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. The 5.1 mix smartly keeps surround activity to a minimum, not overdoing things to the point where things sound artificial. A lot of the surround activity is relegated to Carpenter's synthesizer drenched score. There are occasional foley effects ported into discrete channels, including some of the gunfire. Dialogue consistently remains front and center. Fidelity is excellent in both of these tracks, as is dynamic range.

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Previously Released Supplements:

• Interview with John Carpenter and Austin Stoker (1080i; 23:07)


• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080i; 2:03)


• Radio Spots (1:04)


• Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter


• Isolated Music Score

New Supplements:

• Bishop Under Siege With Austin Stoker (1080p; 7:48) is a nice contemporary interview with Stoker, where he briefly discusses aspects of the shoot, including literally the "shoot", i.e., the gun handling.


• The Sassy One With Nancy Loomis (1080p; 12:43) is a nice sit down with Loomis, who discusses her life in acting and what Assault on Precinct 13 meant to her career.


• Still Gallery (1080p; 3:36) does not seem to be the same Production Gallery included on the Image disc.


• Audio Commentary with Art Director and Sound Effects Designer Tommy Lee Wallace. This is incorrectly described as an interview on the list of features on the back cover of the Blu-ray insert artwork. Wallace has known Carpenter since they were both kids, and he gives some nice anecdotal information about both Carpenter and this particular shoot. This commentary is hosted by Michael Felsher.

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Assault on Precinct 13 was faulted for being ludicrously improbable when it was first released, but the intervening years have shown that what were once euphemistically called juvenile delinquents have become completely brazen in their response to law enforcement. Admittedly the film is hardly a paradigm of realism, but it still has a grittily visceral ambience that is hard not to feel directly in the gut. This new release retains the same nice looking video and sounding audio of the Image release, and includes a few new supplements that fans will certainly enjoy. Recommended.