Synopsis
The lone inhabitants of an abandoned police station are under attack by the overwhelming numbers of a seemingly unstoppable street gang.
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Cast
- Austin StokerEthan Bishop
- Darwin JostonNapoleon Wilson
- Laurie ZimmerLeigh
- Martin WestLawson
- Tony BurtonWells
- Charles CyphersStarker
- Nancy KyesJulie
- Peter BruniIce Cream Man
- John J. FoxWarden
- Marc RossPatrolman Tramer
Recommendations
- 100
Time Out London
Carpenter scrupulously avoids any overt socio-political pretensions, playing it instead for laughs and suspense in perfectly balanced proportions. The result is a thriller inspired by a buff's admiration for Ford and Hawks (particularly Rio Bravo), with action sequences comparable to anything in Siegel or Fuller. It's sheer delight from beginning to end. - 91
The A.V. Club
As incisive as it is thrilling, Carpenter’s film is also gorgeous. Carpenter’s imagery is a thing of propulsive beauty that both enhances suspense and expresses his characters’ ever-changing relations to one another. It’s a fleet, ferocious piece of genre craftsmanship. - 90
The Dissolve
In combining the dread and survival politics of George Romero and The Night Of The Living Dead with the macho heroics and succinct wit of Howard Hawks, Carpenter found his own voice and changed the course of genre filmmaking. - 90
The New York Times
Assault on Precinct 13 is a much more complex film than Mr. Carpenter's Halloween, though it's not really about anything more complicated than a scare down the spine. A lot of its eerie power comes from the kind of unexplained, almost supernatural events one expects to find in a horror movie but not in a melodrama of this sort. - 80
IGN
The film was designed to be an homage to the John Wayne classic Rio Bravo directed by Carpenter's idol Howard Hawks.The parallels between the film and the westerns that Carpenter holds dear are clear from the get go, none more so striking then the sight of the gang warlords mingling their blood in a bowl in for a symbolic blood oath that echoes similar scenes that found Indians becoming blood brothers in westerns long since forgotten. - 80
TV Guide Magazine
The shadowy photography, great editing, snappy dialogue, and a moody synthesizer score by Carpenter himself make this one of the most successful homages to the Hawks brand of filmmaking--and a very impressive film in its own right. - 70
Variety
Novelty of a gang swearing a blood oath to destroy a precinct station and all inside is sufficiently compelling for the gory-minded to assure acceptance. John Carpenter’s direction of his screenplay, after a pokey opening half, is responsible for realistic movement.
