Bullet Points: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Looking back at what was only his second feature film, John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 was laying the foundation of what would become Carpenter’s distinctive style of movie making.

• The Players: Austin Stoker plays police officer Lt. Ethan Bishop. Bishop is reporting to his first day on the job as the movie begins and it looks like he is going to have a relatively uneventful evening as he has been assigned to Precinct 13, a lame duck precinct that is being completely shut down the next day… Then there is a bus transporting three prisoners to death row… We also meet a man named Lawson (Martin West) and his young daughter. The father/daughter duo are out driving in an unfamiliar part of town and seem more than a little lost… Last but not least, there is the racially mixed group of four warlords from the Street Thunder gang, who have vowed revenge on the police after the cops ambushed and gunned down several members of Street Thunder in the wee hours of the morning.

• We All Scream For Ice Cream: When the lost Lawson stops to make a phone call, his daughter Kathy wants to get an ice cream cone from a nearby ice cream truck… so Lawson gives her a couple of bits and sends her on her way while he finishes up his phone call… During all of this, the four Warlords are ominously driving up and down the street… John Carpenter does a masterful job here building and building and building the anticipation… I kept waiting for the worst to happen and when it finally does happen it is absolutely brutal! Kathy and the Ice Cream Man are shot. The young girl dies instantly, while the Ice Cream Man is shot and left to bleed out in the street. Lawson happens upon the aftermath of Street Thunder’s carnage and is overcome with emotion… the Ice Cream Man with his last breath tells Lawson that there is a gun inside his truck and next thing you know Lawson grabs the gun, hops in his car and goes after the gang.

• The Perfect Storm: When Lawson catches up with the Street Thunder thugs, he ends up shooting one of the warlords, but then the reality of the situation sets in and Lawson flees and a practically catatonic Lawson ends up at the door of Precinct 13… Shortly after Lawson’s arrival, the prison bus that was headed for death row makes an unplanned stop at Precinct 13 when one of the three prisoners needs medical attention… And that’s about the time the phone lines and the power are cut to the building. Meanwhile outside, Street Thunder (armed with automatic weapons) have Precinct 13 surrounded… something that many of the inhabitants of Precinct 13 find out the hard way.

• Strange Bedfellows: Precinct 13 is officially under siege and this leads to Bishop making the unorthodox decision to team up with the two death row inmates that survived Street Thunder’s initial barrage of bullets, Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston) and Wells (Tony Burton, Mission of Justice). Bishop, Wilson and Wells are joined Leigh (Laurie Zimmer), one of the secretaries at the station. Leigh quickly proves she can more than hang with the boys. But can this thrown together foursome with limited resources hold off dozens and dozens of heavily armed gang members?

Assault on Precinct 13 has been called a cult classic by many and that classification is well deserved. Filled with interesting characters (Napoleon Wilson is worth the price of admission), ultra violence, gritty action and tension so thick it could be cut with a knife… John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 is must watch material for action fans.

Are these Bonus Bullet Points must read material for action fans… read them and find out!

• Familiar Faces: Starker, the special officer escorting Wilson and Wells to death row, was played by Charles Cyphers. Carpenter would employ the services of Cyphers again in films like The Fog and Escape from New York… Speaking of Escape from New York, Frank Doubleday, who played Romero in EFNY, played the White Warlord in Assault on Precinct 13.
• Unsolved Mystery: How did Napoleon Wilson come by the name Napoleon? The world may never know.
• Favorite Quote: “You look like someone spit in your sock.” – Napoleon Wilson
• AKA: Assault on Precinct 13 had two working titles, The Anderson Alamo and The Siege.