SUPER-TENSE STORY OF A SIEGE
This movie was the first major hit of director John Carpenter, who went on to make Halloween, The Fog and The Thing. There's just no let-up in this superbly written film about a police station (Precinct 13) in a ghetto district which finds itself surrounded by gangs of heavily-armed youths. The attackers have sworn Blood-Vengeance on the killer of one of their members now inside the Precinct
The catch is that the station, due for demolition, is manned only by a skeleton staff. Carpenter milks the maximum suspense from the subsequent attempts by the police and their prisoners to escape or survive. One of the most effective exploitation movies of the last ten years. Carpenter scrupulously avoids any overt socio-political pretensions, playing instead for laughs and suspense in perfectly balanced proportions. Written Directed and Scored by John Carpenter. Starring Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Jimmer and Martin West.