Assault On Precinct 13

Assault on precinct 13 was from beginning to end full of non-stop violence and action. You are thrown right into the beginning of this movie with a scene of the cops shooting up a gang called street thunder in Los Angeles. From there you see a few gang members make a blood pact, saying that they will get revenge for their lost members. This act of police brutality is the only explanation that I could find for all of the violence that street thunder inflicted upon the police station on precinct 9.

I am sure that this film took it's audiences by surprise. Of course there were many other violent films that came out in the 70's but this one in particular I believe took the violence to a different level. Not only was this movie a complete bloodbath but the director John Carpenter pushed the limits to a whole new level that people were not used to at that time.

The first thing that I feel was different that most films, was that street thunder had no emotions. This gang was so cold, they had no problems just going out and killing people. It's almost as if they are not even human, they always were straight faced and never seemed to be worried about the pain that they were inflicting on others or even themselves.

The next decision that Carpenter made that brought his film to a new level, was his decision to have a gang member kill a little girl for no apparent reason. In one part of the movie there is a little girl that goes to an ice cream truck to get an ice cream cone, after getting her ice cream she realizes that she got vanilla when she in fact had asked for vanilla twist. She proceeded to go back to the truck and switch her ice cream cone, when she gets there and tells the man that she didn't get what she ordered without thinking about it he pulls out his gun and shoots her.

Even today if you see a child get murdered in a movie you feel very uneasy about it. So the decision for this girl to be shot, was a big risk on Carpenters part. It is apparent that Carpenter was not afraid to make decisions that might drive away people that might have seen his film if he would have chosen to leave this scene out. I believe that Carpenter was trying to brand himself as a filmmaker that made films that would push the envelope. I think that Carpenter was successful in his attempt to brand himself.