An early John Carpenter thrill ride (Assault On Precinct 13, 1976)

Assault On Precinct 13, 1976, directed by John Carpenter, streamed on Prime Video, 3 stars.

A pretty good indie action thriller that has become a cult classic. It was John Carpenter's second feature, a couple of years before his breakout film, Halloween.

Carpenter wrote, directed, scored and edited Assault On Precinct 13, in which a heavily armed street gang raids a nearly shuttered police station. The first half of the film is spent introducing us to several key characters and getting them all to the precinct at the same time.

Once everyone is in place and the gang starts its siege, the back half of the film is an entertaining thrill ride right up to the closing credits.

I felt a bit of Night Of The Living Dead happening here, with armed thugs instead of zombies. I read later that this was Carpenter's nod to the 1959 Western classic Rio Bravo (which I've never seen).

Assault On Precinct 13 is a nice little gem, a great look at the early work of an auteur who would become a horror/thriller icon in the following years. 

One quick note: The site of the siege was identified by a character early in the film as "Precinct 9, Division 13." That had me scratching my head until I read later that the film's distributor titled it with "Precinct 13" because it sounded more ominous than Carpenter's title, The Siege.  

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