The film’s ample violence undulates between this strangely disembodied style and one that’s shockingly quick and ruthless—a fitting audition for the director who would forever change horror movies two years later with Halloween.

| Jan 22, 2025

This 1976 cult favorite has endured long to spawn a 2005 remake and still be regarded as one of writer-director John Carpenter's finest works.

| May 1, 2024

Much of this film can be taken as intentional satire as well as the way most audiences will see it -- as a small budget, but often nail-bitingly effective spine-chiller.

| Nov 21, 2023

The action is fine–Carpenter’s good at this, it’s all brisk, just enough characterization to make these feel like people who cast real shadows but no more than that. Carpenter did the music as well, and it’s fantastic.

| Aug 16, 2023

Perhaps Carpenter's best film next to The Thing, this is a model of low-budget filmmaking, with a tight script, appropriately tight-lipped actors and atmospheric location shooting.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 12, 2023

Carpenter blends the styles of Rio Bravo and Night of the Living Dead to give a gritty exploitation action flick that still pack a good punch today. The villains lack a central figure or personality but the protagonists keep everything afloat.

| Original Score: 3.75/5 | Sep 10, 2022

Overall, a superbly assured piece of work.

| Original Score: A | Aug 30, 2022

John Carpenter’s violent tale taps into themes of racism, gender roles, personal responsibility, and inner-city violence while also being a groundbreaking action picture.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2022

Without the proper societal context of economic disparity, racism, classism, and gun culture in America - the forces that give rise to real gangs - this film furthers the notion of inner-city crime as an illness, a disease, a cancer...

| Oct 8, 2021

...there's no chance of capturing the street-tough magic of this hard-as-nails genre classic...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 22, 2021

At least Carpenter has the sense not to gun down any old ladies.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 27, 2020

A film that is unrelenting, grabbing you by the scruff of your neck and dragging you through its 90-minute run time.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 11, 2018

...a seriously erratic early effort from an otherwise masterful filmmaker.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 19, 2018

For all the exposition dealt out in the opening half hour, it's become an almost abstract act of violence by the end, motivations long forgotten by the attackers and survival the only thought on the minds of the dwindling survivors.

| Jan 5, 2018

A vital moment in the career of one of cinema's most important directors and a searingly tense thriller in its own right.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 16, 2017

Carpenter stages the action expertly, always getting maximum impact from the moments when Precinct 13 explodes into violence.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 12, 2013

In Assault On Precinct 13, hell is an abandoned police station in Los Angeles and the only means of survival is cooperation across racial, class, and legal lines.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 12, 2013

A ballsy, exciting genre mash-up that still entertains and excites.

| Jun 3, 2013

This early Carpenter movie still holds up as one of the director's best works.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 25, 2011

A fast, dark, relentlessly maintained thriller that still ranks among the best of the decade.

| May 25, 2011