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Popular Culture Review
sensibility. As Muir has noted, prior to directing Vampires Carpenter was openly
dismissive of the form as “...being unbelievable and difficult to relate to. He had
no desire to make a film about...a bunch of romantic figures with ‘eurotrash’
accents who wear ‘rented formal wear’ (191).” Thus, Carpenter wanted his
vampires to present Jack Crow’s hunters with opponents who present a real threat
to peoples’ everyday lives and display a cockiness commensurate with that threat.
In light of the revisionist attitude underlining Vampire's genesis, including
Steakley’s portrayal of the women in the novel, it appears unlikely that Carpenter
felt any obligation to depict his female characters along the lines of traditional
women in vampire novels and films.
The brutalization of the female in Vampires is carried out primarily
toward Katrina who undergoes a variety of humiliations as Carpenter unfurls his
plot. Introduced initially as though she will be the film’s love interest for Jack
Crow, Katrina spots Crow as the hunters’ leader at the motel party and willingly
takes his room key while he grabs them a couple of beers. Much to her surprise,
Katrina is ambushed by Valek who is waiting for Crow in the room. In a creative
twist on the concept of the vampire’s bite as surrogate for sex, Valek initiates
Katrina into vampirism in a scene of faux-cunnilingus that finds the master
vampire eventually biting her on the thigh rather than the traditional jugular
bearing neck. As a result of the bite, Valek establishes a telepathic link with
Katrina who then becomes valuable to the remaining hunters (Crow and
Montoya) as their Mina Harker, allowing them to make contact with Valek in
their attempt to discern what he is up to.
Thus, Katrina’s primary function in the story is to be used by the hunters
in their quest to track down Valek and determine what he is up to in his
wanderings. She is also utilized by Carpenter as “eye candy” as Katrina spends a
substantial time stripped and tied to a bed in the hotel room where she is watched
over by Montoya (Daniel Baldwin), Crow’s right-hand man. Eventually, Katrina
is slugged by Montoya when she bites him on t he wound he receives crashing
through the window to save her when she attempts to commit suicide. As
Montoya says to Crow later, “I fuckin’ slugged her. Who cares?” This statement
succinctly establishes the film’s attitude toward women in general, and Katrina
specifically, for in a perverse plot twist she and Montoya fall for each other
during the film’s second half despite his constant abuse “to protect her from
herself.” One can only attribute this attraction to some form of Stockholm
syndrome on Katrina’s part, but it hardly says much for her character to fall for
someone who has treated her the way Montoya has-vampirism notwithstanding.
By film’s end, Katrina is little more than a prize for Montoya. Both of them are
turning into vampires and Crow agrees to give them a couple days head start
before hunting them down in recognition of the long-developed bond between
himself and his buddy, who has repeatedly helped save his life.