This is John Carpenter's Zombie movie. Like, sure it doesn't have actual zombies in it, but it's about as good a remake of Night of the Living Dead as you can get. You've got a disparate group of people holed up in a single building as a huge, unknowable, unfeeling horde tries to get in, and there's someone so hysterical over the death of a loved one that they're in a state of complete catatonia. Just replace zombies with gangs and you've got this movie. Bishop also looks and feels a lot like Ben and the real drama isn't so much from the monsters, but how the people inside confront the problem and get over their differences.

Carpenter really knows how to do both suspense and character and his skills really shine here. Even before things go down you get a really good feel for who each of the characters are and you feel like you've seen a little contained story with each one before it all hits the fan. This is such a great cast, every character is super badass. There's probably something to be said about the fact that the leads are all minorities of some sort, you've got a black man, a woman, and two convicts as your heroes, and the working-class white guy is actually in the hysterical woman role you'd see in other films. I don't think I'm smart enough to really say what we should read into that, but I think Carpenter definitely wants to play with the typical action movie roles. Carpenter seems to like pairing up unexpected duos into friendships, in this case a cop teaming up and coming to really like a convicted murderer and while the chemistry between everyone is great, Bishop and Napoleon's growing friendship is particularly a blast to watch unfold.

All of the action scenes are pretty well staged, and again Carpenter really leans into horror imagery and staging, which makes for some pretty memorable bits.

The only thing I can really kind of knock about it is that some of the sound effects are a bit funny. This is definitely one of the most egregious uses of what you'd call "Hollywood Silencers" and the silencer noises in the initial shootout are so loud and nonstop, and several of them sound like a Hanna Barbara cartoon sound effect, and you do notice a couple awkward jump cuts, but really this is a pretty slick and entertaining thriller that you shouldn't sleep on, especially if you like Carpenter's more overt horror movies.

Oh and that soundtrack slaps