Assault On Precinct 13 is a 1976 American
action thriller film written, directed, scored and edited by
John Carpenter. It stars
Austin Stoker as a police officer who defends a defunct precinct against an attack by a relentless criminal gang, along with
Darwin Joston as a convicted murderer who helps him.
Laurie Zimmer and
Tony Burton co-star as other defenders of the precinct.
Writer/director Carpenter was approached by J. Stein Kaplan to make a low-budget
exploitation film for under $100,000 but with total creative control. Carpenter wrote The Anderson Alamo, inspired by the
Howard Hawks Western film
Rio Bravo and the
George A. Romero horror film
Night of the Living Dead. Shot in winter of 1975, production went smoothly and finished on time and on budget. Despite controversy with the MPAA over the explicitly violent and infamous "ice cream" scene, the film received an R rating and opened in the
United States on November 10, 1976.
The soundtrack was written by John Carpenter assisted by Dan Wyman, at Sound Arts studio in L.A. It was done with very old technology and completed in about three days. Most of the sounds came from a large Moog Modular synthesizer called "Series III Moog" or "Moog 55". There is also a track with an electric piano (maybe a fender rhodes).
Despite the huge influence it had on many electronic musicians around the world, the film's score remained available only in bootleg form until 2003 when it was given an official release through the French label, Record Makers.
Enjoy the extended version in flac format
here!!