By Devin D. O'Leary

In case you hadn't heard, legendary cult film director John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape From L.A.) is in New Mexico right now, shooting his latest horror flick. John Carpenter's Vampires, which relates the adventures of a Vatican-based squad of vampire hunters, is based on the John Steakly novel Vampire$. The film began shooting on June 2 and will spend the next eight weeks filming entirely on location in the Santa Fe and Las Vegas, N.M., areas. The film stars Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, James Woods and Maximilian Schell. ... Speaking of vampires, legendary cult film director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) is in negotiations with Arnold Schwarzenegger to nail down a star for his film I Am Legend. The film will be based on the Richard Matheson novel about a man living in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by vampires. The novel has been filmed twice before: Once in 1964 as The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price, and once in 1971 as The Omega Man with Charlton Heston. ... Speaking of Blade Runner (how's this for a train of thought?), another of legendary cult sci-fi writer Phillip K. Dick's books is about to make the transition to the big screen. Australian director Emma-Kate Croghan, who made a slight splash on the film fest circuit last year with her film Love and Other Catastrophies, has chosen an adaptation of Dick's 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly as her next project. No word yet on who will star in this hallucinogenic tale of an undercover drug agent living on the verge of reality.

--Devin D. O'Leary

Alibi film section e-mail: devin@alibi.com