[2] It features Austin Stoker as a police officer who defends a defunct precinct against a relentless criminal gang, and Darwin Joston as a death row-bound convict who assists him.

Laurie Zimmer, Tony Burton, Martin West, Charles Cyphers, and Nancy Kyes co-star as other defenders of the precinct, as well as victims of the siege ensued.

[3] Lieutenant Ethan Bishop, a newly promoted highway patrol officer, is assigned to take charge of the decommissioned Anderson police precinct during the last few hours before it is permanently closed.

A prison bus commanded by a man named Starker arrives seeking medical help for one of three men being transported to the state penitentiary: Napoleon Wilson, a convicted murderer; Wells; and Caudell, who is sick.

Bishop hopes that someone has heard the police weapons firing, but the neighborhood is too sparsely populated, due to most of the housing being scheduled for demolition, for nearby residents to pinpoint the location of the noise.

[3] Following the release of Dark Star, Assault and a second script entitled Eyes were supposed to be two low-budget films written and directed by John Carpenter, with financing by J. Stein Kaplan.

[8][6]: 2 [7] Carpenter employed the pseudonym "John T. Chance" for his original version of the script, entitled The Anderson Alamo, but he used his own name for the writing credit on the completed film.

The two leads were Austin Stoker, who had appeared previously in Battle for the Planet of the Apes and Sheba, Baby, and Darwin Joston, who had worked primarily in television and was also Carpenter's next-door neighbor.

[7] Behind the scenes, Carpenter worked with cinematographer Douglas Knapp (a fellow USC student),[8] art director Tommy Lee Wallace, sound mixer Bill Varney[12] and property master Craig Stearns.

[8] "The first night I saw dailies," replied art director Wallace, "projected on a bedsheet in the producer's ratty apartment… My jaw dropped and I sat up so straight I cast a shadow with my head.

[10] The main title theme, partially inspired by both Lalo Schifrin's score to Dirty Harry and Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song",[20] is composed of a pop synthesizer riff with a drum machine underneath that "builds only in texture, but not thematically," according to David Burnand and Miguel Mera.

A held, high synthesizer note, with no other changes except inner frequency modulations, becomes the musical motif of the gang members, and reoccurs during certain violent acts in the film.

"[26] In early 2004, Piers Martin of NME wrote that Carpenter's minimalist synthesizer score accounted for much of the film's tense and menacing atmosphere and its "impact, 27 years on, is still being felt.

"[20] A vocal version of the theme, titled You Can't Fight It, with lyrics and production by Kenny Lynch, was recorded by Trinidad singer Jimmy Chambers and released in the UK as a 45 on the Pye label in April 1978, but it failed to chart and is now a rare item.

[30] Despite this influence, except for a few compilation appearances,[6]: 193–195  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.

Once again, here I was, a perfectly green recruit, yet John made a leap of faith … he further insisted we get the best processing money could buy, which at that time was the legendary MGM color labs.

[6]: 168 [31] The most infamous scene in the movie occurs when a gang member casually shoots a little girl (Kathy) standing near an ice-cream truck, with her death being shown in graphic, bloody detail.

[6]: 153 [37] Ken Wlaschin, festival director,[38] described the film in the brochure: John Carpenter, whose small-budget science-fiction epic Dark Star was widely acclaimed, has turned his inventive imagination to the thriller for his first solo directional effort.

It grabs hold of the audience and simply doesn't let go as it builds to a crescendo of irrational violence that reflects only too well our fears of unmotivated attack...

[6]: 162 Lean, taut and compellingly gritty, John Carpenter's loose update of Rio Bravo ranks as a cult action classic and one of the filmmaker's best.

Over the years, the film has received acclaim from critics, emphasizing Carpenter's resourceful abilities as director, writer, editor, and music composer, and Douglas Knapp's stylish cinematography, as well as exceptional acting from Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, and Tony Burton.

"[41] Jeffrey Wells of Films In Review wrote, "Skillfully paced and edited, Assault was rich with Hawksian dialogue and humor, especially in the clever caricature of the classic 'Hawks woman' by Laurie Zimmer.

"[46] In 2003, Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly described Assault as "a tight, tense thriller … Carpenter's eerie score and Douglas Knapp's stylish cinematography give this low-budget shoot-out all the weight of an urban Rio Bravo.

"[47] Leonard Maltin also gave the film three and a half stars out of four: "A nearly deserted L.A. police station finds itself under a state of siege by a youth gang in this riveting thriller, a modern-day paraphrase of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo.

[51] The site's consensus reads: "Lean, taut and compellingly gritty, John Carpenter's loose update of Rio Bravo ranks as a cult action classic and one of the filmmaker's best.

Just a powder keg of a premise (lifted in part from Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo), in which a quasiterrorist group's killing spree culminates in the action described in the title.

Carpenter's mastery of wide-screen and almost uncanny talent at crafting suspense and action sequences make Assault such a nerve-racking experience that you may have to reupholster your easy chair after watching it at home.

Chang describes the film Instead of Indian braves, Zulu warriors, or graveyard zombies, Assault on Precinct 13's heroes defended themselves in a desolate police station against marauding waves of dark, heavily armed gang members seeking revenge for their cop-killed brothers.

"It's very much his [Carpenter's] kind of urban Western", adds Wright, "in the way it is staging Rio Bravo set up in downtown '70s LA... And the other thing is, for a low-budget film particularly, it looks great.

Special features for this set include new interviews with actress Nancy Loomis Kyes and art director/sound effects designer Tommy Lee Wallace, and from previous editions, audio commentary from John Carpenter and Austin Stoker, theatrical trailer, and radio spots.