The problem with John Carpenter's VAMPIRE$ was the utterly crucial element from the novel they simply deleted in the movie.
Ie: Wounds inflicted by silver could not be regenerated by vampires in the novel. This lead the team leader to go in search of an excellent gunman to join the team, which provided another major character to give a damn about.

I totally agree the massacre at the movie's beginning was the undoing of the film. These guys are supposedly veteran vampire-hunters, and they were aware that a nest as large as the one they eradicated is ALMOST NEVER just abandoned by the master vampire that created it. So the team leader (James Woods) just ignores his major misgivings and lets his guys party hearty a stone's throw from the eradication-site. It didn't make sense, because if that team were prone to reckless risk-taking of that nature they never would've lasted long enough to become veterans.

The entire treatment the plot received during the movie made it abundantly clear Carpenter didn't care and was content to see his work land in the mire of the direct-to-DVD films.

I also agree that poor initial reactions by audiences to a director's initial work can be creatively scarring. What's more disturbing however, is how homogenous the horror scene has become. Dozens of Paranormal Activity-Clones, masses of malevolent haunting where the ghosts are seen (ala The Conjuring)....and not much else. Directors don't dare be different from the masses of established mediocrity-to-crap pushers, so it becomes a closed-loop cycle.