John Carpenter and his films

Another JC thread

True, you cannot have too many Carpenter threads. Here's another I made so you can check it out so I don't reitterate too many things already.

Aside from his film, props has to be given to JC for launching many successful Hollywood careers. Kurt Russel wasn't made famous by any of Carpenter's movies, but they certainly helped his reputation when he became famous later. Of course, Jamie Lee Curtis, and producer Larry Franco. There's probably a few other's I'm forgetting, but he's helped make a lot of stars.

You also have to give him credit for the loyalty he has to his actors. Most of his films, maybe all, are connected in some way by relation to an actor. He's a great director and a great guy.

Re: John Carpenter and his films

Ahhhh Floyd, I'm right there with you, man. Always love you bringing up the JC threads cause I dig em as much as you. Favorite director with David Lynch.

As for Village of the Damned....you know what? It ain't that bad. A remake wasn't neccesary at all, and the original is better, but still, I enjoy it. While nothing overtly original or snazy I think it's a very, very solid sci-fi/horror movie.

And for Roddy Piper.....love my R2 They Live with the JC/Roddy Piper commentary.

Love or hate his films, I don't believe there is a filmmaker with a more distinctive voice, or who has consistantly contributed more to the genre in the last twenty years.

If you haven't seen it, check out the recent Image John Carpenter docu DVD. It was nicely done.

At the moment, Carpenter is my favorite director.

Escape From New York is my favorite movie of all time.

I've never understood the hate for Village of the Damned. It's not highly original or worthy of some of his other, earlier films, but it's still decent.

I think if it was directed by some unknown guy then the expectations wouldn't have been too high and more people would have liked it.

It's not as bad as some people make it seem.

Where's my Carpenter Box Set Dammit?

Or do they only do that when the guy's dead.

Of all his films, Village of the Damned is the only one I don't really care for. I don't hate it by any means, I just don't like it as much as any of his other work. I will say though that Carpenter is probably my favorite genre director. One movie I dislike out of a career as prolific as his is pretty damned impressive.

John Carpenter has a better track record than Scorsese and Coppola put together.

You forgot: "Memoirs of an invisible man" and "DarkStar".

Didn't he write some parts of Halloween II as well?

Didn't he also co-directed Body Bags?

JC is my hero. The Thing is the best horror movie ever made.

Dark Star is the best hippy- alien beachball- 2001 rip-off- surf in space movie ever made.
Dan O'Bannon owns that movie.

I love most of his films. Didn't care for the fog, but....

Vampires: I would consider this a modern classic. I find the woman abuse claims bullshit. The character is more or less a vampire, and men get butchered very very badly, so hey, equal oppotunities. I love the whole horror-western atmosphere which JC really nailed, liked the score, AWESOME opening, some of the most brutal vamps ever (which was refreshing because up till then the vamp sub genre was more or less all anne rice esque boring vamps) and James Woods was fantastically intense.

Ghosts of Mars: Again, I quite liked this. Not classic carpenter, but I had a lot of fun with it, though it's possibly most mainstream of all of Carpenter's output.

The Thing: Total classic. One of my favourite movies ever. Can't really say much more than has already been said.

In The Mouth Of Madness: Another classic, in my opinion. Loved it. It had the themes of the Matrix without getting overtly preachy (reality and the nature of it) and hell, Lovecraftian monsters. Fantastic.

Assault On Precinct 13: Great, gritty homage to Night of the Living Dead with some shocking moments.


They Live: Again, not his best, but quality entertainment. The streetfight is one of the best on film, though. Pretty good social satire as well.


Halloween: Greatest slasher ever. Scared the crap out of me as a kid...but then the slasher genre took off, sadly. This is the ONLY slasher flick I thin should still be allowed to stick around, all others should have the copies burned.


Prince of Darkness: Another classic. Very very lovecraftian, and very atmospheric.

Escape from NY: Thought was ok, didn't fall in love with it. I actually liked LA more, though watching it again, some parts of it were really cheesy (other than that, I thought it was very sharp satire). I would have to watch NY again.

VOTD was decent. Not his best, but with all of his movies, they entertained me.


Carpenter is one of my favourite directors of all time, Along with James Cameron. The guy is a genre god...nay, film god period.

Carpenter rules. His two-fisted, bare-bones storytelling style shouldnt be able to bear the amount of suspense, terror and thrill that he heaps upon it, but it always seems to. He doesn't cut corners, he just gets Dean Cundey to shoot through them. And although his casts of characters often comprise of people that you probably wouldn't want to meet in an alley late at night, he always makes them likeable, and makes you want them to go on living after the credits roll. I mean, can George Lucas do that? No, he can't. Spielberg maybe, but not without a substantially larger budget. Carpenter just rules. And he always will, in my book.

Re: John Carpenter and his films

John Carpenter has a few excellent films to his credit, but I don't consider him a great filmmaker, nor do I have any faith in his commitment, desire or willingness to make a decent film anymore ...

THE THING( which is from '82 btw ) holds such a special place for me, and HALLOWEEN is classic filmmaking .... but aside from those two, I can't agree that anything else could be considered more than just good genre movies ...

THE FOG is hokey and not scary at all, and has some of the most miscast roles I've ever seen ... ESCAPE FROM NY and CHRISTINE are enjoyable, no doubt, and I liked STARMAN, but the period between '86 and '95 is average at best, and since 1996, Carpenter has made utter crap that play out like borderline Sci Fi channel films ....

JC has made films for a long time now, and then is no reason he should be putting out the crap he has been ... For whatever reason(s), it seems as if he's just given up and no longer cares about integrity or quality ...... The way some filmmakers just lose the fire bothers me, and I'm not going to sit here and heap praise on someone who made a few good films 25 years ago . . .

Don't get me wrong, I really miss the JC of the late 70's/early 80's ....

When I first saw HALLOWEEN or THE THING, I didn't go into it thinking "Oh good, this is a John Carpenter film " : they were excellent films, and I didn't have to convince myself that becasue it was JC, well, then it must be good ..... and now, since he has established himself, I think that he has taken for granted the position that many other directors would die for ...

I agree on most of the carpenter points...BUT!

ghosts of mars is one of the worst movies I've ever seen...come on people...chrome plated tek-9s?

and Vampires is a horrendous adaptation of a great book ("Vampire$ Inc.") I wanted to love that movie so much, but came out of the theatre so completely dissapointed...although I will give it a nod for the awesome massacre at the motel at the beginning.


The Thing, Big Trouble In Little China, and They Live are my favorite carpenter films

I used to drool over Carpenter films..loved every single damn one of them (YES..that includes "Starman" and "Christine").

Then he stupidly killed off the heroes in "They Live" (that in no way went with the rest of the film and almost sank the good stuff that had gone before) and made the piss awful "Prince of Darkness"...From then on....down hill.

"Prince" is a film i hate with a vengence and to me is the very worst example of just how moronic the horror genre can be when done badly. And to say that of a JC film is sad indeed given what had come before.
We are given the Devil coming back via a woman with strawberry jam on her face, a gloopy liquid sits in a jar and is meant to be scary, Alice Cooper (*GAG*..WHY??) and 5 bums pottering around looking silly, an empty house with NO atmosphere and an awful, bad joke spouting Chinese guy who has to be one of the most hateful and annoying characters ever created.....WOW! What an apocalypse!

When Carpenter had that Chinese guy stuck in a cupboard shooting out inane one-liners, as Ms Strawberry Face gurgled a bit, I knew he had lost it...
He was either VERY clever and knew that horror audiences had dropped many IQ levels and so needed crass jokes in a supposed serious horror film, or he knew the whole thing was so shit that there wa no way it would play straight so wrote some gags instead.
Just awful!!

And he's never made a good film since...about 16 years of dross ("Escape from L.A"?? Oh indeed how the mighty have fallen), or below average efforts ("Village of the Damned") and huge wastes of potential like "Vampires"...

The guy should have retired about 16 years ago and gone out with one of the finest batches of works a Director could have...and not subjected his legacy to suffocate under the sad heap of rubbish he's piled on top ever since.

"Mouth" did nothing for me...But i admit that may be because I am not a Lovecraft fan.

I hear he's got so desperate he's cannibalising his own excellent back-catalogue with re-makes of "The Fog" (a film i love and has many fond memories as it was the first VHS i ever owned with my first ever VCR) and even "Halloween"!

And what with a pointless re-make of "Assualt" coming out...it seems even his excellent movies are being watered down.

Debunked was it? Oh well, there's something anyway. I tend not to take notice of news and rumours, but that caught my eye a while back. Nice to know it's been flushed.

Bah, any JC film remake will suck, because a good 70% of what makes it click is him. I'm sorry, but he is the center that holds it all together, and anyone else redoing what he did will surely stick out like a sore thumb. Bah.

I actually saw about half of Escape from LA on HBO and I honestly didn't think it was that bad. Not great by any means, but it was still entertaining. Goofy, yeah, but if he had treated it in a serious light I don't see how it would have been any better.

Prince of Darkness isn't a bad movie, and there are some fairly cool parts, but it's probably the only JC movie that bored me at all while watching it.

And to be honest, that's a good sign of JC's greatness. I've seen probably about a dozen of his movies, and I've only found one to be even slightly boring. There are few people who can make movies as consistently entertaining.

Ghosts of Mars

Not a great film, but loads of fun. The Mars settings look great, as do the possessed people with all the piercings and shit. Henstridge is wonderful as the lead, and I love the vision of what the alien inhabitants looked like many years ago. Sweet music too, and as I said, just loads of fun.

Vampires

I love the western feel of this film, and Woods, one of my all time favorite actors, is perfection in his role, and chews the scenery like there's no tomorrow. The vamps are also pretty menacing, and of course, the massacre scene towards the beginning is a very pleasing scene. Still, this film could have been so much more, and while I definitely enjoy it, its most definitely not one of my favorite Carpenter flicks.

Escape From LA

I think this one is quite underrated, and I rank it right up there with its predecessor. Classic opening with the moral America explanation, the President predicting the quake, the quake itself, etc., and LA seems like a much cooler prison island to me than New York. Great revamped version of the original's score too, as well as a nice variety of great actors throughout. Only things I don't like about this film is some of the shoddy CGI and the truly lame surfing scene. I'm able to look past those two flaws though and really enjoy this film.

Village of the Damned

Definitely not a bad film, but it leaves me really underwhelmed. Some definite great moments, but not that great as a whole.

In the Mouth of Madness

Amazing film, definitely one of Carpenter's top five best, as well as his last great film. For more thoughts on this one, just check out the current thread on the film.

They Live

I adore this film. Piper and David are wonderful as the two leads, and the plot is very unique and intriguing. The alien makeup may be low budget, but I wouldn't have it any other way, as I love the look of the aliens in this gem. The fight scene between Piper and David is a true classic, Buck Flower is in one of his very best roles as the drifter, the action is great, as is the ending, and I just adore this film through and through! Another of Carpenter's top five best.

Prince of Darkness

A true masterpice, and as far as I'm concerned, its neck and neck with The Thing as the best film of Carpenter's career. A really intelligent film, not to mention extremely frightening. The score is also the best to ever grace a Carpenter film, and the old church is one of the most atmospheric and creepy settings I've seen on film. Some truly classic freaky moments throughout, and I am always thoroughly immersed in the beyond intriguing and very intelligent plot. This film is perfect in my eyes. Pray for death!

Big Trouble in Little China

Lots of fun. Some cool mythology, nifty battle scenes, and several funny moments. Love it!

Christine

A magnificent adaptation of the King novel. Carpenter manages to pull off a hard to do premise very seriously and very well. Christine is a truly beautiful car, and is very menacing to boot. Some truly classic scenes too such as a burning Christine chasing after the main bully on the road and leaving him in a firey heap, Christine's healing after being demolished by the gang, and so on. Excellent film, and a very eerie score as well!

Escape From New York

Wonderful and imaginative film by all means, and Russell perfectly brings to life one of the coolest anti heroes ever. Hayes is also a fantastic villain as the Duke, and New York looks like quite a menacing prison indeed. The idea of the film is also just great to begin with, and Carpenter and company execute it beautifully. The film also contains one of Carpenter's very best scores.

The Fog

Very eerie film with some of Carpenter's best cinematography, not to mention a wonderfully dreary small town setting. A great cast compliments the film very well, and the lepers are creepy and nasty suckers. One of Carpenter's best indeed.

The Thing

Truly mesmerizing film, and like I said earlier, tied for Carpenter's absolute best. The paranoia is perfectly realized, and the film is extremely grim and chock full of dread throughout. The special effects are easily some of the best I've ever had the pleasure of seeing, and the Antarctica setting is very suitable, not to mention very pleasing. Morricone's score is also quite remarkable, and hammers home the already present dread. I also very much like every character in the film, so the suspense is extra high for me. A true masterwork!

Halloween

Undoubtedly an excellent film, and Michael Myers is a truly creepy villain. The score is wonderful, and the film is drenched in atmosphere from start to finish. The inimitable Pleasance also gives a stellar performance, and this film is a definite classic. Not quite the greatest slasher film of all time though. That honor goes to the brilliant Black Christmas.

Assault on Precinct 13

Another of Carpenter's top five films. The gang in this film is a creepy group of bastards, and their assault on the nearly abandoned police station is beyond suspensful and exciting. The characters are all great, and Darwin Joston is outstanding as the first and possibly best of Carpenter's anti heroes. This film's score is also outstanding, and is my second favorite score from Carpenter. Another 100% perfect film in Carpenter's remarkable career as far as I'm concerned.

Dark Star

This one does nothing for me. Quite a bland bore really.

Yeah..Guy stuck in closet making lame jokes because that's the level it's aiming for... is really intelligent. It's a truly awful film.
And Saturday morning kids TV is scarier.
I agree on the good score though.

Another stinker is the shockingly tacky "L.A" which is so far from the original it's on another planet.

Watch French picture The Nest and then say that a remake of Assault On Precinct 13 would be guaranteed to be awful...

Never said it would be awful...It just has no need to exist!

We have an "Assualt on Precinct 13" and it's a damn good film (hell they've even kept the title, which was a mistake anyway..it's not even in Precinct 13!) and we don't need another.

Just like we have superb, classic status, widely available INDY films called "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Dawn of the Dead"....We didn't need a Studio name leeching creation for those either.

Necessary, schmecessary - no picture is. But if it's either bad or good, a remake does no harm whatsoever.

If it's bad, every one either reinforces their love of the original or more people discover the original because of the comparison.

And if it's good, we have another entertaining genre picture on our hands. We all win.

I don't understand that beef.

Let's not let the irony pass us by that Carpenter's celebrated second picture was a remake-in-all-but-name of Rio Bravo and his most celebrated (arguably) was an outright remake of a beloved sci fi picture.

But la-di-dar, this probably isn't the place.

Nonsense.

Is this where you get supercilious and net-geeky and say either a) The Thing isn't a patch on Halloween or b) it's based on the novella Who Goes There ? rather than Christian Nyby's picture ?

Pedantry aside, it's a remake.

Good point[s]. Although Assault... and The Thing are remakes you can't say Carpenter didn't bring anything to the table. To go slightly off track, thats like saying Reservoir Dogs is a remake of City On Fire. City...is a mediocre and dull crime thriller which Reservoir Dogs certainly isn't.

I think John Carpenter is one of the most entertaining directors out there, a true maverick. No one loves Rio Bravo more than me but c'mon, you'd rather watch Assault On Precinct 13 and you know it! The same goes for The Thing.

A remake may be of no harm but it's a disgrace that a film studio thats probably been turning its nose up at Carpenter for the last decade or so has to resort to stealing HIS work. ASSHOLES.

I agree totally...that's what I'm saying -- everyone assumes a remake will be a carbon copy-homage. Often not the case. As Carpneter admirably shows (even Village Of The Damned is intersting I think).

Yeah, reading books and being factually correct is net-geeky. Well done.
Pedantry aside, stop being an arse.

Why is it Net-geeky to say that "The Thing" is in fact simply a far more faithful re-telling of the original story? Because it hurts your point?
Well it's true...And the sheer gulf of time, change in effects and what the censor allowed to be on screen was so far removed from what could be shown in the 50's that any idea of Carpenter's "The Thing" (notice it also does NOT have the same title??) being anything BUT it's own film is simply way off.

the EXACT same thing applies to Cronenberg's "The Fly" (as well as a VERY personal Director..it would ALWAYS be a Cronenberg film before a "Fly" film).

Same with "Rio Bravo". It was a completely different style of film, made very much as a star vehicle for Wayne and set in the old West!
Basic elements here and there are the same...otherwise?.... VERY different films. certianly not the case in the upcoming "Re-make".

And again "Assulat" was not called "Rio Bravo"....A different title. People too easily throw away the imporatnce of a film's title (and thus it's place in history/text books) imho....

Unless the film is so HUGELY different (again like "The Fly") in it's overall technique and what the Director brings to the project...then to me a film's name is something not to be messed around with..NOT when they are such famous and iconic titles as "Dawn of the Dead" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" for example. (sequels add a number or a subtitle..they are not identified as the same film).

I don't want there to even be 2 "Dawn of the Dead" films..let alone 2 "Suspiria's"...or "Assualt on Precinct 13's".

And unlike "The Fly" and "The Thing"..what is allowed to be shown, and film making techniques etc etc...have in no way changed to such a vast extent between the 2 "Dawns'" or the 2 "Assualt on P 13's"...as they had between the 2 "Fly" films or the 2 "Thing" films.

The fact that the new "Dawn" had to wimp out big time on actual in your face (not computer game splatter..VERY different things!) gore with an almost total lack of explicit 'gut munching' to secure an 'R' (again, a ratiing/ideal the original is justly famous for going against!!!) shows that actually the re-make was a step backwards!

AMEN!

Well, you've just said it there yourself, Cronenberg made the picture his own despite it being a remake. As did Carpenter. My point is -- and talk of the book's precedence over cinematic adaptation doesn't harm it one jot, I'm pretty secure in my own mind about stuff without the need for pyrrhic MB oneupmanship -- you can't say with blanket authority that you never want to see a remake of a picture you like because, as good directors have proved, for every few awful retreads, there are some wonderful reinventions. The Nest proves it again in an in-all-but-name capacity -- you should check it out. And titular specificity means squat when you're as informed as everyone here is.

Okay, another example -- Invasion Of The Body Snatchers: remakes of the picture or retellings of the Finney novel ? Very probably, as with all these examples, a little of both. But what matters is that all three are excellent pictures of their time and when they invariably make the version with 21st century warfare overtones, I'm sure that'll be worthy too.

The point is a good story is a good story is a good story. Give it a chance rather tham bombard it with false nostalgia. There was a time when the good remakes had never been made and people were lookgin at those proposed projects with the same vitriolic fervor.

Your talking sense- too bad that sense has no place on the internet

John Carpenter is one of my favorite filmmakers far & away. His movies are highly re-watchable. He's got style for miles. He is the all time king of B movies IMO. my favorites are The Fog, Assault, & Mouth. I hope he hasn't gotten too down over the negative stuff people say about so many of his later movies, cause I really want him to keep working! most of his movies I only really start to like after I watch them a few times, then they become like old friends. I've come around to Ghosts of Mars & Vampires this way. Village I hated a lot but I think I might even come around to it just because it is so bad--plus it features superman, luke skywalker, and the cheers girl all in the same movie, how often does that happen

I know he says Assault = Rio Bravo but, as a fan of both movies, I think that's stetching it a fair bit. it's only loosly themeatically based on Rio Bravo. it is mishmash of cop drama, sci-fi, western, zombie movies... I wouldn't say remake per se. at least not in the present hollywood sense

I was just watching Christine the other day, it's one the Carpenter films I haven't watched too many times, and it really is pretty enjoyable--definitely better than the King novel IMO. it comes off kind of like American Grafiti gone bad. and the JC score is nicely augmented with 50s tunes, including the underrated Johnny Ace classic "Pledging My Love" which unfortunately only gets half played before the scene cuts. as far as I know, this was the first time Pledging My Love was ever used in a movie, and it is a powerful emotional movie tune, as exemplified years later when Abel Ferrara played the whole song in Bad Lieutenant (in the scene where naked doped up Harvey Keitel had a cryin jag breakdown)

BTW did anybody else ever notice how much this Johnny Ace song sounds like John Lennon's Xmas song (War Is Over)? I know John bited a lot of old time black rock songs but do you think he knew how hard he was biting Johnny Ace on this one?

I feel bleesed to have grown up with Carpenter and his movies. Meaning, I matured along with his output. Being born in 1972, I was able to experience his movies in the theater knowing nothing about them other than who was in it.


Carp has slipped from greatness, but Hollywood loves a comeback story. I predict within the next two years someone will throw him a bone.

Same goes for ESCAPE FROM LA. If you keep in mind that its a satire, things make a lot more sense and the pain goes away.

I love the surfing scene. It's Peter fucking FONDA!

"OH, Snake."
*high five*

Tsunami, Snake! TSUNAAAAAAAAAAMI.

Nobody slams faces into car horns like Snake.

But this is my favorite part of the movie.

Snake must have been like a white Iverson when he played college ball.

Two hoops, full court. Ten-second shot clock. Miss a shot, you get shot. Shot clock buzzer goes off before you shoot, you get shot. Two points for a basket, no three-point bullshit. All you gotta do is get ten points. That's it.

None of my college friends had EVER heard of They Live, Big Trouble In Little China, or In The Mouth of Madness. All of them were your typical Michael Bay fans until I opened their eyes upon John Carpenter. Now those 3 films, especially the first two that I mentioned are among their favorites. Whoever says that Carpenter hasn't had anything great since The Thing is full of shit.

He just hasn't followed the atypical movie norms since then, thats all.

"Full of shit"?? Nicely put as always.
College kids...the future. Guess that's not good news for the future.
"Full of shit" indeed....


Or perhaps we can just smell shit and know it's shit and don't shovel it down, while smiling and fooling ourselves it's really strawberry icecream.

To see utter dross, badly made dross at that, like "Escape from L.A" being championed...actually does latter day Carpenter fans more harm than good. And Carpenter.
Seems it's blind scoffing down of anything the man makes no matter how bad it is...that just seems to show you don't even recognise his really good films from the complete shite. You see them all the same...And that is just not good for Carpenter's rep at all.