What's going on with John Carpenter? - Page 2

Never did find out how that ended. Though if there's justice in this world, the winning entry features cowboys, zombies, and ghosts.

That's the thing that makes it so fucked up. There's no motive whatsoever. The power of the character was that he was this force of nature that was apparently just evil, no motive, no emotion, just evil.

Then HALLOWEEN II went and fucked it all up.

I <3 J.

Yah, that competition is still being judged. They got 500 entries as of June 1st so they take a few months to read them all. Fingers crossed.

I think RINGU has succeeded in making the majority of the recent Western attempts at horror quite silly. Compare JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 or even THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT with it, and it's far, far superior for me.

Japan holds the Future of Horror - Believe it, it's True

I actually agree with you Floydian - I wasn't the biggest fan of Ringu either. But the sheer inventive flair of directors like Miike makes Western horror look out of date - that statement is not silly, as you so wittilly put it; it is plain fact.

Name a GOOD recent western horror film. Outside of Blair Witch, and 28 Days there isn't one. Maybe The Cube, but that was poorly acted and a long time ago. To see how bad Western horror has become you just have to look at all the Western remakes of Japanese horror films ( - look out for The Grudge, a re-make of Ju-On out soon. There's plans for One Missed Call as well, as well as a Ring franchise)

We are a long way from the dreamy hey-day of Western horror in the late 70's and 80's - Nightmare on Elm St, Dawn of the Dead, Hills have Eyes, TCM...- there are countless titles of CLASSIC horror films in this period, each offering something new, inventive, ORIGINAL goddamit. Recent Hollywood is littered with crap horror attempts: The Scream franchise sux (Scream 2 had me almost in tears), Resident Evil (prime example at the TOTAL LACK OF F***ing IDEAS), Cabin Fever (man-o-man that was awful), they keep coming. You can't compare these to Old Boy or Dark Water. Even if you don't like these films, they demonstrate a desire for new things, new ways of shocking and scaring the shit out of you. Some are hit and some are miss, but Western horror is pretty much miss everytime at the mo.

It says something that there seems to be a deep yearning for directors like Craven and Carpenter to do something good - why? Because no-one has even come close to challenging them - everyone still harks back to the films that made them famous. No-one since then has come and taken the horror mantle away from them. In Asia, young directors are springing up and kicking ass, and will be doing for years to come as there you have a cinema industry that is willing to promote new ideas and isn't afraid of what people will say or do. Ichi The Killer is a film that would NEVER ever ever ever be made in Hollywood - and I think you have a large part of your problem right there. Hollywood has it's head too far up it's conservative ass to begin nurturing extreme cinematic talent like Miike.

Another interesting development is the merging of horror and comedy. This is nothing new - Evil Dead... - and I'm all for it. I was a big fan of Freddy Vs Jason - it was a loving pastiche of 2 great cinematic characters, as was Bride of Chucky. These films - fun as they are - are symtomatic of a bigger problem however; a malaise that is affecting the whole genre. No-one seems to know how to play it straight anymore. Horror has now become something to be played around with, sent up, made fun of (Scary Movie...) - and during this phase it seems that it has lost sight of its original purpose - y'know, "to scare you".

(Oh yeah, and when Hollywood does wants a Freddy Vs Jason or a Bride of Chucky, who do they call - Ronny Yu of course, a Hong Kong film director)

"I was thinking it was time for JC to do a werewolf flick. I think he's covered everything else."


I just got a stiffy when I read that. That would fucking rule.

Oh and Floydian, go get Cycle of the Werewolf ASAP. Just awesome. You like Silver Bullet? You will love the novella. Werewolves are proabably my favorite subject for a horror movie(well I guess they tie with Zombies) and Cycle of the Werewolf is the reason for my love of the lupine creatures.

cough Who Goes there? cough

Dc Comics recently released a comicbook named Lovecraft.Which takes a look at the life of HP Lovecraft.And speculates what if the stories Lovecraft wrote about actually we´re real? A mysterious city with the name Arkham, a dreaded book named Necronomicon.What if all this was true.A very good comicbook that all Lovecraft-fans should buy and read.John Carpenter wrote a introduction to this comic, in which he reveals that the comic from the beginning was a movie script, turned into a comic.Wouldn´t it be cool if John Carpenter could direct a film based on the script? He´s obviously a Lovecraft fan, judgeing from his film The Mouth of Madness, and also The Thing.(which reminded me of At the Mountains of Madness)

Just grab Cycle at the library Floydian. I don't no where I would be with out the library. Probably begging for pennies on a street corner.

Also I have to agree with you about guys like Eli Roth, independent movies are the way to go. What about Shaun of the Dead thats a western one. So is Open Water. When you look back so many of the great horror movies were indpendets. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Evil Dead, even Dawn of The Dead was to some extent, an independent movie. It may have been backed by a studio but it was made with a minescule budjet.

Halloween, the Thing, and Big Trouble in Little China. Many of his others are really good movies, but these 3 flicks are so %$#^*! brillant and fun, it hurts.

Makes me long for the days when filmmakers relied on imagination instead of green screen.

- Fixxxer

John Carpenter

I thought I read that someone was remaking Assault on Precinct 13, but I don't quite remember where I read it. I love John Carpenter, and even Vampires and Ghost of Mars got money out of me when at the theater, Vampires being the better of those two in my opinion, still one definitely longs for the days of Big Trouble and The Thing. My birthday is on Halloween, so I've had a special relationship with that movie for a long, long time. It's like It's a Wonderful life for Halloween, even though it scared the piss out of me as a child, I still associate the movie with good times. Not the JJ Walker show, hey there's a show, JJ Walker, Texas Ranger. In the Mouth of Madness is underseen and underrated I believe.