John Carpenter deserves a thread

[Gary Floyd 0]

That's right, lets talk about the movies of John Carpenter. It doesn't matter if it's Halloween, Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, They Live, Prince of Darkness, hell even his Masters of Horror Episodes.

 

To start: Escape from New York has a really bad ass cast.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Boy, did he get terrible. Fantastic early career, though.

[foleyfanforever88 0]

I thought this thread was about the first million dollar winner on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

[Gary Floyd 0]

Boy, did he get terrible. Fantastic early career, though.

Funny, I though the season one episode of Masters of Horror (Cigarette Burns) was the best episode of the series. "ProLife" though, is definately the worst though, and pissed me off to no end.

 

His last good movie was "In the Mouth of Madness."

[randomguy 0]

I find even his awful stuff watchable, even dreck like Ghosts of Mars.

 

Cigarette Burns was great. Pro Life was just a riff on stuff he's already done, with a setting sure to piss some people off (not me) and some really bad FX.

 

One of my favorite directors. Imaginitive, bleak and I enjoy his themes of isolation.

[eiker_ir 0]

 

he's my favorite director easily

 

 

btw, Escape from LA get a lot of hate when it's damn entertaining. The only thing that sucks about it it's some of the crappy CGI, but the movie rocks just as much and maybe even more than the original.

 

[Gary Floyd 0]

Escape from LA was just ok. Not horrible, but could have been so much more. Instead it became a remake of the first movie.

 

Also, you put Pam Grier in your movies, but don't do anything with her? Come on John.

[dubq 0]

He's easily one of my favourite director's. Period. The Thing is one of the best movies I've EVER seen, and In the Mouth of Madness is an awesome Lovecraftian style story.

 

I'm just saddend that he actually approves of a lot of the remakes of his classics. I've heard that Escape is being redone with the douche from 300, and then there's a remake of the fucking THING on tap as well. *shakes head* Why, I'll never know. Next thing you know, we're going to get a remake of Big Trouble starring some talentless cunt as Jack Burton. =\

[The Buzz 0]

I loved his take on the novel Vampires more than the book itself. Hell even the sequel that he didn't make was better than the horrible third movie.

 

I liked the first two Halloween movies, and the Escape movies. I liked the movie where he played a crypt keeper style character telling scary stories, can't remember the title. Good creative mind imo.

[cabbageboy 0]

You know, The Thing was a remake of the 1951 Thing itself. Anyway as far as Carpenter goes, he has one actual flat out classic in Halloween and his 1980s work is mostly fun stuff (if not classic).

[Coffin Surfer 0]

I've always liked Prince of Darkness. Not a great or even good movie by any means but a really interesting creepy concept with a few very fun performances(especally from the Chinese dudes from "Big Trouble"). The final few scenes are surprisingly some of the most menacing images Caprenter ever shot, I still get the creeps from the last scene and the relevation of the shared dream.

 

BTW, Russell says he's game, where the fuck is Big Trouble in Little China 2!?

[The Buzz 0]

Oh yeah I finally saw that for the first time a few months ago, didn't even realize Carpenter made it. Pretty fun movie.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

I'd say it's a tie for which film I think is his best: In the Mouth of Madness and The Thing. EVERYTHING about both movies is spot-on perfect. How things spiral out of control in ...Madness, leading to the main character's own insanity, is amazing, as are all of the obvious Lovecraftian themes and homages (IIRC, the hotel clerks' last names are "Pickman," which is obviously from the Lovecraft tale "The Pickman's Model"). Also, Sam Neil OWNS ASS in that movie, and the ending is so bleak it's beautiful. And The Thing, hot DAMN was that great. It's too bad that it bombed in the box office when it came out, because it beats the shit out of any non-zombie horror flick from the 80's I've ever seen.

[haws bah gawd 0]

Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy" (Thing, Price of Darkness, & Mouth of Madness) is great, classic horror stuff. Prince of Darkness is probably the weakest of the three (even though it is a classic in it's own right) but the ending is great, and Mouth of Madness is a total mindfuck. You don't see too many horror movies NOT have a happy ending, so it was kind of different to see the end of the world happen. For as little as you actually see it, the huge Monster that chases Sam Neil down the hall close to the end of MoM looks fantastic.

 

Kind of random, but did Carpenter and Clive Barker ever collaborate on a project? Seems their horror styles would have meshed well.

[dubq 0]

You know, The Thing was a remake of the 1951 Thing itself.

 

I'll give you halfway on that. Both movies were actually takes on the story "Who Goes There" by JW Campbell Jr. Carpenter's movie wasn't intended as a remake of 1951's "The Thing From Another World" but rather a more faitful adapation of the original story.

 

I guess in the end it doesn't matter if it's being "remade" since it could just be another take on the original story. I still stand by my other disappointments, though.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

You know, I've read "Who Goes There?" Outside of the things about blood and testing it and the self-reliable cells of the alien...it's actually pretty lame. The whole thing about anti-gravity packs and ray guns and atomic power cells made out of tractor parts...it's easy to see that it was written in the 40's/50's.

[Jingus 0]

My thoughts on the Carpenter movies I've seen, in chronological order:

 

Assault on Precinct 13: oft-forgotten, mostly unseen little gem which I think is one of his better efforts. Creepy as hell, with one particular moment

the little girl getting shot, and the massive squib exploding blood EVERYWHERE

which made me laugh harder than I ever have in my entire life.

 

Halloween: just a good horror movie. Not certain why it's got such an All-Time Classic label, other than helping to start the Invincible Masked Killer, Sex = Death, Holiday Horror Title, and POV KillerCam cliches. And I said "helping", it didn't invent any of those, it just popularized them after becoming such a huge smash.

 

The Fog: underrated li'l horror flick. Not the scariest movie ever made, but a perfectly competent thriller, and absolutely pisses on the remake in every possible way.

 

Escape From New York: I've never particularly liked the way Carpenter films his action scenes, they're often somewhat static and clumsy, and his action movies suffer IMHO because of this. However, this one has a great campy hero in Snake Plissken and a perfect supporting cast, plus the giant empty sets of NYC gone to ruin are pretty cool.

 

Halloween II: yeah, I know Carpenter didn't direct it, but he wrote the script. A big letdown compared to the first film, just a dumb by-the-numbers slasher flick which was just as generic and low-rent as any of the Halloween ripoffs.

 

The Thing: Carpenter's best movie, and one of the rare few films I've ever seen that still has the power to actually scare me. It's just all perfect: the paranoid writing, jittery acting, claustrophobic direction, unusual setting, general atmosphere, and especially those effects which are simultaneously so awe-inspiring and completely nauseating. Awesome, groundbreaking horror movie which doesn't get the respect it deserves.

 

They Live: eh. It's okay. Not great. Some of the underlying themes are pretty cute, although a couple of nonsensical plot twists and Carpenter's aforementioned problems with directing shootouts keep it from being anything classic.

 

In the Mouth of Madness: I need to watch this one again sometime, but I remember it being a damn fine film, feeling very different from the director's other stuff. Like, in most earlier Carpenter films, I can look at the flat lighting on people giving somewhat wooden line readings with synthesized music in the background and go "yeah, that's a John Carpenter production", but iirc this one was nothing like that. I didn't know anything about Lovecraft when I watched it, but god knows it's better than any other adaptation I've seen of Howard Phillip's work on the screen.

 

Escape From LA: crap. Everything EFNY did right, this one did wrong. Everything EFNY did wrong, this one also did wrong. Film-wreckingly horrible CGI effects which are worse than anything on the SciFi Channel these days combine with a distracting all-star cast and some lamebrained scenes to create one big pile of suck. The ending is the worst part, I really don't think Carpenter thought through all the implications of Snake's final action.

 

Vampires: it took a good, unconventional book and dumbed it down into an achingly derivative gore flick. James Woods is always good, but the rest of the movie sure as hell wasn't. The constant misogyny is especially pretty hard to stomach. Like From Dusk Til Dawn without the sense of humor.