A John Carpenter Poll

Impossible.

When he's on, he's way the fuck on. Then there's the rest of the time. Anyway, "The Thing" is the best of his best period (the Kurt Russell trilogy) and also possibly the best paranoid horror movie ever made.

Starman is quality, too.

I voted for "The Thing" because I can't make it through that movie - it freaks me out v. thoroughly.

Thing! Thing! Thing!

The Thing.

gotta be Halloween for me

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/images/directors/03/25/they_live.jpg

I picked Assault on Precinct 13. He has at least two movies that are "better" movies (The Thing and Halloween) but the simplicity of AoP13 appeals to me. Ghosts of Mars is sooooooooooo terrible.

Oh, Escape from NY is probably better too.

Plus Assault on Precinct 13 has the awesomest music.

Virtually impossible to choose between these six:
Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)
Halloween (1978)
Escape from New York (1981)
The Thing (1982)
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
They Live (1988)

The rest in order:
Christine (1983)
The Fog (1980)
Prince of Darkness (1987)
Escape From L.A. (1996)
Dark Star (1974)
Ghosts of Mars (2001) (this is kind of underrated)
Starman (1984) (I don't really remember this well, it might be higher)
In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
Village of The Damned (1995)
Vampires (1998) (this is the only one I can remember thinking okay this is really bad)

Never seen:
Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

I wonder if Dark Star is as much fun as I remember it being. (Saw it when I was 17.)

In the Mouth of Madness is underrated

Yeah it's pretty creepy.

OK, unlike the Hitchcock one, I did not vote pragmatically here. I went Christine and also considered The Fog. That said, I hope Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing or They Live win over Escape from New York or Big Trouble in Little China.

Mmmm Vanilla Twist.

I went for The Thing, but now wish I'd gone for Dark Star. Or Escape From New York. Or maybe Halloween. A John Carpenter-directed Fatal Attraction would have won it though.

I like that he's never made a remotely serious movie (well except for Starman, I guess.)

Really reaaly difficult, for me though it's

Halloween
A on P13
The Fog
Big Trouble In LC
They Live

The music on Halloween just beats out the music on A on P13 for me but they are both awesome.

Already i feel like Escape from NY and Starman should be top 5 as well.

And The Thing

I'm curious what you mean by a serious movie, Alex.

I think he means movies I like (ie, out of respect to you fanboyz, I am going to abstain rather than vote for Starman).

EXACTLY! Haha no I mean that he never tried for Oscar-fare or to really move out of the horror/sci-fi niche he created for himself. Obviously a lot of other horror/b-movie guys haven't either, but every time I think of oh Raimi for example, I still think it's neat that guys like Romero/Craven/Carpenter just stuck with what they were good at.

in fairness, apparently I haven't seen 4 of Eric's 5 faves. Please warn me if there are any others like Big T in Little C.

Morbs, at least give The Fog a shot. It's got very Val Lewtonian overtones.

I will, someday

I actually think "The Thing" is a pretty serious picture, even though the filmmaking itself is mostly about thrillpower. The whole cold-war 'enemy within' sci-fi invasion sub-genre is 'serious' imo, even if I can't really define what I mean by serious.

"Starman" is just "The Thing" standing on its head.

I'm not sure those are my 5 faves, either. Halloween would certainly give They Live a run for the fifth slot.

The Thing is so f'ing scary. Love it.

The Fog isn't very good.

What's not to like? ... I mean, other than it not being particularly scary?

Yeah there isn't enough to 'The fog', a half-hour stretched to movie length.

Most of his films have some kinda veiled commentary to me - but done in a seriously entertaining way.

And yes, incredible music - seriously underrated as a film composer/arranger isn't he? Everybody loves Morricone, etc. but he sure knows how to pack a punch. 'Ghosts of Mars' is up there with his very best in that respect.

http://www.i-marco.nl/weblog/images/bush_they_live.jpg

We're inching closer to the inevitable John Landis poll.

I still think it's neat that guys like Romero/Craven/Carpenter just stuck with what they were good at.

Craven did that Meryl Steep movie...

Plus he wasn't very good at what he was good at.

voted 'they live' just to be objective, but it almost, almost went to 'prince of darkness' just to rep for it. the scene where alice cooper kills the nerd guy from 'riptide' with half a bicycle (a scene so brilliant it is spoiler-proof) and the shared dreams with television interference.

'Escape from NY' for me, which just shades 'The Thing' as I skived off school to see it.

I also really rate 'The Eyes of Laura Mars', which he wrote.

The Thing

I have no memory of Starman and was kinda unaware it was even his movie

Haha I totally suppressed that stupid Meryl Streep movie that Craven did!

I don't think I've seen a single one of these. Maybe parts of Halloween when I was a kid.

it was downhill for Raimi after that stupid BillyBob Thornton hillbilly "thriller" movie

you mean the fine A Simple Plan? o u kid

It was downhill after Quick and the Dead! Actually A Simple Plan s'okay.

oh man I forgot about the Quick and the Dead ugh

It was downhill after Quick and the Dead!

You mean there are worse films than Quick and the Dead??!?!

The Gift's mediocre.

I only saw it last night, and was AMAZED at the awful crash-zoom-piled-on-crash-zoom editing, totally destroying whatever semblance of tension the movie might have had.

xpost.

horribly shitty casting doesn't help either - I'd say its only marginally more of a trainwreck than Carpenters' Vampires, which is unforgiveably bad

Apparently Sharon Stone insisted on DiCaprio and Crowe, and even paid their fees to get them over the studio's wishes.

"Apparently"

man, is the thing great. just watched it last night. probably beats the first alien at its own game, and I love that one too.

anyone know what the deal is with the soundtrack? credits in the beginning say it's morricone, but that main theme (the synth piece that uses a bassy sound to a percussive effect - y'all know the one) sounds v. carpenter-ish. was the soundtrack a collabo in any way? gotta be.

so yeah, went with the thing. though really, everything I've watched had something to offer. big trouble comes in second for being so over-the-top. "son of bitch must pay."

"You mean there are worse films than Quick and the Dead??!?!"

TIN CUP, PEOPLE!

George Romero doesn't have any Music Of The Hearts in his closet though! PRAISE GEORGE!

Although he did do this haha.

He has a really good good movie to terrible movie ratio, in fact I think the only movie of his I've seen (which I'm surprised to realize is all of them except Dark Star) which I didn't at least enjoy a little was Ghosts of Mars. I voted BTinLC over The Thing though because I think BTinLC is one of the most well-balanced films, humor/horror/drama/etc-wise.

Why does everyone hate Ghosts of Mars so much? It's a fun enough remake of Assault if you ask me. It's just about as good as Escape From LA.

The Thing however is very special to me, one of the only movies ever to leave me nightmaring.

anyone know what the deal is with the soundtrack? credits in the beginning say it's morricone, but that main theme (the synth piece that uses a bassy sound to a percussive effect - y'all know the one) sounds v. carpenter-ish. was the soundtrack a collabo in any way? gotta be.

I think it was just Morricone (or more likely one of his assistants) scoring the film in the style of Carpenter. Which makes you wonder why Carpenter didn't just do it himself?

So, no-one likes Christine?

I saw "The Thing" at the Edinburgh Film Festival Premier, and some punter in the front row had had the bright idea of taking acid to enhance the experience. He was carried out screaming during the initial sequence with the dogs. Which certainly added to the intensity of the movie for the rest of us.

did he announce to that theater that he had taken acid or something?

This is the first poll where I've seen/heard every single one of the choices and if I had to pick a loser it would be Christine - not from any fault of Carpenter. If anything he did the impossible and made a lousy Stephen King story pretty good, but there's numerous weak points with it beginning with the two lead characters. I think with a different cast (it's 1983 what the hell, say Tom Cruise and Timothy Hutton) it could have been outstanding.

Memoirs Of An Invisible Man isn't a bad movie (if anything it's Chevy Chase's last good movie) but gets it bad rep only because Carpenter directed it straight-up with no real horror, blood, etc.

Ghosts Of Mars is silly fun and is to Assault On Precinct 13 as Escape From LA is to Escape From NY.

The Kurt Russell trilogy is unfuckwithable and are the best movies that either Carpenter and Russell have done. However, I gotta vote for They Live as it's my personal fave.

This poll really needs to have Elvis on it too

Keith Gordon >>>>>>>> Tom Cruise! Timothy Hutton >>> John Stockton though.

I think those duads are mismatched.

er, diads ... or duals ...

Stockwell, ahem. John Stockton >>>>> all of them (except Keith Gordon haha.)

Keith Gordon > John Stockton >> Timothy Hutton >>> John Stockwell >> Tom Cruise.

I think it was just Morricone (or more likely one of his assistants) scoring the film in the style of Carpenter. Which makes you wonder why Carpenter didn't just do it himself?

yeah, this makes sense. I do wish carpenter did the score since most of it is a little forgettable... but the main theme is pretty sweet, so whatevs.

I voted for They Live—(Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David! Meg Foster's weird eyes!), but almost voted for The Thing, so I'm glad of all the Thing love. The opening scene with the possessed husky!

tough poll

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

That was a bit of a landslide.

Prince of Darkness deserved more.

DAS DING IST NUMMER EINS, JA.

Haloween robbed

Everyone transferred their love to the Rob Zombie one. :P

Village of The Damned

Missed this one (in the poll and in real life)... being a John Wyndham fan I am intrigued. Some mad props in the IMDB comments, anyone here seen it?

Prince of Darkness and the Fog both deserve better, but in all fairness neither is the best film he did.

(xpost)I've seen it. It's good, but not a patch on the original.

I sort of didn't expect that. Even taking into account the split between BTILC and EFNY isn't enough to cover the dececit.

But, yeah, The Fog deserved at least one vote.

Lack of Halloween love is slightly surprising, it was my clear second choice (after The Thing, obv). To add to discussion upthread, when you look at Carpenter's output over the years he has made some great GREAT films. Does he have it in him to ever make another classic?

"I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!"

Does he have it in him to ever make another classic

The two shows he did for the "Masters Of Horror" series were pretty good.

I was unaware of them - thanks for the heads up. Bitt0rr3nt time!

I think they are on DVD.

I certainly hope Carpenter's segments were better than Joe Dante's ludicrously overrated one about Republicans and elections, et al.

Cage and Carpenter both need a movie like this. I'm going to cross my fingers at least as this could be terrific...

Nicolas Cage to Star in John Carpenter’s Scared Straight

I think almost everyone has been subjected to Arnold Shapiro’s documentary Scared Straight! in High School. But for those who haven’t, the film follows a group of delinquent teens who are brought into a maximum security prison to help them change their ways. Supposedly, many of the teens in the original program were, in fact, “scared straight” and went on to lead happy, productive lives. As a result of the film, many states introduced “scared straight” programs in an attempt to rehabilitate young delinquents. While I was never a troublemaker, one of my high school sociology classes took a field trip to our local prison. I remember on the bus ride over, talking to friends about what would happen if a riot broke out while we were in the prison. It seemed like a great idea for a movie. Looks like someone else also had the same idea.

Nicolas Cage is in final negotiations to star in John Carpenter’s Scared Straight, a prison thriller about a troubled youth who is sent to the Scared Straight crime-prevention program. But when a riot breaks out and the prisoners take him hostage, a lifer (played by Cage) is forced to help the young man out. xXx director Rob Cohen was attached to the project when it was set-up at New Line. Carpenter is a huge step up. I’ve heard that the original spec script by Joe Gazzam was rather weak. Ron Brinkerhoff, who wrote The Guardian, has since rewritten the entire screenplay.

Con-Air 2

this will be terrible

It seemed like a great idea for a movie

WRONG

xXx director Rob Cohen was attached to the project when it was set-up at New Line. Carpenter is a huge step up.

lol @ Slashfilm's specious logic & editorializing based on films Carpenter made 25-30 years ago (tho I'm always up for a return to non-shittiness from JC)

the writer of The Guardian really shouldn't be allowed near a word processor.

Just watched Starman again for the first time in years...kind of an adult version of E.T.....love the "main theme" by Jack Nitzsche, though. Whatever happened to the great Charles Martin Smith? Now I need to re-watch Never Cry Wolf.....

ZERO FUCKING VOTES for In the Mouth of Madness?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE

ESPECIALLY WHOEVER VOTED FOR CHRISTINE INSTEAD

I don't think anyone's denying it's a good film, but look at what it's up against - this should be a POX thread.

just watched In the Mouth of Madness last week, and yeah, it was pretty well-done

The fight scene in They Live should be considered as its own feature.

http://theofficialjohncarpenter.com/

I logged on just to enthuse about The Eyes of Laura Mars, scripted by Carpenter. Turns out I already did that two years ago. Anyway, great, great movie. Like an early Argento vision of decadent 70's NY, and Faye is utterly fabulous.

Prince of Darkness is way better than half the films that got points in this poll btw. But anyway.

ESPECIALLY WHOEVER VOTED FOR CHRISTINE INSTEAD

Christine is actually a pretty fantastic movie.

Oh, that it is, but what it isn't is In the Mouth of Madness.

"Mouth" was better than I remembered it. "Prince" was worse. Is "Invisible Man" even on DVD, or was it disowned by all involved?

unimpeachable run imo

Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)
Halloween (1978)
Escape from New York (1981)
The Thing (1982)
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
They Live (1988)

you're skipping some things

I just c&p'd

Good news everyone!

You will have to indulge the fanboy in me while I rejoice in the fact that ELVIS will be released on DVD for the first time on March 2, 2010. In my opinion, this was one the greatest musical biopics ever produced, and the fact it was originally made for the small screen is even more remarkable.

In 1979, John Carpenter was hot after HALLOWEEN and Kurt Russell was transitioning from Disney child star into more mature roles ... who knew back then that they would go on to collaborate four more times including ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and THE THING, two groundbreaking (classic) movies that still stand the test of time today.

Other than the length of time it has taken for this movie to become available, the biggest surprise is that the movie doesn't actually feature any original Presley songs. Even though they were made available at the time, Carpenter chose to use country singer Ronnie McDowell to sing the songs, and he nails it.

John Carpenter, talking about things.

How do you see the horror genre having changed over the years, especially as you’re coming back into it at this point in time?

It’s changed. It’s like it always has been, in some ways. There are a few really good horror movies made each year, but mostly they’re shit. Most all of them are bad. Most are derivative. Most don’t try anything new. Now they pick up whatever style has just been popular and they just use it. People like to associate horror now with torture movies because of the popularity of Saw… I thought Saw was a good movie, I really enjoyed Saw. It was fun, it had a great twist ending…

What did you think of it by the time we got to Saw VII?

You know, I got a little bored with it. It’s the same thing over and over, but it’s OK. People want to see that. It’s like Jackass. Let’s see people — and in Jackass they’re willing! They’re willing to be tortured and made fun of and have cruel things done to them, and they think it’s cool. People nowadays, I think because of the internet and the culture, have become more cruel than when I was young. Look at the bullying. Look at what it does to people. Look at cyberbullying.

Does that then make the way that horror movies are consumed vastly different?

Oh, yeah. They’re consumed like a lot of entertainment, it’s just disposable. What you try to do is fight through that somehow, try to get the audience’s attention in a more direct way. The really good movies do it. The Social Network was a terrific movie — not a horror film, but boy, that did it. I don’t care about what happened, but I started to care. Wow, look at this! Look at the issues we’re dealing with in this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoGIyAtCJ-k

carpenter/cronenberg/landis '82

"Starman" is just "The Thing" standing on its head.

This.

New best thing ever:

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/483946_10151394084333406_329496144_n.jpg

Great photo of myself and Kurt Russell from the empireonline.com interview

Meanwhile, Christine is one of the fastest-selling-out Blu-rays in Twilight Time history. Should I sell my review copy for the asking price of $100+?

Great things about Prince of Darkness:

- Dennis Dun tears it up. "You could almost pass for Asian" - "Normally I like being dominated by two women." - and "Holy Shit!" which is perhaps the truest line in the whole movie -- the reaction you're expecting everyone else to express.

- Donald Pleasance. In a reversal from his role of the hunter from Halloween, he becomes the hunted.

- Victor Wong - doesn't seem completely there.

- 'This is a transmission' - the grainy dream.

-The final flicker of light illuminating a desperate Catherine just after the mirror shatters.

i wish he'd have done more like Starman. was it influenced by ET or was it written years earlier?

-Victor Wong: "Cause precedes effect - fruit rots, water flows downstream. We're born, we age, we die. The reverse never happens. None of this is truth! Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level into ghosts and shadows."

also:

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/SG4FemqT-7I/0.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/mXhgjCp.jpg

Confirmed sexist and proud of it! Hey, I was just joking? What happened? You talk numbers, you get romantic. You talk people, you clam up.

- 'This is a transmission' - the grainy dream.

This is one of my favorite things in any horror movie ever.

Prince of Darkness was the first horror movie I saw in the theater at age 13 or so. It scared THE HELL out of me, with the transmissions triggering my imagination like few other things.

NYC retro next month, he will attend

http://www.bam.org/film/2015/john-carpenter-master-of-fear

I might go to The Thing if someone holds my hand.

NPR is streaming his new album

JC used to harp about trouble getting funding to make his movies, and because I am such a huge fan I would feel bad for him. But his last four movies have been so bad that even a big budget could not have helped, and he has no one to blame but himself for that. Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness fine last gasps of his not quite genius but great talent nonetheless.

That one he made a couple of years ago, for hire, with what's-her-face, that took place in the mental asylum, was so bad I was embarrassed for everyone involved. His two "Masters of Horror" eps were good, though.

I think I made it 10 minutes into the asylum one.

Despite Ward (which I haven't seen), most of his "recent" films were so long ago I don't think they're much evidence to go on.

Carpenter's quality control has always been iffy, but it seems to be completely broken now

I'd love to see The Thing on a big screen, ideally as a double feature with the Hawks version

Prince of Darkness (1987) 0

:|

-Victor Wong: "Cause precedes effect - fruit rots, water flows downstream. We're born, we age, we die. The reverse never happens. None of this is truth! Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level into ghosts and shadows."

― how's life, Friday, August 8, 2014 3:09 AM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yessss

http://wingkong.net/mm/sounds/ - under Egg Shen's, the glee in the last word of "And now for some bad news. Ready?" never fails to make me laugh.

Lo Pan's "Indeed!" also.

all of those posts are gibberish to me

I don't have much experience with John Carpenter, but I did see Halloween with my best friend when it came out. It was so traumatizing that neither of us has ever wanted to watch a horror film like that again

Victor Wong makes pretty much every line he speaks quotable

I mean you can't beat
Egg Shen: "Lo Pan is down there."
Jack Burton: "Down where?"
Egg Shen: "Where is the universe?"

yeah ok

If Halloween traumatized you, you were probably 100% otm in your subsequent avoidance of horror films. Because Halloween is basically a Saturday morning cartoon relative to the genre as a whole.

Carpenter rocks, haven't seen Prince of Darkness in a very long time but I own it so I should rectify that. Have a perverse semi-regular desire to rewatch Vampires and Ghosts of Mars, which are both bad but which I feel like I must've seen a dozen times each in college so there's some nostalgia fogging my judgment there.

Just realized I have an unwatched copy of Someone's Watching Me! (which is mysteriously missing from this poll) so, heck, maybe Halloween (the holiday not the movie) needs to start super early this year.

Really, the zero votes for In the Mouth of Madness is the most unconscionable thing about these poll results. Preposterous. Simply preposterous.

xxp OL lol, I will take that under advice and guidance

I never saw The Thing, looking forward to it

Because Halloween is basically a Saturday morning cartoon relative to the genre as a whole.

Somewhat? A lot of slasher horror is really ineptly done and you get a couple jump scare scenes that work but too many lean on gore or ride a trend (hello, fake found footage) too far and end up boring.

Halloween is the movie with very good essentials, and pretty much only essentials imo

Have a perverse semi-regular desire to rewatch Vampires and Ghosts of Mars, which are both bad but which I feel like I must've seen a dozen times each in college so there's some nostalgia fogging my judgment there.

i mean, you can say this for several "bad" movies but there's a cult around ghost of mars (especially on letterboxd). i haven't seen it but i really want to!

in the mouth of madness is right up there with prince of darkness for me, feels like carpenter folding all of his previous films into two projects

xxpost Duuuuude, if Halloween freaked you out, probably best to avoid The Thing. I mean, it's great, really top notch, but it's also pretty far out there.

cannot explain why my opinion of prince of darkness evolved from "goofy but interesting and cool" to "mortally terrifying masterpiece" but here we are

I think I fell asleep watching Ghosts of Mars :/

I thought The Ward was a little bit better than the consensus opinion would indicate. It's also one that people overlook on the "similar movies coming out at the same time" lists -- it's really close in plot to Shutter Island!

Prince of Darkness didn't quite click with me but I'm willing to give it more chances.

They Live, despite an interesting premise, is goofy as hell and probably actually a bad movie but I love it. Actually, I maintain a deep and sincere love for a lot of genre movies that are objectively bad movies so it makes sense that I feel the same about Carpenter's bad movies.

The ward is the worst just because of how bland and generic it is imo, I think the most interesting thing I can say about it is that if you showed someone any given non-scare scene the dialogue, acting and look would make them think they were watching the beginning of a porn clip

feel personally indicted here and that's ok

They Live gets deserved credit for a honest depiction of Reagan's America, it's worthwhile for that alone

It's true, I spent much of the '80s receiving ridiculously-protracted alleyway ass-kickings.

Ghosts of mars def qualifies as one of those “mashup of all his earlier films” deals (it feels like the 3rd escape movie with its urban-legendary outlaw reluctantly saving the day, the main siege is v precinct 13 &c) but does not come off well by reminding you of those films - the cast aren’t great and the rashomon structure really doesn’t work, for a start. I did quite enjoy it when it got into dumb action mode tho

they live feels more like a documentary every day

I suspect Dan S. has higher horror tolerance now than he did in 1978, he should see The Thing

One of the greatest threads in ILX history: The Thing

xpost Except for the part where you don't even need special glasses to see the monsters.

carpenter tried to warn us, man, we’ve only got ourselves to blame

not enough ppl voted for the thing

if everyone who’s ever posted on ilx voted for the thing it still wouldn’t be enough tbfttt

Although I love many of his movies and have seen them countless times, it's just possible that this is the Carpenter production I've seen (and, one assumes, I must then love) the most:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bR57i3Fkn4

Love that video, particularly Nick Castle hamming it up in a "sweater over button-down" ensemble.

lmao

big trouble in little china was my first carpenter film, i asked my dad to buy it for me when i was eight bc i loved the box art

if ever a movie lived up to the box art, it’s btilc

i don't really find The Thing to be particularly frightening -- it's got the gore and the suspense about who's still human and who isn't, but it's more of just an absurdly entertaining and well-paced sci-fi horror ensemble piece.

those kids who staged Alien as a theater production should do The Thing next.

cannot explain why my opinion of prince of darkness evolved from "goofy but interesting and cool" to "mortally terrifying masterpiece" but here we are

This transition took place for me while I was watching the movie for the first time, and it's still scary as hell every time I pull it out (I own the DVD). Also, watching it for the first time in 20 years or so and suddenly realizing that DJ Shadow had sampled the "transmissions from the future" on Endtroducing was a major *head explode* moment.

PoD
-
The typing, leading to "IN FACT, YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED".
- The blank-eyes stares of the two women guarding the morphing host.
- "Faaaaaaaaaather." as the host reaches through the liquid mirror.
- Jameson Parker waking up from the transmission, and the feeling of inevitability as he reaches towards a mirror.

i don't really find The Thing to be particularly frightening -- it's got the gore and the suspense about who's still human and who isn't, but it's more of just an absurdly entertaining and well-paced sci-fi horror ensemble piece.

those kids who staged Alien as a theater production should do The Thing next.

― omar little, Wednesday, May 15, 2019 9:44 AM (fifty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark

i find the thing really hard to watch. just find a lot of those effects really eerily gruesome

Whoops, sent too soon, with so many other examples why PoD edges out Halloween as favorite JC horror flick: the dissolving body in the parking lot, Alice Cooper, Dennis Dun, the swirling goo that drips upwards, Donald Pleasance, Jessie Lawrence Ferguson's cry/laugh reaction to being undead, Lisa Blount reaching backwards from the other side, the evolving content of the transmission, etc.

it is just full of great terrifying ideas and standout performances and it's also a kind of slasher movie where the monster is entombed satan goo and aaaah

i really love the shot where the decomposed and satan-possessed kelly looks at her pocket mirror on the floor

Prince of Darkness is like a masterclass for depictions of the unheimlich... animate dead, eyeless living, physics-defying secretions, events proceeding contrary to time, airless mirror worlds, indifferent gods

swarming insects, measuring devices vs the unmeasurable, explicit fate, that dude's mustache

jesus was not human but an alien from a human-like species!!!! god i live for that shit

Okay, okay, you've all convinced me, I'll rewatch ASAP.

I know my position remains controversial but Halloween is easily my least favorite of the Carpenter films I've seen. It does v v little for me.

Most overrated horror movie by some distance. Although Suspiria is a not-too-distant second.

what kind of horror do you like?

no judgment intended, just curious!

I probably am guilty of mostly liking non-horror horror

A very big and broad question! Actually don't think I'm that into slashers, for a start. I dig the first four Elm Streets but the Friday the 13th and Halloween series (minus my beloved Halloween 3) are largely snoozefests.

But I love the genre on the whole. I think I have like 500+ horror movies in my collection.

Possession is likely my favorite, so I'm also very into the horror-not-horror.

i didn't *get* halloween for a long time but it's exactly like how it took me forever to *get* celtic frost, it inspired so much and has blended so thoroughly into the culture around it that it can be initially hard to see what's special about it. but the last time i watched it i spent the entire time enthralled by the gliding camera movements through haddonfield

but also yeah not liking slashers v much in general would be another obstacle

regardless i insist you get into bad '80s canadian slashers like the initiation ol, thanks ahead of time for altering your taste just for me

I get Halloween in the same way I get The French Connection, i.e. it was an innovator which has been so subsequently cannibalized that it loses much of its latter-day impact. I can appreciate its influence and place in horror history, it's just that my eyes kinda glaze over when it's on.

And specifically wrt the thread topic, it's lacking much of the random batshittery and goofiness that makes so many other Carpenter films so appealing to me.

Good slasher pics off the top of my head: OG Texas Chainsaw, Tourist Trap, Pieces. I'm sure there are others. Even Black Christmas, though, doesn't do a lot for me.

It hasn't been mentioned quite enough times on this thread how utterly terrible Vampires is. I remember Kent Jones writing something around the time it came out that John Carpenter has never made a movie he should feel embarrassed over and thinking, "Um, right here!"

I like Vampires. It's dumb as shit, but it's fun.

And it looks really good. Carpenter hadn't lost his eye yet.

My only enduring memory of that movie is James Woods saying "f*gg**" as much as he could get away with.

I'm kinda curious to watch his Masters of Horror episodes but also...not that curious?

I kinda feel like, independent of the actual quality of the films in question, it might be difficult to watch any movie starring James Woods these days.

Videodrome aside, yes.

"Cigarette Burns" is about as good as the show got, I'd say. Not his best work, but at least he showed up the rest of them. "Pro-Life" is less good and more grisly.

oh wait shit i forgot to mention this:

my wife has been dealing with her folks' financial stuff for several years now, and the guy who is the financial advisor she's worked with is Richie Castle, all grown up

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/headhuntershorrorhouse/images/8/8f/Richie_meets_the_Shape.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141001142055

He doesn't appear to have grown up all that much tbh.

They Live gets deserved credit for a honest depiction of Reagan's America, it's worthwhile for that alone

They Live is worthwhile as a big dumb goofy fun genre movie, but I always thought it gets waayyyyy too much credit as political/social commentary. It was 1988 after all - like yes, at last, a piece of culture that's finally brave enough to critique the greed and excess of Reagan's America, only a mere 8 years into Reagan's presidency. It's fun to see people fight weird gross monsters or w/e, but the idea of it as a piece of Serious Subversive Commentary always seemed a little rich to me. Would have worked just as well or better as a music video or an episode of Amazing Stories or something imho

I always thought of The Thing as the quintessential 80's/"Reagan's America" movie in Carpenter's filmography.

I assume that you mean that the Thing was the brave conservative simply trying to survive an assault on its values by a bunch of godless beardo hippie liberals who refused to conform to its dream of uniformity through assimilation.

xp to Eric

I personally like to think James Woods died five minutes after the release of Videodrome. Tragic.

xp Old Lunch, plus theres the obvious reference to the time that William Casey's stomach opened up and bit the arms off Ed Meese

woods is good in salvador

I think the credit it gets is for the on-screen depiction of Reagan's America, not necessarily the critique

Love this pic of Dario Argento and John Carpenter at Cannes this year:

https://scontent.fman2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/60197465_2348460075235529_5242926505905881088_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&_nc_ht=scontent.fman2-1.fna&oh=ce89c4adecbbd30560327fc7abb37a3a&oe=5D71C203

they live

id never seen precinct 13

its bad

no movie which features a kid getting shot dead in the first couple of minutes can be entirely bad iirc

Nah, it's good, just kind of formative.

i promise you ive just seen it, its bad

Great score at least.

yep

and girl moment and slow setup are good

performances are shockin tho

dun-diddle-dun-dun a-dun-diddle-dun-dun dun-diddle-dun-dun dun-DUN-diddle-dun-dun

‘Assault.. ‘ is great! What a movie! I always loved the story of how it did nothing in the States but then became a big hit in Britain at festivals where everyone went crazy over it. I hated Dark Star which is about as funny as a pin through the eye, so it tickles me that his co-writer on that hated ‘Assault..’. Interesting to note it currently has 98% on Rotten tomatoes.

It was a cast of as-good-as-unknowns so that explains the unpolished acting I suppose.

feel i normally align with darragh on films but Assault on Precinct 13 is good and James Morrison makes an excellent point.

oh deems is talking about the *performances* lol.

ha, develop that

i love any other carpenter ive seen, and was really looking forward to this so am willing to be talked round a bit.

well i’m ion a train but yes i don’t think the performances are v good but probably don’t need to be.

saw this when i was 15 and that’s where it’s status for me comes from. but if i give it a bit of thought i’d say the escalation of violence, from initial incident to gradually coalescing threat is v well managed. that threat coalesces into the specific impacts of bullets etc on the claustrophobic precinct but they’re only ever loosely linked to that brooding presence just beyond the visible iirc. in that respect it’s much like the early parts of the fog.

hmm this is all fair tbh

i hate to be that person doing that thing where youve seen a genuinely bold and influential effort after all the movies that have done it since (and tbf often better, which of course given budget and a template is easy done) and therefore seeing mainly the faults...but i think im that person this time

As I'm sure has been mentioned somewhere on this thread already, Assault is basically Hawks' Rio Bravo transplanted to an urban modern-day setting - but I think knowledge of that actually makes the Carpenter seem more ingenious!

IIRC ex-ilxor Enrique tried to argue somewhere (again, maybe here) that the remake of Assault is better than the original, but he may have been provoking us complacent auteurist at the time.

i’ve only seen the remake once, back when it was released, but i remember it being pretty good

Obviously Carpenter loved Hawks and siege movies, and he would go to that well a lot - even Halloween is ultimately kind of a one-person siege movie - but Assault is also kind of a riff on zombie movies (minus the zombies).

right down to the weather/lubar radio reports at the start

lunar

feel i normally align with darragh on films but Assault on Precinct 13 is good and James Morrison makes an excellent point.

AOP13 is good but it's certainly this (relative to expectations) really understated and bleak and dim movie which i think works effectively as a mood flick more than a kinetic action movie, which is to its credit. i do remember the performances being blatant in terms of the lack of charisma happening onscreen, everything taken away from the performances but the words and the gestures. I mean practically Bressonian in a way tbh.

There's a quote from Simon Pegg on the wiki that sums that up, sort of:

"You wouldn't really call it an action film," claims Pegg, "because it was pre- the evolution of that kind of film. And yet it is kind of an action film in a way."

Which is party why it works as a kind of link between Night of the Living Dead and, I dunno, Die Hard.

Wikipedia says "Assault ... was shot in only 20 days, including Thanksgiving, on a budget of $100,000."

and you can see every dollar on the screen

Carpenter only ever makes siege movies, just sometimes the protagonists are under siege (they live, the fog, prince of darkness), and sometimes they're the ones conducting the siege (big trouble in little china, escape from new york, vampires). His is a world of fortresses.

in dark star the protagonists are under siege by their own bomb

Embarrassingly, I must confess that I only saw Escape From New York for the first time last night. Solid flick! Although not quite what I expected. I figured it would have the brash swagger of his mid-'80s action-oriented material, but falling as it does between The Fog and The Thing it makes sense in hindsight that it's actually a moodier and more meditative film than I'd imagined. Wanna see LA now even though I'm sure it isn't the sequel this thing deserved.

LA is bad

What's the word on Black Moon Rising? I was first alerted to its existence via a trailer compilation I own and thought 'THIS LOOKS AMAZING' even before I learned that there was a Carpenter connection.

Also need to get around to watching Somebody's Watching Me! so the title stops seeming like an indictment of my continued negligence.

FTR, I seem to enjoy Carpenter even when he is bad (eg Vampires and Ghosts of Mars).

Oh right, the other one I haven't seen and always forget he did: Memoirs of a See-Through Chevy Chase. Is there any point?

Nah, Carpenter didn't write it or do the soundtrack... it's pretty bad.

I've never seen Memoirs. I always forget about Starman (which is not a siege film).

Black Moon Rising he ... wrote? Like The Eyes of Laura Mars?

Yeah, he only wrote the screenplay (directed by the fella who helmed the feted Burt Reynolds vehicle Malone).But I mean just look at this thing and tell me it isn't simply drenched in unadulterated Carpenterism

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MFD9P-QupFs

They Live IS pretty good!

Kinda surprised you liked it!

Read the Lethem monograph on the film from several years back if you the chance.

*get the chance

well it's Carpenter at the limits of his talent, and he knew to give Roddy Piper fewer lines than he would Kurt Russell.

I'm here to chew bubble gum and listen to Morbs' insights into the horror genre, and Morbs is all outta insights into the horror genre.

yeah that famous one-liner is the kind that impresses lotsa 14-year-old boys

more scifi than horror, honeybunch

i did like that there isn't even a liplock with Meg Foster

Also that one-liner is the only memorable line in the whole movie, as far as I remember.

the line is great because Piper’s character is an idiot who would come up with something like that

I always felt like it stops the movie dead a bit, much like the endless fight scene. As much as I really like the film, I wish it didn’t wink so much.

the winking kinda elevates it for me

"Brother, life's a bitch, and she's back in heat."

the protractedness of the fight scene is what makes it work! put the goddman glasses on, you might say to your Trumpist relations as you pummel them.

Letham has a similar take on the fight scene, without the Trumpist angle (which didn’t exist yet). I get it; I just think the film is already goofy enough (the cheapo FX, the casting of a wrestler in the lead) that it didn’t need to run a highlighter over its sillier aspects.

/They Live/ IS pretty good!

morbs otm re: the fight scene

well, replace Reaganite for Trumpist at the time

the fight scene isn’t just protracted, it’s extremely awkward and graceless. It rules!

yeah, it's two stubborn tough dudes without anyone around to go "break it up guys"

also it goes on so long that it gets boring, then it goes on so much longer that it gets funny, then it keeps going and gets boring, and still keeps going so long that it gets funny again

And it's just about whether or not he will put on sunglasses!

Keith David, actor of Shakespeare and August Wilson, is perhaps best known for this film and his Ken Burns voiceover work.

(yes, i know he was in The Thing and Platoon)

you came so close to him

my Paramount studio tour went all over the set on Tuesday. Have never seen the show.

― joyless shithead (Dr Morbius), Friday, July 15, 2011 8:00 PM (eight years ago)

They Live is probably neck-and-neck with The Thing as my most-watched Carpenter at this point.

i'd kill to see Keith David do Shakespeare

well maybe he's got a Lear in front of him

I saw him in Wilson's Seven Guitars

Is there a more influential director this decade than John Carpenter? Nope. The Carpenter renaissance happening is music to my ears. It's about time we acknowledge how The Thing, Escape from NY, They Live, Halloween & Assault on Precinct 13 have aged like fine wine over the years https://t.co/RaaQCy3MwA

— Jordan Ruimy (@mrRuimy) October 24, 2019

No Halloween thread? (Maybe I missed it wading through 10 screens of Halloween threads.)

A nearby Cineplex was running it all week--finally got out the final night. Recliner, $5, completely empty except me. Or so I thought--an hour into the film, some guy down near the screen got up and changed seats. A little unnerving.

I think I noticed P.J. Soles' platforms for the first time tonight. And I remembered how much significance I attached to the following exchange when I took an independent course in horror films back in 1979:

"I'm scared."
"Then why are you sitting there in the dark?"
"I don't know."

I liked The Thing, but not as much as Halloween

The fog is super lo fi fun

watched Body Bags the other night, it was also pretty entertaining... and it has John himself doing the linking material! plus a bunch of other horror movie and character actor luminaries

I liked Halloween much more than The Thing

I said that already

I liked Christine

it was kind of sexy for a horror movie, the beginning and especially the hospital scene with Dennis’s bare foot in the foreground, but really all throughout

My favourite Carpenter score.

Entertaining current interview:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-capitol-riot-was-too-dystopian-for-even-john-carpenter

Starman was pretty dumb I thought. still haven't seen Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, They Live, or Escape From L.A.

Starman is just a quick director-for-hire job, not a Carpenter project.

Big Trouble is v good at what it's doing, but designed to be watched in a group of children-plus-adults. Escape From LA is not in any way good per se, but entertaining as long as you're prepared for something sillier than Escape from NY (the increase in ludicrousness would also have been a reasonable step between NY and Escape From Mars, if that had happened). They Live is a masterpiece, that fits its budget better than Carpenters usually manage, and can play equally well as a savage, literate (and furious) satire on Reaganite capitalism, or as a Friday-night-beer action movie.

Rewatched The Fog last night. It’s gorgeous to look at.

i just watched starman for the first time - i enjoyed the first hour or so of it. bridges and allen are great throughout and the special effects are fantastic. unfortunately the end both got bogged down in the romance storyline while still feeling rushed and the motivations of the military bad guys never really made any sense.

i remember the fog being kind of boring but it's been a while since i watched it.

the fog is kind of boring but imo that's a feature not a flaw

also it's a good argument for radio station horror being the best kind of horror

Dan S -

Read the discussion of Prince of Darkness upthread and then see it ASAP. It's an amazing, genuinely terrifying movie.

I sometimes feel like Prince of Darkness is sort of ... ahead of its time?

i really think it was

Dan S -

Read the discussion of Prince of Darkness upthread and then see it ASAP. It's an amazing, genuinely terrifying movie.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, January 29, 2021 11:30 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, don't read too much of the discussion upthread because a few of us were dropping spoilers like nobody's business. But yeah, definitely see it.

I agree with Brad's assessment of "mortally terrifying". It's always landed that way for me.

Boring is fair but I prefer stately.

I love The Fog, agree that it is a bit boring at points, and think the problem is that it should have been about an hour longer.

This poll really needs to have Elvis on it too

― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, September 4, 2007 11:35 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

My 2007-era mistake, apologies

My favorite parts are probably the most “boring” i.e. Adrienne Barbeau’s endless walk down the steps to tge lighthouse, which come to think of it yeah please give me an hour more of that stuff ... Abbas Kiarostami’s The Fog.

re that interview, he seems like a real mensch

Watched the Fog remake over the holidays, and it wasn't too terrible - it was less boring but also less scary. You need to be able to stretch out a bit to feel scared, so as noted the boring is necessary.

The Fog tries in a way to split the difference between an old-fashioned atmospheric ghost story and a King-style monsters vs. small town horror show, landing, predictably for Carpenter, much harder on the latter, with occasional longueurs that suggest rather than realize ghost story effects. I would love a version with an extra hour of gratuitous moody shots of foggy landscapes, creepily sustained slow builds, and a more traumatic ending.

I don't ever get scared by horror movies anymore, so "less scary" is a non-entity for judging. But, yes, it's especially not very scary.

also the original Fog is loaded up with great character actors!

maybe ILX likes it because we also secretly want to be DJs at that badass radio station on the water

The Fog was interesting I thought. Big Trouble in Little China only had remote charms for me

! Big Trouble is all charms! That's the best thing it has going for it! Then again, maybe you had to see it first at 13 or something.

I really can't understand watching Big Trouble in Little China and not just instantly loving it.

I first watched it as an adult and it took a few times to get really into it, love it now.

The comic series was surprisingly fun.

there have been multiple new comic series of BTiLC as of late btw
https://www.boom-studios.com/wordpress/series/bigtrouble/

I'm an enormous fan of BTiLC, so when the comic was announced I was very excited. I just remember picking up the first issue and it didn't really gel with me. I think it was that the artwork was too cartoony or something? Maybe I'll have to dig it out of storage and give it another try.

i can't really speak to the quality of them but there's been quite a few runs!

looking for a free way to watch The Fog remake so I can hate it

The artwork is very cartoony, but surely BTiLC is a very cartoony film?

The Snake Plisskin series they started at the same time was a snooze tho.

Big Trouble is a film that revels in physicality, I can see light 2D-styled drawing not connecting with someone trying to evoke the film in their reading (the text on that page said Eric Powell, but the image clearly wasn't Powell).

fyi Boom is one of the most outrageously exploitative publishers in the field, reading their output from your municipal library is a better option if you have it.

That's a bummer - I've really been enjoying Something is Killing the Children. How outrageously exploitative are they?

They pay $35 a page for scripts, $100 a page for writing & drawing. Make t-shirts and merch of artists' work without compensation. Underpay invoices, pay months late, sometimes ghost artists altogether. Recruitment model is largely to give young artists their first jobs so it's easier to rip them off. "Some shady stuff in their contracts, and sometimes tries to secretly annul contracts by slipping extra clauses into the fine print of their payment vouchers," per one former worker.

(I assume Tynion is treated better, likewise John Allison - but I have also assumed that Allison stopped drawing Giant Days himself when it went to Boom bcz their rates weren't worth it.)

Ugh, that sucks. Thanks for the tip.

Watched Big Trouble in Little China, which I don't think I'd seen in maybe 25 years. So much fun and went way further than I remembered in terms of being utterly batshit. I think the wildman monster that kidnaps Gracie and leaves on Russell's truck at the end might be one of my favourite screen monsters of ever.

https://monsterlegacy.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/bigtroublewildmanyehe.jpg?w=768&h=508

Its a masterpiece

I saw that at the cinema when I was a kid. It's ok but I wouldn't go that far!

Give it another crack, its the biggest, funnest pisspull of a movie, great performances and effects

I will do cos I just re-watched The Fog recently and that was fun.

RLM did a three-parter on Carpenter films: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSuKs44w_vI

Big Trouble in Little China was imo a better 'best' John Carpenter film than The Thing

Halloween was the best, though

Blank Check is doing Carpenter too. Quality varies according to guests but it's pretty joyful and man, what a streak that guy had.

I'm in a weird place because I love Carpenter a lot but am a giant coward when it comes to horror, can't really do anything more extreme than like 60's Hammer. So I don't think I'll ever watch Halloween but I'll admit The Fog and Prince Of Darkness have been calling out to me.

(I did see The Thing, it's great but that scene w/ the dogs means I'll probably never revisit)

The Fog has some jump scares and overall quite chilling, I love it.

Prince of Darkness I haven't seen for years so I'm struggling to recall the scares, unless you count seeing Alice Cooper in yer back yard, still a great film though.

Big Trouble in Little China is very not-my-speed Carpenter.

daniel you may have been inured to halloween's scariness by forty years of slasher movie cliches. or maybe not! movie is far scarier to me now than it was when i first saw it in college

prince of darkness has three scenes that are scarier than anything in the carpenter filmography tho, fair warning

I revisited The Fog over the weekend. It's cozy, not too scary, and a bit slow. Was very distracted by Jamie Lee Curtis's character hooking up with Tom Atkins' character and then just being like "I'm going to follow you around like a puppy for the rest of this movie even though I'm a young free-spirited hitch-hiker and you're a middle-aged man and everything in your life seems to be falling dangerously apart at this precise moment..."

movie is far scarier to me now than it was when i first saw it in college

This is very true and I'm somehow surprised each time I watch it. Not a drop of '80s slasher laziness/crassness in it.

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson) at 9:22 20 Oct 21
prince of darkness has three scenes that are scarier than anything in the carpenter filmography tho, fair warning

if tom atkins appeared in my life i would do the same thing xxp

He also hooks up with a much younger woman in Halloween III! I guess I just don't understand the Atkins effect.

the stache... the rugged masculinity... the alcoholism... swoon

not as dreamy as Nancy Loomis/Kyes

Prince of Darkness is in some ways the flipside of Big Trouble, a movie that doesn't really make a lick of sense, but this time played for mood and menace over adventure and comedy. In Big Trouble, Jack Burton is the guy that just can't process what's happening around him but barrels forward anyway, which is funny. In Prince of Darkness, it's scientists recognizing they're dealing with something over their heads, and it scares them.

Anyway, I love "The Fog," one of the few movie ghosts stories made like someone telling a ghost story (in this case, literally). And if there's something good that came out of the relatively pointless RLM three-parter it's a) recognizing how often Carpenter essentially made a zombie movie with no zombies b) how often he made a western with no horses and c) just how diverse his catalog actually is.

Blank Check is doing Carpenter too.

https://ultimateactionmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/They-Live-Roddy-Piper-Glasses.jpg

thing about Prince Of Darkness is the idea of Donald Pleasance and Victor Wong having long, cryptic dialogues slowly proving both scientifically and spiritually that we live in a fallen world sounds tailor made for me but I think that what happens when shit finally does start to go down towards the end will be too rich for my taste

Blank Check ep on They Live went into a tangent about how young kids on YouTube now put fake "sponsored content" in their videos - not as satire, they just do their best imitation of an ad read because having a sponsor is a sign of success and they're on a fake it till you make it kick

When my kids were younger and used to do goofy fake unboxings and stuff, they would always throw in a compulsory "be sure to click like and subscribe!"

I'd never seen a single Carpenter film until about a year ago, but now I've seen Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and They Live. Most of those have been because I've been remote-watching movies with friends on Friday nights, and we've gravitated toward '70s-'90s genre classics, but I also watched Halloween for the first time specifically because I wanted to listen to the Blank Check episode about it.

They Live was not good like i was led to believe it was in fact bad, very bad- ambitious and endearing but bad

this guy wore some kind of reverse sunglasses while watching it

Wow classy move making it personal

*Raises fists*

Halloween has become my new favorite upon rewatching. So economical, nothing wasted, incredibly tense. SO scary. The sound of him breathing through the mask & first person POV still messes w me even now.

The Thing is still & will always be incredible and stands outside any list or ranking as my ideal perfect movie

Big Trouble is great & so enjoyable even in its silliest, weirdest moments

I saw Prince of Darkness once 10 years ago and was furious that it was so stupid and boring. Blank check made me want to revisit so it may be a “Halloween movie night” watch this year.

They Live is cool! Rowdy Roddy Piper & Keith David rule always but the main woman always weirds me out with her scary blue eyes, and it definitely plays a lot slower than i remember. The alien robot skeletons are creepy af, i love them. it’s cool 🕶

The only upcoming ones I haven’t seen are Memoirs of Invisible Man and The Ward, and its been a long time since I’ve seen all the others in between, most of which were bummers for me at the time. But I love the guy! How can you not.

The secret formula of They Live is that it is simultaneously very bad and very good. Carpenter knew what he was doing. I mean he put Rowdy Roddy Piper in the lead, for the love of pete.

apparently the Blank Check podcast is more popular than i assumed

The Thing is still & will always be incredible and stands outside any list or ranking as my ideal perfect movie

daaamn, so otm. What did you think of The Fog?

Simultaneously good and bad is fair, I think I was hitting for acknowledgement of this when I said "ambitious"

I don't think it cares whether or not it works as a movie

I love how from the very start, the scene of the old man telling a ghost story to children, it stays completely within that tone all the way through.

Xp re they live, to be clear

Also recently re-watched Escape From New York for the first time in years. I enjoyed the shit out of it, though it was emptier than I remember somehow - I had the impression of there being more in terms of pitched battles and set pieces? This was all street toughs being tough on the street (I swear one guy had a giant plug round his neck?) and hard-bitten dialogue. Kurt Russell is such a badass. I could have taken way more of him and Lee Van Cleef squaring off. And more Adrienne Barbeau in general.

Nb I immediately attached a couple of chandeliers to my car.

I like The Fog but I don’t love it … its overworked & weird, you can sorta see the seams? l the feel of trying to spin straw into gold, i guess.
Carpenter is great when you get sucked into the full illusion, like The Thing, no matter how often you watch you get sucked into the story while you are trying to work out how he did it.
And knowing that even carpenter was unhappy with his first attempt at it before they added the extra footage etc makes those “seams” stick out. but it’s hard to hate it: the cast is great so it kinda balances itself out. it’s like the little engine that sortof could lol

I've never seen The Fog but it's streaming for free on Amazon Prime, so I guess I'll check it out tonight.

I grew up watching The Fog with my old man and have no critical distance from it at all. It's like trying to judge an old blanket or something.

It's awesome, obviously.

fog and prince of darkness prob twinned for me in his filmography because from a distance parts of them can seem silly or flimsy but if you are particularly locked into the mood they are utterly perfect

love to fall asleep to both of them incidentally, even though prince of darkness inevitably wakes me up at the end, and it's the worst

I grew up watching The Fog with my old man and have no critical distance from it at all. It's like trying to judge an old blanket or something.

This is exactly how I feel about "The Fog," Halloween," "Escape from New York," "The Thing" and "Big Trouble." No matter how many times I see them it feels like the first time I'm seeing them, and at the same time also, you know, the 100th or whatever.

Been meaning to watch "Christine" for the first time in ages. Another one by Carpenter that I used to see all the time on broadcast TV.

Carpenter films I have never seen: "Memoirs of an Invisible Man," "Village of the Damned," "The Ward." Carpenter film everyone forgets is a Carpenter film: "Starman," which even earned Bridges an Oscar nom.

all the others in between, most of which were bummers for me at the time

Escape From LA plays way better now as a goofy “Los Angeles” take on the SPCU than as a long-awaited followup to Escape 1

Memoirs is basically good except for Chevy Chase. Like Starman, it’s J-Carps taking a years-in-development multi-times-rewritten studio script and trying to make a family-friendlyish Hollywood entertainment, with a little bit of his own flair in the special effects and casting.

Unfortunately Chase is onscreen p much the entire time, even when he’s meant to be invisible, and had a lot of input on the rewriting (cf Which Lie Did I Tell?)

xpost dumb question - what is SPCU?

The Stinky Poopy Cinematic Universe

I know that a lot about liking a film has to do with your mood and your frame of mind in the moment

I will give The Thing another chance, I remember liking the beginning part of it a lot

Was surprised by how much I liked Christine, it was silly and only a little scary, but was sexy

still planning to see Escape From New York, They Live, and Prince of Darkness

Veg - Snake Plissken Cinematic Universe :)

love you sic but you could have written that out so we wouldn't all be confused

lmao

yeah i can definitely see how the passage of time might help Escape from LA
god i had so much riding on it being awesome at the time, my ultimate disappointment was inevitable in a way

It's really not good, and unlike some of his other misfires, it doesn't even *look* good.

It’s silly on purpose, and the bad cgi compositing looks way better than the cgi-animated fights in Marvel Comic Books Cinematical Universe Film Company movies. Plus Bruce Campbell and Buscemi rule.

It would probably also have had its legacy helped if he’d been allowed to make Escape From Mars properly. Each movie just getting bigger and goofier, like the Fasts and Bond.

Escape From New York cast is all time - Russel, Van Cleef, Pleasance, Isaac Hayes, Ernest Borgnine, Adrienne Barbeau, Harry Dean Stanton!

The HALLOWEEN wrap party at John Carpenter's apartment, 1978 pic.twitter.com/2SR22c260B

— Diane Doniol-Valcroze (@ddoniolvalcroze) October 16, 2021

xp don't forget fake Michael Biehn as the white haired weirdo.

(had to double check my gag in imdb and wow he was in Grease and Logan's Run?)

xp: The Coup de Villes! I love the spooky picture behind Nick.

So little discussion of In the Mouth of Madness in this revive. One of his best, imo.

watched it in the cinema at release, never seen it since. Warrants a rewatch for sure as I don't recall hating it at all.

I've seen it once. I remember not hating it, but at the time I had read so much Stephen King that I was really sick of horror media about horror authors.

This made my morning.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCH9euAVEAcqznf.jpg

In the Mouth of Madness is actually pretty good.

And Escape from LA, sure, is silly on purpose, but it's more important to be good than silly and it is not good. And I know you're being somewhat facetious (xpost), but the composite FX are so bad you'd almost think they were bad on purpose. But they're not. Just like Ghosts of Mars is not bad on purpose, either.

Never forget:
https://i.makeagif.com/media/3-15-2016/miAlrn.gif

I was curious, and it looks like Carpenter more or less worked with the same DP from "Prince of Darkness" on, Gary Kibbe. I'm trying to figure out why his movies just keep looking flatter and flatter, and worse and worse. Maybe it was just the '90s, but it's possible Carpenter also just didn't give a shit.

Escape from New York has had a huge influence on video games. How many first person shooters out there seemingly start with the same premise Duke Nukeem onward?

Considering the stuff that gets made these days, I'd love for someone to be able to get OK to do a prequel streaming series about Snake Plisken outlining some of the stuff that gets discussed in the movie.

Hell, Escape from New York should *be* a video game.

Apparently it got a board game, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_New_York_(game)

I believe there were a fair few side scrolling beatem ups in the Arcade/16 bit era that basically had the plot of "tough guy has to fight his way out of criminal ran city"

Considering the stuff that gets made these days, I'd love for someone to be able to get OK to do a prequel streaming series about Snake Plisken outlining some of the stuff that gets discussed in the movie.

― earlnash, Thursday, October 21, 2021 8:32 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't wanna know what happened to Fresno Bob. I just don't think I could take it.

Hell, Escape from New York should *be* a video game.

Apparently it got a board game, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_New_York_(game)

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, October 21, 2021 8:36 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just went to look it up on ebay, for shits and giggles. Apparently doesn't fetch prices that are too insane? There's an opened, used one for $60, which you could buy plenty of new board games for these days. Unopened they are still mostly under $300. I mean, that's pretty expensive, but I've seen higher for some open-box games that I had been looking for.

apparently the Blank Check podcast is more popular than i assumed

If you land on the right one when you’re in the right mood, it can be sublime. For example, their review of Rise of Skywalker where they keep yelling “the Dead Speak!” off mic at each other, or gushing about Fury Road.

yeah the Halloween ep w Alex Ross Perry caught me in the right mood, loved it so much

Totally agree w/Chinaski upthread about The Fog.

BBC1 showed it a few days before Xmas in 1983, I would have been 11 years old and I still vividly remember the excitement of school breaking up for Christmas and taping/rewatching this strange movie, it just put me in the tank for any of JC's films I could get my hands on from that point.

Watched Village Of The Damned for the first time last night - now that really sucks. I was laughing at the extremely '90s TV-movie level cast, until reading Carpenter quoted during production that the wild expense of hiring Kirstie Alley, Mark Hamill, Christopher Reeve and Linda Kozlowski was why he was having to make a boring, studio-noted-to-death adaptation.

greatest Blank Check moment ever was Paul Scheer returning to the Used Cars episode after leaving to take a business meeting for close to an hour

Not to derail the JC thread, but not a fan of the How Did This Get Made? folks tbh. Like shit, how can they say the exact same 2-3 things for three hours and still come off like they didn’t get enough time. I thought that Big Trouble ep was kind of a drag because of them.

Blank Check is generally really good though. Beholden to the guests. The Halloween ep with Alex Ross
Perry is particularly great.

Anyway. I really wanna revisit Prince of Darkness. Seemed kinda dull/incomprehensible the two, way-too-late times I’ve seen it. My old-head Carpenter super fan friend has always maintained it’s secretly one of his best, I guess that’s not an uncommon opinion anymore.

i like scheer & mantzoukas mostly but yeah the big trouble ep was not as enjoyable as i hoped: it was mostly just obvious padding & digressions to make it longer than their prev appearance

i didnt like the escape from ny ep either, they love that girl (name escapes me) that was the guest but i dont enjoy her

btw Escape from New York board game is on Tabletop Sim if you have it.

I was listening to the Projection Booth episode on Escape from New York this afternoon. They always tend to be rambling but generally good value and there's always an interview with someone with unique insight (interviews with Adrienne Barbeau and Nick Castle on the EfNY episode). There's one for Big Trouble as well.

https://www.projectionboothpodcast.com/2021/04/episode-517-escape-from-new-york-1981.html?m=0
https://www.projectionboothpodcast.com/2019/01/episode-397-big-trouble-in-little-china.html

I knew the Big Trouble In Little China ep of Blank Check was going to be a dud as soon as they trotted out the two most obvious, well discussed aspects of that film - Russel is doing a John Wayne impersonation and it's about a white guy who thinks he's the hero but is actually p much irrelevant to the narrative - like they were mind blowing galaxy brain takes. I've enjoyed Sheer and Mantzoukas in stuff but I tried listening to How Did This Get Made ages ago and it'd drive me up the wall - they were so invested in the WHAT IS HAPPENING incredulity at bad movies thing that they would often complain about supposed plot holes that were totally addressed within the films, which they clearly just half-watch. Considering that the movies they pick ain't exactly Resnais their incapability of understanding them didn't make me think much of their movie analysis skills.

Loved the Escape From NY ep, but one that's my fave Carpenter and two I love Karen Han (Karen's Boys videos are chef's kiss). Can't imagine not enjoying the description of Ernest Borgnine as "the senior citizen who most looks like a toddler", and the reveal that he had a reality show in the 90's where he'd drive in a bus to meet fans was enough to make the ep worth it for me.

it's about a white guy who thinks he's the hero but is actually p much irrelevant to the narrative

Something the Red Letter Media ep asked is whether anyone had this reaction at the time or is it only something that's been picked up over the years as the film entered the cult cannon.

What’s the answer?

They didn't offer one! I assume they didn't look, though tbf neither have I.

Carpenter definitely talked about it in original press for the film. Here are some clips from a variety of 1986 articles. In most of these, they only talk about Jack and Wang in terms of "an inversion of the hero/sidekick trope", but I feel like they are asking the reader to do the work of figuring out "oh the hero is usually white and people from a different race are usually the sidekick". In the last article, Carpenter comes right out and talks about the racism that Asian-Americans experience.

''Our movie is rated PG-13,'' Carpenter said. ''Our hero, Jack Burton, is no Rambo.

''He's inept but courageous. In fact, we've reversed the hero-sidekick relationship. Traditionally, the hero is a strong, silent man of action. Our hero slips on banana peels, talks about how great and strong he is. But his Chinese sidekick (played by Dennis Dun) has all the real heroic qualities.

"In 'Big Trouble in Little China,' the usual roles in an action-adventure are reversed. Dennis Dun is the sidekick, but he's the one with few words and quick action. Kurt is the star, but he's the bumbler who seems out of place. Yet you like him because of his courage. He thinks he's John Wayne, but he's really Harold Lloyd."

* Kurt Russell and The Hell Of A Thousand Pratfalls.

To play Jack Burton, the "hero" of Big Trouble, Carpenter turned once again to Kurt Russell, as he did for Escape From New York and The Thing. Originally, he had wanted Clint Eastwood. But then Russell's performance in Escape was virtually an Eastwood impression.

As his inspiration for Jack Burton, however, Russell took a different tack. "I thought of guys I relate to," Russell explains. "Movie presences like John Wayne, which is I guess the most obvious one. And there was a rhythm that was at times like rhythms that were charming and really fun to watch out of Jack Nicholson.

"My underlying control of all these guys was Eddie Haskell (from Leave It To Beaver). He was this wise guy that was able to get away with stuff even though everybody in the room knew he wasn't."

Jack Burton, you see, is a hero with a difference, a tough-talking bumbler whose heroics are generally the result of sheer dumb luck.

"In the script he wasn't nearly as full of that as we ended up doing," Russell says. "The character just wasn't as broad. I thought, let's take a chance here and go with what's true to this movie, which is that this guy should fall on his ass a lot and he should be the butt of as many jokes as he's the giver of.

"Now you're really starting to ask a lot of an audience, because that's not been done before. But we felt the sidekick should emerge as the silent man of action and Jack should have to assume the duties of the traditional sidekick role."

* Dennis Dun and The Hell Of Unemployed Asian Actors.

For his part, "sidekick" Dennis Dun was more than happy to pick up the slack in the hero department. "I could have come off like a dumb, stupid regular sidekick," he smiles. "But this is different, offbeat. And I like playing offbeat characters."

Like the ill-fated undercover cop in the controversial Year Of The Dragon. Despite the outrage expressed by the Chinese community, Dun feels Dragon represented an important step for Asian actors.

"I don't regret doing the film," he says. "I understand the concerns of the community, violent images and all that, but I think Year Of The Dragon is part of an important transition. We're getting an opportunity to do things that we weren't able to do before. Just look at John Lone on the screen - I don't think anybody's ever seen an Asian actor in an American film with his charisma, his presence."

"Big Trouble in Little China" subverts the normal action hero cliché. While Jack Burton is still the traditional white male action hero, he's not nearly as useful as Wang Chi. In fight scenes, Jack is constantly struggling against one goon, while Wang takes down more than a half-dozen of them with ease.

The growing Asian population in the United States has finally rung some bells in Hollywood's executive chambers.

An increasing number of films now involve Orientals.

To be sure, the numbers are still small, but in relatively little time Asia and Asians have played prominent roles in ''Rambo: First Blood II,'' ''Year of the Dragon,'' ''The Killing Fields,'' ''The Karate Kid'' and ''The Year of Living Dangerously.''

Completed but unreleased are ''Gung Ho'' and ''The Karate Kid II.'' On the production schedules are ''Tai-Pan,'' ''The Last Emperor,'' ''China Marines,'' ''Empire in the Sun'' and ''The Golden Child.''

Most films involving the Orient are tailored not for Asian-Americans but for the rest of the nation. Many are flawed by inaccuracies, prejudice or stereotyped characterizations and events.

The Hollywood mentality has traditionally focused on the cliche of the ''inscrutable'' Chinese or Japanese going back to ''The Hatchet Man,'' ''The Bitter Tea of General Yen'' and ''The Mask of Fu Manchu.''

For years, there weren't enough Asian moviegoers in the United States to make a difference at the box office and too few of them to register a significant voice of protest. Consequently, producers and studios became careless in the depiction of Asian minorities.

During World War II every ''Jap,'' of course, was a heavy and usually a sadist.

But increasing trade and cultural relationships with Japan and detente with China, begun by President Nixon, have opened new vistas of understanding and respect for Asians.

The flood tide of boat people and others from Southeast Asia and the growing Korean and Filipino populations, especially in Los Angeles, have further exposed Americans to Eastern cultures.

At long last, Hollywood is catching up with the reality of the expanding Asian influence in this country.

Director John Carpenter, who recently completed ''Big Trouble In Little China,'' calls this the era of the Asian.

His fantasy film, starring Kurt Russell, involves a cast of 200 Asians in an adventure-drama about a mythical city beneath San Francisco's famed Chinatown.

The cast is principally Chinese but includes Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos.

To prepare for the film, Carpenter spent months of research and endless hours in conference with his associate producer Jim Lau (a scholar, master of martial arts and historian) and project coordinator Daniel Kwan (a journalist and actor).

''I wanted to be as accurate and fair as possible in representing Asians in this country as they really are,'' said Carpenter during a break in post-production work at the 20th Century Fox commissary.

''We are seeing more pictures about the Far East than ever before. There is a great deal of curiosity about that part of the planet thanks to renewed ties (with) China and (to) the Vietnamese War.

''I get the feeling Asians are coming into their own with their culture, mythology and a sense of (who) they are as people.''

Carpenter generally refers to the Chinese when he speaks of Asians but much of what he says pertains to other Eastern nationalities. Asked if he thought Asians were essentially different from Westerners, he hedged.

''Yes and no. They are different because they are deeper than any culture in the world -- especially the Chinese. They enjoyed a sophisticated civilization 5,000 years ago when Europe was populated by barbarian tribes. They developed science and art while the West was still a cultural desert.''

To illustrate the essence of being Asian, Carpenter cites a line from the film that was written by a Chinese writer: ''China is in the heart and wherever they go, China goes with them.''

''Their basic difference from Westerners is manifested in subtle ways … in all areas of religion, philosophy and interpersonal relationships.

''I find the differences fascinating. There is a major struggle going on with most Asian-Americans. They would like to be perceived as ordinary Americans, professionals or working people. Yet they also want to preserve their culture and maintain their distance from the rest of the population.

''It is an interesting ambivalence that frustrates Asians in this country a great deal.''

Asian-Americans also must deal with ''the additional problem of anti-Asian violence increasing enormously in the past two or three years,'' said Carpenter. ''It's racism and (it's) getting stronger than the anti-black bigotry.

''The mood in this country is that it's okay to be a racist.''

The various Asian groups seldom coalesce for a common cause. Los Angeles is dotted with enclaves of Asian communities: Little Tokyo, Chinatown and Korea Town. Orange County has become a Vietnamese stronghold.

But then the same was true of the Irish, Italian and German immigrants who gathered in ethnic pockets in New York City in the last century.

According to Carpenter, Asians are increasingly disenchanted with their image in Hollywood movies. He cites protests registered last year over Michael Cimino's unsuccessful ''Year of the Dragon,'' starring Mickey Rourke as a New York cop busting up crime in the Chinatown underworld.

''That picture insulted a lot of Chinese,'' he reported.

''From what I gather, Hollywood's treatment of the Orient perpetuates stereotypes'' like those of blacks before the civil rights movement, Carpenter said. ''Now Asians want their version of 'The Defiant Ones' or 'The Heat of the Night.'

''One of the great cliches is the 'inscrutable' element ascribed to Asians. It began in the West when Chinese laborers came here to build the railroads. Most were from Canton. They assumed passive attitudes to separate themselves from the cowboys and others who shot up the streets at night. They didn't show their emotions in order to survive.''

Carpenter reported that he ''had no trouble communicating with the Asians on this picture. There was an open forum on the set. I welcomed suggestions to give the picture texture and reality.

''I didn't want the picture to come out looking like a white man making a film about Chinese.

''To give you an example, in one sequence a character, played by Victor Wong, drives a tour bus through Chinatown. Victor delivered his lines in a dialect different from the rest of his dialogue. He told me his grandfather used the same dialect when he drove a tour bus. It was a sing-song speech that added the right amount of humor to the scene.

''Asians, after all, are like people everywhere with the same emotions and individuality. It's their sense of history and culture that makes them somehow more distinctive.''

Many Asian-Americans are indifferent to Hollywood's movies about the East and Asians simply because they speak no English and rarely see films.

Others think of themselves as Americans first and Asians second.

Los Angeles dentist Yin Kim, a first generation Korean-American, said, ''I think Asians are fairly represented in movies and TV. There is a good balance between Asian villains and good guys. Even the anti-Japanese flavor of World War II movies didn't bother me because I think like a white American who simply comes from Korean parents. I don't even speak Korean.

''Keye Luke always did well as 'Charlie Chan's' number one son, and my brother-in-law, Keye Chang, played a U.S. Navy admiral in a picture.

''I used to see Philip Ahn, Richard Loo and Anna Mae Wong play Asians. They did good jobs in characterizing a variety of individuals and nationalities. I always laughed when I saw Philip play mean Japanese villains. He was Korean and one of the sweetest guys I ever knew.

''No, I don't see any prejudice against Asians in films,'' Kim said. ''Being born a Korean-American is better than being born … as a less ethnic American because I have the culture of both East and West instilled in me.

''A lot of people in this country are ashamed of their ethnic background. But not Asians.''

Real estate investor John Kanagaye, a Japanese-American, said, ''I don't care how Asians are depicted in movies. I'm American-born and the mystique of Asia is as much a mystery to me as it is to other Americans.

''I am thorougly integrated in this culture, perhaps because of my children (bringing) all their friends around. I don't see many movies and I have no idea how bad or good they depict Chinese or Japanese characters.''

Keye Luke, dean of Hollywood's Chinese actors -- who is not in ''Big Trouble In Little China'' -- has mixed emotions about Asians in American films.

He is happy Asian actors are finding work but doubts whether the Asian image has improved much in the new spate of films. He also questions whether the trend will endure.

''It's the same old wine in a new bottle,'' he said. ''Only this time the bottle is Chinese. There is an upsurge of interest in Asians but the content of stories and characters aren't much different from other films based on minorities.

''I doubt if there will be good results socially. Most Americans are aware that Asians are generally hard-working, industrious citizens who have compiled a good record in this country. Their daily acceptance has little to do with motion pictures. Relationships between Asians and other Americans are good.

''My objection to films about Asians is that the stereotypes still exist about the mysterious, often menacing Oriental bad guys. Asians are no more mysterious than anyone else.''

Luke, a native of Canton who came to the United States with his parents when he was 3, feels he is fully integrated in the American mainstream but adds, ''The Chinese culture is so deeply ingrained in us that we cannot escape it. It's been going on for so long. As American as I am, I feel Chinese and love it. It is the richest part of my life.

''I spoke at UCLA recently to a group of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese students. I told them they have a rich culture behind them and the best of Western civilization in this century. I said take the best of both and make something of your lives.

''To be honest, depicting Asians on film may change the thinking of other Americans, but to Asians it really doesn't make that much difference.''

sorry, lol. I knew that last article was long, but didn't quite realize how long.

That was great, thanks. That movie is ahead of its time is so many ways, no wonder it flopped.

"in"

The new “The Ward” episode of Blank Check pod is really good - convo w Drew McWeeny about collaborating w Carpenter & a very sentimental conversation about what those last few movies were like for him etc

Upshot: Carpenter is the best, guys

Good episode. Surprised the two friends rated Assault On Precinct 13 so low - near perfect film imo, as great an example of Carpenter's stripped down approach as Escape From New York. Agree with the general "spoilt for choice" sentiment tho.

Watching “Starman.” Damn if this ain’t an underappreciated 80s classic.

Also, I forgot this was a first contact + road movie combo

Also, Carpenter didn’t do the score, Jack Nitzsche is credited

prince of darkness is my fav

The discussion of Big Trouble jogged something in my mind. I could have sworn I remember Alex Cox introducing it as part of Moviedrome and pointing out that Kurt Russell's character is a third wheel. But seemingly he didn't, although he introduced several John Carpenter films. Here's his take on Escape from New York. He describes They Live as Carpenter's most recent film, so I assume Cox's introduction was recorded in 1989 or 1990 or so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpNGOsxwZ3A

In his opinion New York was a disappointment because the special effects were no good and it wasn't shot in New York. I was disappointed with the film too, but not for those reasons. I felt that it looked great, and in any case it took place mainly at night, in a fantasy version of New York, and my hunch is that most of suburban New York doesn't look like New York either. But perhaps Alex Cox was being deliberately provocative so that he could get social media likes on Prestel or Ceefax or whatever. How did you subscribe to someone in 1990? Did you just obsessively read about them, or something? Or send them fan mail?

Every time I watch Escape from New York I think to myself "why don't I like this film more", and then I think "I remember why I don't like this film more", and I also think "Adrienne Barbeau". It has a great setup. But after Snake reaches New York he gets captured and it turns into a boring chase. Then it ends. It's as if Where Eagles Dare skipped from the opening sequences to the end, without "sit down major" and the cable car fight etc. Or imagine if The Turin Horse but they stay in the farm the whole time.

Second act? Is that what it doesn't have? It has a truncated second act. Skimming through the list of Carpenter's films it strikes me that all of the ones I have seen bar The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13 have felt disappointingly incomplete. It's as if he was compelled to make films as efficiently as possible, even if that meant writing the absolute minimum amount of story.

You should check out a BTiLC version with the Carpenter/Russell commentary. They're so pleased with Kurt's subversive ineptitude compared to Dennis Dun, makes me wish their instincts and chemistry had led to more movies together.

Feeling better about The Rock's BTiLC being a continuation instead of a remake, if it's ever made.

i watched in the mouth of madness for the first time in the past year and that is a good movie! maybe the last genuinely good movie carpenter made? definitely one of the best endings to a movie ever

The Thing was a movie I tapped out on thrice on my first three attempts within a half hour because it seemed like a boring creature feature, and only this year did I realize that's not the allure of it at all, but the Invasions of the Body Snatchers-esque assimilation. So rewatched and stuck with it and loved it this time.

One rare time a spoiler made me revisit a film

Brought the new year in with The Fog. I think it's perfect and certainly in my top 3 (er, The Thing, Big Trouble, The Fog). The credit sequence is so great. Apart from Barbeau's voice, no one speaks for the first 12 minutes; you get a series of those trademark, almost Hopper-esque, cuts from Dean Cundey - a brilliant introduction to the town and the atmosphere.

love the fog, love its mood and simplicity. not enough ghost stories.

89 minutes! It's probably a fair amount of residual trauma from seeing it as a kid, but I think it's genuinely creepy too. Also, poor Mrs Kobritz - she didn't deserve that. (In my head, she's Mrs Colditz, always has been.)

Morbs right again, Starman is grebt!

Underrated/under-remembered. Bridges got an Oscar nomination!

I can't believe I pasted a Jordan Ruimy tweet upthread smh

Underrated/under-remembered. Bridges got an Oscar nomination!

The love story angle is pretty well done too, as the alien becomes somewhat human but not fully so.