A John Carpenter Poll

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.