A John Carpenter Poll

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.

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.