John Carpenter’s Day *

* (Halloween countdown post #5)

 

‘In the beginning, I was willing to accept the conventional wisdom about John Carpenter being a master of horror. That began to change several years ago when I picked up a copy of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West on DVD and was surprised to find that Carpenter had recorded an audio commentary for the disc. It was strange that an American director known for his gory, critically-panned slasher films was providing a commentary for an Italian-made Western that many critics consider one of the best films ever made, right? A few months later, I got another surprise when I found another John Carpenter audio commentary, this time on Rio Bravo, a 1959 John Wayne Western directed by Howard Hawks. It was then that I began to look at Carpenter’s overall body of work in a different light.

‘In film, much like music, great artists are often put into a box or category. While this has no ill effect on those artists who are happy to stick with one genre throughout their whole career, for others it becomes little more than an artistic prison sentence, especially for those whose most famous work had little to do with their overall career arc. Any serious horror fan knows the name John Carpenter. He’s often mentioned on the short list of the best directors in the history of that genre. In some respects, it makes perfect sense. He did, after all, write and direct Halloween, one of the most influential films in the genre’s history, and several other classic horror films. On that hand, it makes perfect since to list Mr. Carpenter alongside folks like Roger Corman, George A. Romero, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven and others who have taken the genre to new heights both artistically and commercially. On the other hand, though, he simply doesn’t fit in with those guys, as his overall body of work clearly shows.

‘With the downfall of the Hollywood code in the late ’60s, directors were free to let realism run rampant. Thus Westerns, and later action films, were allowed to show as much violence and sexuality as the subject matter called for. It was in this universe of gritty realism that John Carpenter began working on Assault on Precinct 13. Like many other low-budget action movies of that era, it’s good name has been tarnished by a big-budget remake, but the original stands as one of the best films that ’70s action had to offer. While it fits perfectly alongside the films mentioned in the previous paragraph, it also serves as something of a forerunner to The Warriors and others that would take the action genre in a new direction in the ’80s.

‘The movie should have established Carpenter as a promising action director in the tradition of Siegel and Peckinpah, but it didn’t. Critics ignored it for the most part and audiences stayed away. But that didn’t stop Carpenter from starting work on his next film, which would become his most famous and most influential. Halloween spawned an army of imitators and became one of the most commercially successful independent films of all time, but the big question is this: is it really a horror film? I would argue that it is closer to J. Lee Thompson’s Cape Fear, Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me, and any number of Hitchcock thrillers than it is to anything Wes Craven or George Romero ever directed.

‘So is John Carpenter really a horror director? Halloween was certainly influential on the genre and there’s no denying that The Fog, The Thing, and They Live are horror classics. But if you look at the big picture, you will find that Carpenter has undoubtedly been at his worst when trying to make a conventional scary movie. Take Vampires and Village of the Damned for instance, or, more importantly, Christine, which was based on a Stephen King novel and may be the single worst book-to-screen translation I have ever seen. Horror is where John Carpenter made his name, it’s the category he’s been placed in, and it’s what the fans expect from him. But I believe that his heart truly lies not in the traditional horror genre, but in the gritty action films of four decades ago. When you get to the heart of them, that is what all of his best movies have been. Regardless of their horror undertones or overtones, the execution has always been more Don Siegel than it has George Romero.

‘I’ve often heard horror fans (a group I proudly claim membership in) lament that John Carpenter simply doesn’t have it anymore. If that is indeed the case, we are the ones to blame because, as a community, we have never truly understood his work. Personally, I think that Carpenter still has a lot of gas left in the tank if he’d only use it. Or if the studios and fans would let him. He could undoubtedly show Hollywood how to make a great action film without the use of computers. He could probably make one hell of a Western and possibly revive that genre. Maybe he would even make a good old-fashioned scary movie. But if the latter is the only option that the fans and the studios give him, then we are not only limiting him but also depriving ourselves of seeing the full potential of a true American genius.’ — Adam Sheets

 

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Stills

 

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Media

Master of Cinema – John Carpenter

Sound of Fear: John Carpenter talks with Simon Reynolds

The Director’s Chair – Episode 01 – John Carpenter

 

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Further

The Official John Carpenter SiteJohn Carpenter @ Twitter
John Carpenter @ IMDbJohn Carpenter @ Senses of Cinema
John Carpenter @ mubi
‘Master Carpenter’
John Carpenter’s John Carpenter
The John Carpenter Appreciation Society
‘He Said, She Said: John Carpenter’ @ Exploring Feminisisms
Fuck Year John CarpenterJohn Carpenter Mixtape
’36 Things We Learned from John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’
Book ‘The Cinema of John Carpenter’
‘Photographing John Carpenter Campaign @ Kickstarter
John Carpenter @ The A.V. Club

 

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Composer

‘If John Carpenter’s legendary status as a film director is indisputable, he has in recent years become cited as a major inspiration as a composer, with the current synth and noise underground, from Wolf Eyes alumni Nate Young (notably in Demons) and Mike Connelly to the likes of Hive Mind, Sun Araw and Oneohtrix Point Never, often referring to his scores in their own sonic explorations. Dark atmospheres, haunted effects and subtle drone textures have long been a staple of Carpenter’s musical oeuvre, and the magpie-like tendency of many modern synth wielders, in particular, was always bound to turn to him as they looked to create their own sonic landscapes.’ — The Quietus

 

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Interview
from LARB

 

PAUL THOMPSON: I’ve read that you said, in the past, that if you’d been given a bigger budget for your early films, you would have hired someone to compose their music. By 1982, you have Ennio Morricone composing for The Thing. What’d you learn from him?

JOHN CARPENTER: Well, he’s such a different composer from what I am: he does orchestral stuff, and I don’t know anything about that. But [approaching scenes] is the same. It’s all instinct — that’s what the movie business is — from actors to cameramen, composers, directors, it’s instinct. It’s your training: we need to do this, here. It’s how you feel about it. It’s a very interesting art form; it’s really fascinating.

The creative aspects are based on instinct, but the business apparatus around it is …

[Laughs.] The business around it is all about pirates. The movie business is filled with pirates. You have to watch yourself when you get in it.

The perception, from the outside, is that you’ve been able to maintain an artistic vision through that industrial bullshit, that you’ve been able to fend off notes from producers and studios.

Mostly, you know. I really dedicated myself to it; it’s the way I was trained to try to make my movies, my vision, not somebody else’s. Everybody wants to change what you’ve done; I don’t care who it is. [Executives] think they could do better. Everybody wants to please an audience. It’s all the same — the fights are almost all the same. I got too tired to do it anymore; unless you have something in your contract, you’ve got to fight for it. That’s not my personality. I’d much rather play video games and watch basketball. I don’t want to fight. I hate it.

You hear stories — sometimes you have to fight for things even if they are in your contract.

That’s true — they’ll try. But then you just smile and say, “Sorry!” People don’t want to give you that, though. They take the final cut — who are they? I’m sorry, excuse me.

You’ve created some — what people now refer to as intellectual property — that executives want to mine, and mine again. Do you get agitated, or protective, or frustrated at the idea that other people can make things based on what you made?

What do you mean: making Halloween movies? I don’t care anymore, I stopped caring years ago. You could make one!

That’s next on my calendar. Are there filmmakers today who really excite you?

Any David Fincher movie I’m there for, I think he’s really talented. There’s a lot of really good work being done. The — what’s the name of the UFO movie?

Nope? I imagine you heard Jordan Peele’s recent comments about you. [Editor’s note: Peele recently responded on Twitter to a fan who called him “the best horror director of all time,” saying he “will just not tolerate any John Carpenter slander!!!”]

Yeah, I heard about them. He’s very kind to old-timers like me.

I think horror movies occupy a somewhat central place in the movie landscape today, but so much of the discussion around them is about corporate interest: their low cost, their profitability.

I hate to break this to you, but it’s always been that way. From way back when. You know when Dracula came out, back in the thirties? Everyone looked around and said, “Hey … this didn’t cost that much.” It’s always been that way. That’s one thing about horror: it never dies. Horror was born with cinema, born at the same time the techniques of cinema were developed, and audiences love it — they eat it up when it’s good. They eat it up. They love to go with an audience and be scared. It’s the best way to cuddle a date. Come on now. What’s better?

For those of us who actually love what we’re doing in terms of story, it’s great. Every generation reinvents horror. They reinvent it in their own time and from their own point of view. The things that are floating in the culture, that scare us — those are always changing. The basic fears stay the same. You’re born afraid: you get whacked on the ass when you’re born. They cut the cord! Come on! That’s terrible! Why do you think we all cry when we come out? “I want to go back in!” Horror movies are always about that: I want to go back in.

Were you thinking about that when you made the original Halloween — reinventing horror for your generation?

I was thinking, “Well, this is a low-budget horror film. It’s an exploitation film about babysitters.” And I wouldn’t choose that topic — the distributor chose that. I was like, “Okay, I’ll do that.” I was looking to make a name for myself as a director. So I made a deal: final cut and my name above the title. Within those restraints, I pulled out all the stylistic flourishes I’d been thinking about for horror films and put them in.

Well, it captures a lot of those suburban fears, fears of isolation. What scares you in the culture now?

It’s so weird now. It’s just crazy. A bunch of people believe in crazy things: this QAnon shit? My god! Are you kidding? And there are so many of them. How can this be? How can people be like this? There are wars … it’s tough. But it was tough then — what am I talking about, whining about stuff? The world is crazy, and it always has been. So you go to the sanity of a nice, cool theater, and you watch a horror movie. See? I’ve got it all solved for you.

You started making movies more than 50 years ago. Over the course of your career, how did your actors’ approaches change?

Boy … I boiled it down for myself, as a director, to What does the actor need to be comfortable to do the performance that I need? Sometimes they need confrontational shit; sometimes they need emotional support. Sometimes they bring it all together, and I don’t have to do anything. Acting’s a really special thing; it’s a gift. I can’t do it — I’ve never been very good. But I so love actors.

There’s something about a person that’s either captivating on camera or isn’t. How do you suss that out in casting, especially for smaller roles, when you’re working on a budget?

You develop a camera eye. The camera loves certain people — Howard Hawks said that. A lot of people have said that. You use your instincts, but then you put them in front of a camera: see what their best side is, see how they react to lights.

You talked about how much work directing is, on the creative and managerial sides. You’re on a deadline, on a budget. If things aren’t going well — a lead performance isn’t working, script problems reveal themselves once you’re already shooting — how would you manage that?

The worst thing is not finishing the movie. That’s the worst thing — that’s unbelievably bad. I try to finish the movie first and foremost, and then diminish the bad things while [I] bring out the good. I’ve been in a lot of different situations, but there’s always something. Not finishing it is the disaster.

What’s the closest you came to not finishing one?

It never occurred to me. People on the outside, who don’t direct, have this image of what it’s like in Hollywood, and what directors are like. We’re portrayed in movies as being really horrifying people — and some of us are really bad people. [Laughs.] But it really is a fucking job. It’s like your job: you have deadlines, you have things you have to do but don’t like doing. Just multiply the pressures by 100. Because when I fuck up, I can cost a hundred thousand dollars. It’s not like I’m a doctor, it’s not surgery — believe me, it’s better than that.

Do you ever watch your own movies?

Never. I might look for a minute — “How’s the transfer here?” — but when I see my own movies, I see all the mistakes, all the things I didn’t do. Then I turn them off.

In those 10-minute snippets, do you notice the mistakes you make changing over the course of your career — basically, do you see yourself correcting yourself?

[Laughs.] Every day I make mistakes. There’s a giant list — in film school they gave us a giant list of things directors do to fuck up, and I’ve probably done them all. I do them every day. It’s too hard; it’s an impossible art form. It’s great when it works, but you tend to forget about the pain. If you’re like me, where my entire life has been centered around directing movies, it’s cruel, because you forget the pain. It’s like being an addict: I want to get high again.

Do ideas for new movies pop into your head, then get tossed aside when you remember the pain?

I remember the pain first — I don’t even have to go to the idea.

So is there a circumstance in which you would come back to direct another film?

I’ll tell you the truth: I could be seduced back into doing it again. Give me a script I’m in love with and have to do, and I’ll do it. But if you give me a good script then say you’re going to do it for 10 dollars, well, then, no. All I’m doing is ranting. Can we talk about something nice?

Sure. How good have you gotten at video games?

I’ve gotten a lot better than I was, I can tell you that. [It used to be that] my son would just beat the hell out of me — I couldn’t do simple things. But over the years my hand-eye coordination has really improved.

What’re you playing today?

All sorts of games. I’m playing Fallout, ducking over to play a little Crash Bandicoot. I love the Borderlands games.

I can’t think of a great video game movie.

They’re not good, none of them.

Is it that the mediums ask for fundamentally different things?

Well, I don’t know. I’d love to try [to adapt] Dead Space; I think I could make a scary movie out of that. But I’m not gonna. [Laughs.]

I watch Assault on Precinct 13, and I see some of the logic, the architecture that you now get in video games.

There was nothing like that back [when I made it]. It was Sonic the Hedgehog.

You’re hosting this Godzilla marathon. What’s your favorite Godzilla movie?

The first, [1954’s] Gojira. But there are others that I like for different reasons.

Do you have half a Godzilla script in a drawer somewhere?

No, no, no, they know what they’re doing. But I met the head of Toho: he came to visit me. He wanted me to do [a remake of] Matango, but I wasn’t ready to do it.

I imagine you’ve turned down a number of projects offered to you over the years. Are there any of those decisions that you regret?

No.

You’re happy with every “no” you said.

Oh, hell yes. I don’t worry about my oeuvre. [Laughs.] I love the movies I made; I’m very proud of them. I’m proud of my career. But come on. I’m a horror director. How serious is that? It’s not serious.

I do think the perception of that is changing a bit.

Really? That’s too bad.

 

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17 of John Carpenter’s 33 films

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Revenge of the Colossal Beasts (1962)
‘John Carpenter’s first short film, clearly inspired by Bert I. Gordon’s “War of the Colossal Beast’. — Slash Films

Trailer

 

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Captain Voyeur (1969)
‘John Carpenter made this short while a student at University of Southern California. It’s a fairly straightforward story about a peeping tom who puts on a balaclava and watches women through their windows. Shot in black and white, with minimal audio, the tone is suitably creepy. There’s not much story, character or insight to this, possibly it would have been considered risque at the time, but it’s otherwise quite conventional. That said, Carpenter’s talent for visuals is evident, with the use of low-key lighting and dynamic composition making for a striking look to the film. Probably only of interest to hardcore Carpenters fans, who’ll be duly entertained, otherwise just another promising student film.’ — pauluswiggus

the entire film

 

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Dark Star (1974)
‘Dark Star launched Carpenter’s career and became a touchstone for those who like their science fiction dystopian, subversive and funny. But it left behind it some broken hearts and broken friendships. It caused a fatal breach in the great friendship of Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon, the movie’s co-author, designer, producer, fixer and actor — he played Sgt Pinback. Dark Star was the funky, satirical twist on epic, visionary sci-fi, a film which absorbed Kubrick’s Strangelove as much as 2001. Carpenter and O’Bannon wanted the future to look scuzzy, boring and shitty. Their spacemen had the low-morale job of journeying through the cosmos, blowing up “unstable planets”. They were truck drivers in space. It chimed perfectly with the alienated mood of Nixon’s America in the early 70s, and the superb sequence in which the talking bombs have to be persuaded not to cause Armageddon was a brilliant satirical commentary on the proliferation of weaponry, supposedly under political and democratic control, but building its own unstoppable momentum, making ultimate use harder and harder to stop.’ — The Guardian

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
‘John Carpenter’s neo-Western Assault on Precinct 13 (loosely based on Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo) is as formally compact and rigorously efficient as anything the genre filmmaker ever made. The story of a police station that, the night before its closing, is besieged by a mysterious gang known as Street Thunder, Carpenter’s early career triumph – his second film, following 1974’s Dark Star – is at once a grittily exhilarating action film and an intelligent, thinly coded allegory for 1970s racial tensions. From a discussion about coffee between just-transferred black cop Bishop (Austin Stoker) and ballsy white officer Julie (Nancy Keyes), to Bishop’s uneasy partnership with sardonic Caucasian criminal Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston), Carpenter posits a station under attack from both heavily armed assailants and shifting racial and gender attitudes. Not that such heady stuff interferes with the director’s combat-heavy set pieces, which feature their share of illogicalities – such as the gang members’ mindless attempts to infiltrate the station via broken windows, making them easy targets for Bishop and company’s bullets – but nonetheless exhibit an economical toughness epitomized by the infamous, delirious early scene involving gun-toting Street Thunder members, a little girl, and an ice cream truck.’ — Lessons of Darkness

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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Halloween (1978)
‘For how all other horror movies would be made, Halloween was a masterpiece of American cinema that was copied over and over again. Little did John Carpenter and Debra Hill know back in 1977 while making this movie, they were making the benchmark for all horror movies to come. Director’s like Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper would go on record as saying that Halloween was the standard that they tried to live up to. Even if your not a fan of horror movies, you will be mesmerized by young Carpenters cinematic genius. Carpenter made a true horror movie out of Halloween with virtually no blood and guts in these movies. Carpenter gave us a feel of the horror movies of the 50’s and 60’s where you got a good scare without a monster pulling off someone’s face in plain view. Among the best in horror!’ — thefleshfarm

Trailer

The ‘Halloween’ locations

 

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The Fog (1980)
‘The Fog was my fourth feature film (sixth if you count Someone’s Watching Me and Elvis, two made-for television movies) and was meant to be an homage of sorts to H.P. Lovecraft, M.R. James and other writers of great ghost tales and the supernatural. I shot The Fog in April and May and then took a ten day vacation to Tahiti. When I returned, I rushed into the editing rooms at Samuel Goldwyn Studios to consult with Tommy Lee Wallace as to how the picture was cutting together. It was a disaster. Quite simply, the picture didn’t work. Numb with a horrifying loss of objectivity, I finished the editing and went to work on a musical score that I hoped would somehow save the picture. We dubbed The Fog in September, and finally watched the finished product. The movie I had made was clunky, clumsy and awful. The music was heavy-handed and obvious. I wanted to pack up and leave town. This was the lowest point I had come to in my professional career. With a mighty Herculean effort, Debra Hill, Tommy lee Wallace and myself re-wrote, re-cut, re-shot and re-scored the picture. In one month.’ — John Carpenter

Trailer

Excerpt

The Fog – Making Of

 

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Escape from New York (1981)
‘Cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson credits the film as an influence on his novel Neuromancer. “I was intrigued by the exchange in one of the opening scenes where the Warden says to Snake ‘You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn’t you?’ It turns out to be just a throwaway line, but for a moment it worked like the best SF where a casual reference can imply a lot.” Popular videogame director Hideo Kojima has referred to the movie frequently as an influence on his work, in particular the Metal Gear series. The character Solid Snake is strongly based on Snake Plissken. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Snake actually uses the alias “Pliskin” to hide his real identity during the game. J.J. Abrams, producer of the 2008 film Cloverfield, mentioned that a scene in his film, which shows the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing into a New York street, was inspired by the poster for Escape from New York. Empire magazine ranked Snake Plissken #71 in their “The 100 Greatest Movie Characters” poll.’ — collaged

Trailer

Deleted scene

Watch the film here

 

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The Thing (1982)
‘The Thing belongs to an unofficial trilogy in Carpenter’s head known as “The Apocalypse Trilogy.” (The other two films being Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness.) They all bare the markings of one of his biggest influences: author H.P. Lovecraft. “The Thing” especially plays with many of the same themes of the influential writer. The horror is cosmic in nature and unexplainable to human biology. And it’s not just the group of characters in the movie that are victims; all of humanity is at risk, and not for any overtly sinister motivations. Humanity is at risk simply because it’s weak enough to get in the way of a cold and uncaring universe. The Thing is not a villain; it is simply a predator of horrific, unimaginable proportions, and we are it’s prey. Removing all emotional understandings of “good” and “evil” from the threat, and raising it to the more abstract “survive or die” philosophy is not a comfortable talking point for popcorn audiences (which is probably why producers prefer to keep us distracted with campy trash about naked babysitters).’ — collaged

Trailer

Excerpt

The Making Of The Thing

 

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Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
‘”I made everybody who put up money for [Halloween III] unhappy and that’s, of course, never very pleasant. I have no idea, my friend, I have no idea. I couldn’t figure it out when it happened to me on THE THING. I was befuddled. “Why do they hate this movie (Halloween 3) so much? Why do the fans hate it?” Fans. I could understand some of the critics. I got that, but why do the fans think I just raped Madonna; the Madonna off the cross. Why do they think I just defiled a classic? I didn’t get it and I still don’t understand it. Maybe it was because, very simply, I had had a success with HALLOWEEN, I was a young whippersnapper, and I had a success with THE FOG and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and it was my time to be brought back down to earth. “Who do you think you are?” That’s my thought. That’s the only thing I can figure out.”‘ — John Carpenter

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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Christine (1983)
‘In its opening weekend Christine brought in $3,408,904 landing at #4. The film dropped 39.6% in its second weekend, grossing $2,058,517 slipping from fourth to eighth place. In its third weekend, it grossed $1,851,909 dropping to #9. The film remained at #9 its fourth weekend, grossing $2,736,782. In its fifth weekend, it returned to #8, grossing $2,015,922. Bringing in $1,316,835 it its sixth weekend, the film dropped out of the box office top ten to twelfth place. In its seventh and final weekend, the film brought in $819,972 landing at #14, bringing the total gross for Christine to $21,017,849.’ — Box Office Mojo

Trailer

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

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They Live (1988)
‘In many circles, They Live is perhaps best known as the crowning achievement in the acting career of professional wrestling legend “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. Frankly, this nugget of trivia doesn’t do the film justice. This isn’t the kind of dunderheaded fluff that has distinguished the careers of Hulk Hogan and The Rock (I’ve much love for Rocky III and Welcome To The Jungle, though). In Carpenter’s assured hands the story of Nada (Piper) and Frank’s (Keith David) fight against a hidden alien race becomes an allegorical tale that reflects the director’s opinion on the state of America in 1988. A declining economy, Reagan-era greed and the “keeping up with the Joneses” consumerist mentality are all targeted as Nada (through a snazzy pair of special sunglasses) discovers that the upper classes are actually aliens disguised as humans who are controlling society through subliminal messaging on their controlled TV network. Even at 22 years old, the message is still prescient. The aliens disguise their true identities and the meaning of billboard ads using TV signals. Seen through the aforementioned sunglasses, Nada can see their real grotesque visage and the billboards’ actual message: “Obey, Consume”.’ — denofgeek.com

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)
‘God, I don’t want to talk about why, but let’s just say there were personalities on that film. He shall not be named who needs to be killed. No, no, no, that’s terrible. He needs to be set on fire. No, no, no. Anyway, it’s all fine. It wasn’t pleasant at all. I’m lying to you. It was a horror show. I really wanted to quit the business after that movie. I survived it.’ — John Carpenter

Trailer

Memoirs of an Invisible Man – Behind the Scenes

 

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In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
‘In the Mouth of Madness is the last great John Carpenter film and the final installment in his unofficial ‘Apocalypse Trilogy’ (beginning with The Thing and followed by Prince of Darkness). It’s a thinking person’s horror picture that dares to be as cerebral as it is visceral. Madness’ portrait of art’s ability to manifest itself in the hearts and minds of its consumers is never quite lucid or well-paced enough to truly chill. That task, however, is ably taken up by Carpenter’s imagery of the impossible, from a nocturnal run-in with a boy (or is it an elderly man?) on a bicycle that’s defined by its ill-fitting elements, to a hotel lobby painting that mutates in dreadful ways. Even as his story devolves into a muddle, his acutely unsettling widescreen compositions thrillingly pinpoint the terror of the bizarrely incongruous.’ — collaged

Trailer

Excerpt

John Carpenter discusses ‘ItMoM’

 

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Village of the Damned (1995)
‘There are many aspects of this particular Carpenter film that just don’t seem to work as well as they should; and these problems all stem from one particular creative decision: the apparent necessity of transplanting the events of the drama from an isolated, homogeneous English village in the 1960s to modern, diverse America in the 1990s. In other words, many of the problems exist at a script level; or at the level of intention. Village of the Damned fails because of the relentless accumulation of little things. By itself, not one of these issues is enough to scuttle the film. But taken in combination, the film seems slap-dash; careless. Writing in Magill’s Cinema Annual of 1996, Kirby Tepper noted that while Village of the Damned was well-intentioned, something was missing. He called the film “a bit shallow,” and noted that the “lack of depth in the film can be seen in its campy dialogue and its discrepancies.”‘ — John Kenneth Muir

Trailer

Excerpt

Watch the film here

 

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Vampires (1998)
‘”I’ve always wanted to do a vampire movie,” states John Carpenter, director of John Carpenter’s Vampires. “This book, Vampire$, came along and it really did some things I’d never seen before. It’s set in the American Southwest and has certain western elements to it. I decided this would be the perfect chance to do something different.” Part of the theme is the dualistic irony of the good guys and the bad guys. It has all the classic ideas that you’ve seen in a vampire movie — the humans versus the vampires, the hidden sexuality, the idea of drinking blood. All that’s at work in this film, but in essence, I’ve always loved westerns and one of the reasons I’m doing this movie is that this is the closest I’ve come to being able to do a western.”‘ — Official John Carpenter Site

Trailer

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

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Ghosts of Mars (2001)
‘John Carpenter’s “Ghosts of Mars” is a brawny space opera, transplanting the conventions of Western, cop and martial arts films to the Red Planet. As waves of zombified killers attack the heroes, actions scenes become shooting galleries, and darned if in the year 2176 they aren’t still hurling sticks of dynamite from moving trains. All basic stuff, and yet Carpenter brings pacing and style to it, and Natasha Henstridge provides a cool-headed center.’ — Roger Ebert

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

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The Ward (2010)
‘John Carpenter’s current reputation as a spent force is undeserved, even if he’s not made much recently that knocked anyone’s socks off. This one is more a step in the right direction than a fully fledged return to form. Amber Heard plays a young amnesiac in a psychiatric institution trying to figure out why a ghostly apparition/zombie thing is brutally killing her fellow patients. Unfortunately, the audience is way ahead of her – we’ve seen this many times before. The denouement is visible from a distance; a shame if you recall how expertly Carpenter unleashed the powerful climaxes of The Thing et al. Still, it’s a well-made film, with some finely crafted shocks and a steady pace that almost seems stately in these days of fast-cut horror.’ — The Guardian

Trailer

Excerpt

the entire film

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. Again, several people have now successfully broken through the Cloudflare bug and commented by setting their IP to Romania, so you might try that curious approach if you’re willing to. ** Dominik, Hi Dominik!!!!! Welcome back! My week was alright, not momentous. We’re trying to inch forward on the film problems, which may or may not be working, hard to tell, and working on getting the film itself born in the best way possible. I’m glad you had lots of pleasure back in the old country. Erk, about the water damage, hopefully in reparation mode now. It’s been raining like crazy here. Yes, the new SCAB is super great. I always say this, but it seems like maybe the best issue ever! Everyone, If you missed the notice last week, here’s a reminder that the new issue Dominik’s utterly crucial zine SCAB is now online and yours with a click. It’s full of amazing things including a story by our very own Lucas. Get it, if you haven’t. Love maintaining his belief that Bob Dylan’s last great album was ‘Blonde on Blonde’ (1966), G. ** Misanthrope, So weird that Romania’s IP is the semi-answer to the problem. I’m too tech-dumb to understand. Germany, nice. Oh, cool if you (and Alex) can make Derek’s and my thing. I’ll be nervous as fuck, but that’s the way my wind blows. Awww, Uncle George. Suits you. ** Uday, Romania worked, dude! Wow! Welcome back! ** jay, Howdy. Do show me the Halloween murder scene decoration. You know I lurve that stuff. What are you and the dad wearing that will cause you to be twinsies? I’ve heard a lot about ‘Hitman’ but have never played it. Noted. Fascinating, yes, your think-piece about death in games. I’m largely a Nintendo guy, so most of the deaths in games I play just involve silly constructions vanishing without effect. I did write a novel called ‘God Jr.’ that tried to contextualise loss and death into that kind of context. Anyway, great thought. I’m going to think about that. Could be fruitful. Oh, and thank you for passing along Horatio’s eloquence re: my stuff. He has an eloquent name. ** Tyler Ookami, Hi. Gelnwood Caverns has actual caves, it seems, and that’s a big plus as well as a possible one of a kind thing? Yeah, Meow Wolf has this, to me, really very off-putting Burning Man kind of vibe and aesthetic. That whole scene is a nose crinkler to me. Mythym, wow, I forgot all about that. Huh. I think my friend the writer Trinie Dalton was behind that, or partly? I’m gonna hunt my copies down when I’m in LA. How was it? ‘Violet Memoir’: I’m on it. Strangely appealing name. Thanks a lot! ** Lucas, Hi. There were so many ugh things about ‘Crazy for Vincent’ for me. It seemed really dilettante-y, all his objectifying of guys from the ‘lower class’ and the narcissism and … ugh. I still think highly of his novels ‘To the Friend …’ and ‘The Passion Protocal’, but I haven’t reread them in a while, so who knows. ‘Tomb for 500,000 Soldiers’ is great! ‘EEE’ is more experimental but so amazing. I’m your only American friend or personal encounter? Wow! Dude, Americans can be a little, um, dumb. But also charmingly over-enthusiastic. Hopefully your Americans are from the enlightened contingent. Let me know how that encounter goes. ** HaRpEr, Great luck moving in tomorrow, if that’s what you meant. Hopefully one last shlep by bus today. I don’t think there are any shoulds or shouldn’ts, certainly not about books. Never heard of Pietro Aretino. Renaissance pornography … I mean, that could be interesting, right? ‘CfV’ is full of fetishising not only of youth but of ‘downtrodden’, ‘poorly educated’, ‘hot’ youth in particular and from a very self-indulgent, ‘privileged’ POV. It kind of infuriated me. I used to hang out a lot in hustler bars in LA in the late 70s and early 80s, and John Rechy was often there in his leathers trying so hard not to look like a guy in his late 50s. ** Justin D, Hi. Glad you liked some of the stuff yesterday. Yeah, haha, I’m the exact opposite of an Abramovic fan, and that game hits the spot. ‘Orpheus’ is beautiful, yeah, one of his very best, I think. Yesterday … mostly film stuff, trying to find a venue for the cast&crew LA screening, looking for interesting film festivals and possible distributors. Grunt work. I was supposed to have a b’day lunch with a bday boy friend of mine, but he got food poisoning the night before, so that got delayed. I started trying to figure out what I’m going to read at my reading next week. I watched a video of Slayer’s reunion concert of a few nights ago and was gloriously adrenalised. How did Tuesday sit with you? ** Steve, Hey. Second time was the charm at least. Thanks about ‘The Substance’. I’m usually wary of films where critics mostly talk about the main actor’s performance. Acting isn’t much of a lure for me. Want to hear that Sophie LP obviously. ** Malik, Hey, Malik! How great to see you! LA is a vibe, for sure. I grew up there and its sprawl is curiously comfy for me. I’m so happy that you especially found interest in the post’s work. Huh, I was sure I had done a favorite video games post, but I just checked, and I haven’t. Weird. I will, obviously. The only thing like that I did was Dead Games: My 10 favorite 1990s CD-rom games from memory and in no order. Maybe there’s something useful there? How are you? What are you working on? What’s new? xo. ** Bill, It worked this time. Have you tried the ‘setting your IP to Romania’ trick? The Egolf novel I spotlit is by far his best, I think. I’m hoping to catch up on all the recent blockbusters on my Paris -> NYC flight next week. Thanks about Gisele’s film. ARTE talks the talk about daring TV but they don’t walk the walk. Renee Gladman, enjoy! I see she has a new novel. She’s so great. It does sound like it’s hopping there. There = SF. Happy Tuesday. ** Okay. I decided to let the blog’s Halloween thematic veer into the mainstream today. See you tomorrow.