A John Carpenter Poll

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 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.

watched prince of darkness last night. spent the first half not quite on its wavelength but then i locked tf in and the last 30 mins or so was terrifying. i did like donald pleasance's speech about how the church's teachings to be nice to people and find heaven were just a cover-up for "jesus and satan are both aliens, but jesus is dead and satan lives on as green goo"

my personal ranking
the thing
they live
in the mouth of madness
big trouble
escape from ny
halloween
prince of darkness
escape from l.a.

the fog is next on my list, but i still have a lot to see

SyFy is playing Vampires now. Even then, James Woods was a little too into the role. Felt bad that Sheryl Lee took that job.

Curious about your next viewings. The Fog, Starman, Assault on Precinct 13, H2 and H3, all great. Ghosts of Mars, definitely feel the budget and whatever issues it had, but it had promise. His Masters of Horror ep, "Cigarette Burns", is worth watching (free through US library streaming Hoopla). Body Bags, meh.

i think i have actually seen the halloween sequels, not in a long long time tho. fog, starman, christine, precinct 13 are on my list. the fog is on prime, and starman is on tubi so they are next in line. ghost of mars is not a priority at the moment haha.

Dark Star was a great demonstration that satire wasn't his genre.

Starman is a film I actually saw in the theater and have absolutely no memory of

Awww, but Karen Allen is so crushworthy.

The only part I really like from Prince of Darkness is the grainy dream/video thing, which was legit spooky.

I saw Starman in the theater as well and have only the vaguest memories of it.

make sure you dont end up watching the crappy remake of the Fog (which isn't terrible really but cannot hold a candle to the OG)

"Awww, but Karen Allen is so crushworthy."

at that point in time she really reminded me of a john byrne comic book character.

There's a church, closed and gated off on MLK in Seattle that reminds me of the PoD church.

So many good bits in PoD, though - "in fact, you will not be saved", Dennis Dun giving a little comic relief, the container spitting to the ceiling, Alice Cooper and co., the body dissolving to bugs, Calder's crazy laugh before he slices himself, Lisa Blount's jump and then Jameson reaching towards the mirror.

Not unlike The Thing, re: so many good character bits in a large cast.

"at that point in time she really reminded me of a john byrne comic book character"

How so, Scott? That made me laugh, because I can kind of see it in her face and eyes.

that face of hers! i don't know which character but that smile and those huge eyes. always reminded me of byrne.

Kitty Pryde, once you said it.

yeah i was thinking x-men!

make sure you dont end up watching the crappy remake of the Fog

I saw this and was baffled about how bad the CGI animation was at this late juncture

Shots fired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mclzKQNbuFI

I like Altman but Carpenter isn't wrong

I'm a fan of both filmmakers, but yeah, a different strokes for different folks thing as far as I'm concerned.

I think he's right about the Altman of Images and Quintet and (sorry, I've tried) 3 Women, and he sounds really silly (and maybe secretly envious of the acclaim) as applied to Nashville, McCabe, The Long Goodbye, etc. And in general: the idea that film is just about entertainment and not about saying anything is...hardly worth addressing.

It is always worth remembering that his filmmaking hero is Hawks.

Also that Carpenter constantly complains about everything and everybody. He's like Hollywood's biggest crank.

Altman could get very dismissive of other filmmakers during his heyday, so I'm wondering if there's maybe some reciprocity behind that somewhere.

I mean, if they're gonna ask him what he thinks of Altman all the time, he's gonna tell them

The one Carpenter film I love, Halloween, very obviously Says Something to young women, intentionally or not: stay true and virginal and heroic, and you'll survive.

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:cfy5rgqvohpdqxgu2geb5u2b/bafkreiapg6i5olleix75xvkk3mstjgt5btahy5sbff4q7qfnfq22j5at24@jpeg

Or is that a fake John Carpenter?

https://deadline.com/2024/09/john-carpenter-asks-what-hell-letterboxd-team-debunks-fake-account-1236100936/

Ayo Edebiri stopped letterboxing, John could have been a suitable heir

Watched In the Mouth of Madness recently, love the bit where Sam Neill keeps encountering the crowd of hideous deformed people/demons, and one of them walks by and, unprompted, turns to hiss "Fuck you!" at him.