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John Carpenter

This is a very early interview. He certainly changed his mind on messages.
 
I watched Christine (1983) last week, holds up well. It's not shown as much as John Carpenter's other films. Pity, it has some great scenes, especially when Arnie "makes a pact" with the car and it self-repairs all of the damage. I must check out the Stephen King novel it's based on.
 
He hasn't made a film in a long while, apart from The Ward which wasn't a bad timepasser, but when you know what he used to be capable of...

Watched The Ward last night.

The Ward (2010): North Bend Psychiatric hospital has problems, a killer stalks the corridors of it's locked ward (which is very much The Ward), we see poor Tammy being killed. Cut to daylight in the woods, Kristen is running in a panic, she sets fire to an old farmhouse and police bring her to North Bend. She meets other patients in their late teens in The Ward, all suffering from differing psychiatric disorders. Kristen is assigned to Tammy's room but there is no mention of what happened to the missing girl. The staff are rather creepy, most of them straight out of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and when Kristen proves rebellious she is subjected to electroshock treatment. The dynamic between the patients also owes a lot to OFOTCN but also bears some relationship to Girl Interrupted. This is very much a Horror Film though, girls disappear and the staff are in denial, the ghost of a previous patient may be the killer. Some gruesome/disturbing scenes with a few jump scares and interesting twists. Not one of Director John Carpenter's best films but working from a script by the Rasmussen Brothers he delivers an enjoyable horror movie. 6.5/10.
 
I watched Christine (1983) last week, holds up well. It's not shown as much as John Carpenter's other films. Pity, it has some great scenes, especially when Arnie "makes a pact" with the car and it self-repairs all of the damage. I must check out the Stephen King novel it's based on.

I haven't really read King since i was a teenager, do recall the novel of Christine having a very different slant on it than the film, deffo worth a read if you can face it... I just can;t get on with King these days.
 
I watched Christine (1983) last week, holds up well. It's not shown as much as John Carpenter's other films. Pity, it has some great scenes, especially when Arnie "makes a pact" with the car and it self-repairs all of the damage. I must check out the Stephen King novel it's based on.
I read it years ago and remember thinking it was a very small story in a very big book - like a lot of King's work there was an awful lot of padding.
 
I haven't really read King since i was a teenager, do recall the novel of Christine having a very different slant on it than the film, deffo worth a read if you can face it... I just can;t get on with King these days.
I read it years ago and remember thinking it was a very small story in a very big book - like a lot of King's work there was an awful lot of padding.


Dr Sleep is a pretty good novel and isn't overwritten.
 
Same problem as with other super successful popular authors - he decided he was too good to need an editor. Clancy was another one. Hunt for Red October was good, after that longer and longer. And less interesting.
 
Not true - King has had excellent editors who he always credits. Without them his books would be 2000 pages long most of the time.
 
Village of the Damned (1995): John Carpenter updates the action to the 1990s and relocates it to the US. Midwich is a small isolated town on the California coast which is stricken by a mist and sleeping sickness. When people come around all of the women of child-bearing age are pregnant. The offspring are strange, platinum blonds, ultra-intelligent, apparently possessed of ESP. They act against anyone they see as a threat, even seem to have capricious cruelties. In this version the US government get involved. observing the children, sponsoring their families with grants. Kirstie Alley is great as the sinister scientist who at times seems more threatening than the children themselves as she studies this alien invasion. Some disturbing scenes as the children force people to mutilate themselves and commit suicide, the kids even literally melt a foe. Their mind control extends to forcing soldiers to shoot each other. I reckon this film provided inspiration for some of The Simpson's classic tropes as the school janitor acts like Willie and the angry mob brings so many Simpsons episodes to mind. Not one of Carpenter's best films but highly entertaining. 7.5/10. Showing again on the Horror Channel: Tuesday 31st December at 9.00 PM.
 
Village of the Damned (1995): John Carpenter updates the action to the 1990s and relocates it to the US. Midwich is a small isolated town on the California coast which is stricken by a mist and sleeping sickness. When people come around all of the women of child-bearing age are pregnant. The offspring are strange, platinum blonds, ultra-intelligent, apparently possessed of ESP. They act against anyone they see as a threat, even seem to have capricious cruelties. In this version the US government get involved. observing the children, sponsoring their families with grants. Kirstie Alley is great as the sinister scientist who at times seems more threatening than the children themselves as she studies this alien invasion. Some disturbing scenes as the children force people to mutilate themselves and commit suicide, the kids even literally melt a foe. Their mind control extends to forcing soldiers to shoot each other. I reckon this film provided inspiration for some of The Simpson's classic tropes as the school janitor acts like Willie and the angry mob brings so many Simpsons episodes to mind. Not one of Carpenter's best films but highly entertaining. 7.5/10. Showing again on the Horror Channel: Tuesday 31st December at 9.00 PM.

I've been watching through a lot of John Carpenter films, but I haven't got this far yet.

I'll only say that your final score is a lot more generous than most reviewers!
 
I've been watching through a lot of John Carpenter films, but I haven't got this far yet.

I'll only say that your final score is a lot more generous than most reviewers!

The IMDb average is 5.6. Someone who is into Horror/SF and is also a Carpenter fan would likely give it a higher score. Anyway this is my honest impression of the film, I think my review suggests why I gave it the score.
 
The IMDb average is 5.6. Someone who is into Horror/SF and is also a Carpenter fan would likely give it a higher score. Anyway this is my honest impression of the film, I think my review suggests why I gave it the score.

No criticism intended.

I think I'm the target audience, so I may well enjoy it as much as you did.

Has anybody here any input on Starman (1984):

Seems a bit of a departure for Carpenter but it has quite a following.


 
I saw Starman when it came out, and while it wasn't terrible, it seemed like a pretty worn out premise even then. Way too many bad tropes, not the least of which is the alien who takes human form and - despite amazing powers and advanced science - speaks like someone with profound hearing loss, a perceptual disability, and severely impacted sinuses.

As far as Carpenter films I like better, I have a soft spot for Pricnce of Darkness despite all its faults, and the "put on the glasses" fight scene in They Live is even more awesome since it was used as the basis for South Park's "Cripple Fight".

 
No criticism intended.

I don't mind criticism - after you've seen it!

I've seen Village of the Damned at least 3 times now over the years and imho it has held up. Not everyone likes Kirstie Alley in it though!
 
... Has anybody here any input on Starman (1984) ...

Starman was a low-key alternative (for the time) to the Star Wars style space opera treatment of extraterrestrials / UFOs. It's as much a commentary on humans as seen through the experience of an ET in trouble (and a budding romance) as a full-tilt sci-fi flick. In a way it's similar to Capricorn One, in that the sci-fi bits are the background to an essentially human story line.

FWIW, Jeff Bridges received his third Oscar nomination for his performance. Even though he'd given a number of memorable performances by 1984 Starman seems to have been the role that launched him as a recognized leading man.

I haven't seen it in ages, but I'm pretty sure it would seem quaintly dated after all the subsequent (X-Files, etc.) treatments of ET contact and ET / human interaction.

At the time of its original run the heartwarming and romantic bits made it the one sci-fi movie the non-sci-fi-geek wives and girlfriends actually liked.

Fun Fact: The guy who played "The Scientist" (briefly seen consultant in a wheelchair) is an old friend of mine dating back to the pre-teen Boy Scouts and my teen-era "gang." In the former context I've always credited him as the guy who taught me to cuss.
 
I really liked Starman. It gave Jeff Bridges a chance to really bring the role to life.
And... I think it was the amazing music that really made it.
My personal score for it is probably 7 out of 10.
 
Ghosts of Mars: Saw it again last night. I've always liked it. It's good trashy SF/Horror although Carpenter has done a lot more with smaller budgets in other films and the effects here aren't always great. Still it has ancient Martian Tombs, wraiths rising, possession. Some great hand to hand fighting, bit like a mix of Mad Max with Escape from New York in places. Big Daddy Mars is like an Immortal Joe prototype. Showing again on the Horror Channel Friday 18th September at 10.50 PM. 7/10.
 
Ghosts of Mars: Saw it again last night. I've always liked it. It's good trashy SF/Horror although Carpenter has done a lot more with smaller budgets in other films and the effects here aren't always great. Still it has ancient Martian Tombs, wraiths rising, possession. Some great hand to hand fighting, bit like a mix of Mad Max with Escape from New York in places. Big Daddy Mars is like an Immortal Joe prototype. Showing again on the Horror Channel Friday 18th September at 10.50 PM. 7/10.
And the memorable Pam Grier. Carpenter is unusually skillful in casting not-known-for-acting people he sees something in, sometimes it doesn't work out, but although he's known for horror, suspense and effects, he's great at working with actors or semi-actors, coaxing performances and getting the group to work together. A few notable failures on this film but mostly good to watch. He also puts skilled supporting actors in smaller parts and they really help create his vision, like Joanna Cassidy in Ghosts. Haven't watched it for a while, time to revisit GOM and Vampires.
 
No criticism intended.

I think I'm the target audience, so I may well enjoy it as much as you did.

Has anybody here any input on Starman (1984):

Seems a bit of a departure for Carpenter but it has quite a following.



I loved it when I first saw it. Bridges and Carpenter what's not to like? It's not aged well but it's still watchable.
 
From last February:

"Happy 40th Anniversary To John Carpenter’s The Fog!"

Friends, it was back on February the 1st of 1980 that John Carpenter’s follow up to his massively successful Halloween was given a limited release – The Fog. Seven days later it would see a wider release by AVCO Embassy Pictures and while it still did well at the box office – pulling in 21.3 million domestically on a budget of 1.1 million dollars – it unfortunately didn’t find the popularity of Carpenter’s previous feature film.

A video showing film locations from around eight years back:

 
John Carpenter at 75

At 75, Legendary Director John Carpenter Isn’t Done Raising Hell in Hollywood​



John Carpenter has nothing left to prove.
The writer-director hasn’t made a movie in 13 years, and yet he’s asked about his work incessantly by reporters, fans and fellow filmmakers. And now, here I am, asking again.
Sitting in a comfy-looking chair in the living room of his Los Angeles home, he’s got cable news running on a TV just out of sight, and sometimes, when a question doesn’t strike his fancy, his answer will carry on, while his eyes dart toward the flickering box. “It was a Western they wanted to make. I was unsure about what I would do with it. … God, Iran just hung a protester, man.”


The occasion of this conversation is his upcoming 75th birthday, Jan. 16, which also marks nearly 50 years since the release of his first movie, the USC student-film-turned-feature “Dark Star.” Since then, Carpenter’s subversive genre films have inspired decades of knockoffs, sequels and reboots. In one six-year stretch alone, he directed three hugely influential works: the 1976 indie ”Assault on Precinct 13,” in which a small group of cops and criminals defend a police station from hostile takeover by a gang; 1978’s ”Halloween,” in which a teenage babysitter (played by Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut) is stalked by the unstoppably evil masked murderer Michael Myers; and “The Thing,” from 1982 (considered a masterpiece of practical effects), where Kurt Russell and a killer group of character actors are pitted against an alien that has infiltrated their Antarctic research facility. That’s not even counting fan favorites like 1980’s ghost story “The Fog,” starring Curtis, and 1981’s dystopic “Escape From New York,” featuring Russell in one of his signature roles — the post-apocalyptic badass Snake Plissken.
https://variety.com/2023/film/featu...view-director-halloween-the-thing-1235485167/
 
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