Favorite John Carpenter Films?
- Thread starter Amasov
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I haven't seen all his films, but I enjoyed most of them. We can agree their memorable and corner stones of that movie era.
His movies have inspired other media for example video games like Duke Nukem and Metal Gear Solid.
Now that I think about it, excluding reboots, has anything recent inspired any other media? And I don't mean self copying stuff, like twillight genre movies one after the other.
His movies have inspired other media for example video games like Duke Nukem and Metal Gear Solid.
Now that I think about it, excluding reboots, has anything recent inspired any other media? And I don't mean self copying stuff, like twillight genre movies one after the other.
In terms of cinematic importance, probably The Thing. He took an old story, gave it new life, so much so that it reminds me of an HP Lovecraft story. People are probably going to talk about that film when it's 50 years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness
In the Mouth of Madness is about as close as you can get to a HP Lovecraft film. It might have been a good film with some help. It's not the actors fault because there were excellent perfomances. Adding a clip because I hope some people give this film a chance even though it's flawed. What would happen if reading a famous horror novelist like Stephen King's books would make them go insane? In some ways it reminds me of Jacob's Ladder in the degree of nightmarishness.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFcOeM_Usk[/yt]
They Live has the dubious honor of the most drawn out fight scene in film history. I hope people actually watch that youtube clip. The story is a pretty wicked satire on corporations taking over while being invisible in plain sight. George Soros could have starred in it.
Big Trouble in Little China is so bad it's good. It's like the John Boorman school of cinematography ala Excaliber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness
In the Mouth of Madness is about as close as you can get to a HP Lovecraft film. It might have been a good film with some help. It's not the actors fault because there were excellent perfomances. Adding a clip because I hope some people give this film a chance even though it's flawed. What would happen if reading a famous horror novelist like Stephen King's books would make them go insane? In some ways it reminds me of Jacob's Ladder in the degree of nightmarishness.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFcOeM_Usk[/yt]
They Live has the dubious honor of the most drawn out fight scene in film history. I hope people actually watch that youtube clip. The story is a pretty wicked satire on corporations taking over while being invisible in plain sight. George Soros could have starred in it.
Big Trouble in Little China is so bad it's good. It's like the John Boorman school of cinematography ala Excaliber.
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Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York, The Thing, and They Live are the JC movies I own on DVD.
The Thing is his best film.
The Thing is his best film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%281982_film%29
Look at all of the famous cinema critic's lists The Thing is on. That should tell any doubters that's it's not only considered entertaining, but serious cinema, and should be viewed for both reasons.
If you click on the link about Lovecraft's The Mountains of Madness, and then it's evident that Campbell who was an editor of the magazine that featured Lovecrafts' stories, were the basis for The Thing. It also shows deep research by Carpenter, who took a film of dubious worth, and repaired it, and shaped a masterpiece from that process.
Unfortunantly like all directors, Mr. Carpenter also made terrible films of no value, but to pay the light bill.
Starman is actually a decent and meaningful film, one that took risks in the depiction of an alien species, and is an excellent Karen Allen (who can pull off smart, sexy, and vulnerable all at once) film as well. It's worth seeing and you might even be charmed by it. I recently rewatched it, and didn't find it that dated.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgF2lbAL6RA[/yt]
Look at all of the famous cinema critic's lists The Thing is on. That should tell any doubters that's it's not only considered entertaining, but serious cinema, and should be viewed for both reasons.
If you click on the link about Lovecraft's The Mountains of Madness, and then it's evident that Campbell who was an editor of the magazine that featured Lovecrafts' stories, were the basis for The Thing. It also shows deep research by Carpenter, who took a film of dubious worth, and repaired it, and shaped a masterpiece from that process.
Unfortunantly like all directors, Mr. Carpenter also made terrible films of no value, but to pay the light bill.
Starman is actually a decent and meaningful film, one that took risks in the depiction of an alien species, and is an excellent Karen Allen (who can pull off smart, sexy, and vulnerable all at once) film as well. It's worth seeing and you might even be charmed by it. I recently rewatched it, and didn't find it that dated.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgF2lbAL6RA[/yt]
It's worth noting that the film's reputation was earned after-the-fact. When it was originally released, the critics gave John Carpenter's The Thing quite a drubbing.
This is certainly true. It was considered hyperviolent and grotesque even nauseating. It takes a cast iron stomach to watch it.
It undoubtably influenced all kinds of directors and resulted in changes of what was acceptable in film.
It's one of the few films that doesn't attempt to humanize an extraterrestrial, but makes them deeply alien, and apart from practically any alien ever seen.
Certain films like the Andromeda Strain featured an alien lifeform that was microbial. Other films like The Blob showed an unrecognizable gelatinous mass that could not be reasoned with nor negotiated with.
But The Thing was relentless, seemingly invulnerable, and ultimately apocalyptic. It could harness any lifeform, subvert it, and bend it to its will. As such, it's a metaphor about all kinds of secretive movements in history, and so inflicts paranoia into the process.
In a way, it's a legacy derived from Ridley Scott's Alien film, which is largely about rape and possession, though told within the science fiction genre.
One "thing" about The Thing that I don't get:
In the prequel, it's said that the alien can't imitate inorganic matter, like tooth fillings and earrings. Then how can it imitate clothes? Does it steal the clothing of whoever it assimilates?
In the prequel, it's said that the alien can't imitate inorganic matter, like tooth fillings and earrings. Then how can it imitate clothes? Does it steal the clothing of whoever it assimilates?
That's just suspension of disbelief. Compare this with the universal translator operating and the mouth movements of the alien characters in their alien tongue matching up with English. To be realistic, it would look like dubbing in films and would please no one.
You could have naked aliens on screen, but probably would have created problems for the director, actors, and the legal department of the studio. 'Simpler to suspend disbelief and let them wear the same clothing.
That sounds right. See:
"If Palmer and Norris were both Things, why not assimilate Mac at the crater?
A simple explanation would be that when a Thing assimilates someone, it rips through their clothes (as evident when Windows discovers Bennings' torn and bloody shirt and jacket in the storage room seconds before he sees him being assimilated, and Nauls finding either Palmer or Norris torn longjohns in a kitchen trash can stained with dried blood). And given the fact that none of them expected to need extra clothes on a helicopter trip, so if Norris and Palmer were things, if they assimilated Mac, they would have a hard time explaining why he is naked when they get back to camp."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/faq
Side note: Anyone who liked The Thing (1982) would probably like the remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) for similar themes but absent the grotesque violence.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8r7vYj2XFI[/yt]
Carpenter remade Village of the Damned in 1995. It had originally been made in 1960 and was considered a science fiction that regular people would watch who didn't like science fiction. As a result it became a classic. So when Carpenter decided to remake it, as it already was popular, the critics were not happy with his decision. That's very different that remaking The Thing which had featured James Arness (pre-Gunsmoke) as a alien carrot and made a great film. The critics already felt that Village of the Damned was a pretty good film and didn't need to be remade.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqlozoXVxYM[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR9ha5l9FzM[/yt]
The imagery of the 1960s classic, particularly with black and white film and the idea of eugenics recalled the Nazi experiments like Lebensborn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn
I don't think that comes across in Carpenter's film, but it's not a bad film by any means.
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Well, for one thing, The Thing From Another World has a pretty good critical reputation as far as I've observed (Howard Hawks' involvement being a big factor in that, no doubt). And when The Thing came out -- as we went over already -- the critics didn't like it. So I'm not sure your logic follows.
I haven't seen the Carpenter version of Village of the Damned, though, although I do like the original.
It's true that The Thing from Another World has an imbb rating of 7.1. I've tried to watch it, and it's not very compelling. It's very low budget and it shows. Prior to watching John Carpenter's The Thing, several of my friends tried to get through it, and found it quaint but not horrifying or even mildly scary.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-Y8ZkUenk[/yt]
But give it a whirl and see for yourself.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-Y8ZkUenk[/yt]
But give it a whirl and see for yourself.
I've seen it. I like it, even if it has a bit of an anti-scientist thing going on that's prevalent in a lot of science fiction movies from the fifties. When the flaming thing walks through the door there, it's a genuine scare that really works in the context of the movie. The image of the heroes stretched out in a circle on the ice was obviously iconic enough that Carpenter repeated it in his movie. Other things don't work (the electric blanket moving the plot along, for example), but no movie is perfect.
I prefer the remake, though, no doubt about that.
I prefer the remake, though, no doubt about that.
link to image
These kinds of images haunted Americans in WW2, and so a film like Village of the Damned in 1960 those images were still fresh and made the children very scary. I can remember having nightmares after that first film.
On the other hand, I enjoyed Carpenter's version. The English film was so reserved when in effect all of the female citizens of Midwich had been raped, a frightening concept that doesn't come across in the first film because that was taboo. That's evident and an aspect of Carpenter's version.
Unfortunantly he also tried to hard to make a similar film and made the characters look the same with those blond wigs, which comes across as artifical and keeps the viewer from accepting the reality of the film. He also decided that certain scenes would be duplicated...a real mistake. Watch the mental brick wall scene for example in both films. However there is a terrifying opener in which one citizen who fell asleep is horrifically killed and far more realistic than the first.
These kinds of images haunted Americans in WW2, and so a film like Village of the Damned in 1960 those images were still fresh and made the children very scary. I can remember having nightmares after that first film.
On the other hand, I enjoyed Carpenter's version. The English film was so reserved when in effect all of the female citizens of Midwich had been raped, a frightening concept that doesn't come across in the first film because that was taboo. That's evident and an aspect of Carpenter's version.
Unfortunantly he also tried to hard to make a similar film and made the characters look the same with those blond wigs, which comes across as artifical and keeps the viewer from accepting the reality of the film. He also decided that certain scenes would be duplicated...a real mistake. Watch the mental brick wall scene for example in both films. However there is a terrifying opener in which one citizen who fell asleep is horrifically killed and far more realistic than the first.
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