John Carpenter

I'm incredibly bored so I figure why not make a thread on one my favorite directors...John Carpenter. There are a handful of his films I haven't seen so alas, I won't talk about them.

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Assault on Precinct 13
His first feature film, a remake of Rio Bravo which in turn was a retelling of some other story (I think). It plays out like Night of the Living dead where you have a group of personalities housed inside a space trying to fend off invaders. Instead of zombies/indians you have LA street thugs. It's very heart warming to see blacks, mexicans and the irish join forces to kill cops.

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Halloween
I was unimpressed the first time I saw this movie. On future viewings I realized that this movie has been ripped off by every other horror movie even to this day. It isn't scary but definitely spooky. I think what carries this movie is it's score and music cues. Myer's shows up in a window *EEEEE!*, Girl turns around to see who's following her *EEEE!* OH snaps! He's gone!

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The Fog
Pretty good on paper...a shame on celluloid. Jamie Lee and Adrienne Barbeau (Carpenter's girlfriend/wife/ex-wife) star in it. Basically some old legend about pissed off pirates coming back from Davey Jones locker looking for their stolen gold. Their method of travel.....FOG!!! The result is a slow plodding movie with scary stuff happening maybe 3-4 times tops. It's watchable but it feels like it could've been way better given more development.

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Escape from New York
Snake Plisken has to retrieve the President from a recently converted prison island once know as Manhattan. For those wanting to relive the experience, visit East Harlem on your next trip to New York. I really like this movie but it feels improperly paced. There's a lot of great stuff in it but some scenes just go on too long or just hang. Snake will still live in infamy as an ULTIMATE BADASS.

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The Thing
Too awesome for words. Insert picture of tentacle dog, spider head and a flame thrower.


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Christine
Neat story but nothing spectacular. Posessed caddilac kills anyone who tries to steal it's owner away from "her". It's a touching tale of boy meets car. Just imagine your PS2 electrocuting anyone who tried playing her while you were away.

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Big Trouble in Little China
Jack Burton rocks almost as much as Plisken. Another movie too awesome for words. Insert pic of Lo-Pan, Egg-shen, the 3 sky-Gods and the Porkchop Express.

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Prince of Darkness
Drek. Gross misuse of Victor Wong too. It's about some class field trip to a church containing evil in a can or something. The evil gets loose and pisses in people's mouths in order to possess them. Avoid at all costs.

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They Live
Roddy Piper kicking ass (with no bubblegum at that!). Nada finds a special pair of sunglasses which reveal that Red Staters are actually aliens hellbent on enslaving humanity via subliminal messages.

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Memoirs of an Invisible Man
I don't remember much about this movie except that I enjoyed it when I was a kid. Apparently it's a comedy.

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Escape from LA
I didn't think it was possible to screw up the return of Snake. Well...they did. Lots of silly hijinks and social commentary. Snake has to locate something or some chick. This time it's in post apocalyptic LA. I wached it once, said "WTF?" and quickly wiped it from memory. I only remember the ending and how pissed off I was.

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Vampires
Good on paper and actually pretty damn cool for the first 15-20 minutes. Then it turns into a subpar straight to video flick. A Vampire hunting squad is targeted by Dracula. Hijinks ensue. It's still watchable but I can't believe Carpenter made this.

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Ghosts of Mars
A remake of Assault on Precint 13 set on Mars. Why? I have no idea. Did it suck? It sure did :(



Presently Carpenter will work on a script provided by some contest. I shit you not. If I missed any of your favorites, sorry, they probably sucked anyway (although I hear Mouth of Madness is really good)

They Live is one of my alltime favorites. Makes you fucking wonder. Serious shit.

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Originally Posted by Revoltor

I'm incredibly bored so I figure why not make a thread on one my favorite directors...John Carpenter. There are a handful of his films I haven't seen so alas, I won't talk about them.

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Good topic. I am huge Carpenter fan and we can see if our opionions on his work is different or not.

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Assault on Precinct 13
His first feature film, a remake of Rio Bravo which in turn was a retelling of some other story (I think). It plays out like Night of the Living dead where you have a group of personalities housed inside a space trying to fend off invaders. Instead of zombies/indians you have LA street thugs. It's very heart warming to see blacks, mexicans and the irish join forces to kill cops.

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Great movie. With the simple premise, and minimalist setting, the tension and direction is tight, character interaction is simple, and at the same time enjoyable. Great musica theme too. Definately one of his best. Lets hope the remake wont be dissapointing.

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Halloween
I was unimpressed the first time I saw this movie. On future viewings I realized that this movie has been ripped off by every other horror movie even to this day. It isn't scary but definitely spooky. I think what carries this movie is it's score and music cues. Myer's shows up in a window *EEEEE!*, Girl turns around to see who's following her *EEEE!* OH snaps! He's gone!

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It started Slasher craze of the 80s. I respect it for that, but personally I think this movie is way overrated, and I was bored by it, few times that I tried to finish watching it.

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The Fog
Pretty good on paper...a shame on celluloid. Jamie Lee and Adrienne Barbeau (Carpenter's girlfriend/wife/ex-wife) star in it. Basically some old legend about pissed off pirates coming back from Davey Jones locker looking for their stolen gold. Their method of travel.....FOG!!! The result is a slow plodding movie with scary stuff happening maybe 3-4 times tops. It's watchable but it feels like it could've been way better given more development.

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This on the other hand is a overlooked gem. Great, great atmosphere, excellent dreary score, and a neat, simple ghost story. Not much violence happens on screen, but it still very creepy. Too bad many people hate it :(

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Escape from New York
Snake Plisken has to retrieve the President from a recently converted prison island once know as Manhattan. For those wanting to relive the experience, visit East Harlem on your next trip to New York. I really like this movie but it feels improperly paced. There's a lot of great stuff in it but some scenes just go on too long or just hang. Snake will still live in infamy as an ULTIMATE BADASS.

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Enter the Snake. Kurt Russel as one of badass characters on screen, and somewhat a role model for Snake of MG games :) Again Carpenter does good job, re-imagining darker future, electronic score fits the theme, and Russel delivers the badass character.

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The Thing
Too awesome for words. Insert picture of tentacle dog, spider head and a flame thrower.

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A masterpiece. Everything is perfect about it. From haunting score, to gory and slimy sfx, to sense of hopelessness and paranoia.

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Christine
Neat story but nothing spectacular. Posessed caddilac kills anyone who tries to steal it's owner away from "her". It's a touching tale of boy meets car. Just imagine your PS2 electrocuting anyone who tried playing her while you were away.

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Why people like this? Story maybe somewhat neat (oh, ghost in the car !!!), but everything else is such a dissapointment. One of the lows in Carpenter's work.

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Big Trouble in Little China
Jack Burton rocks almost as much as Plisken. Another movie too awesome for words. Insert pic of Lo-Pan, Egg-shen, the 3 sky-Gods and the Porkchop Express.

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Another masterpiece. Before CTHD and current Hollywood Asian Action Craze, came in BTILC, where John re-imagined chinese fantasy film, with some hollywood flare mixed in. Great sense of humor, cool characters, not serious demeanor and another kick ass performance by Russel.

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Prince of Darkness
Drek. Gross misuse of Victor Wong too. It's about some class field trip to a church containing evil in a can or something. The evil gets loose and pisses in people's mouths in order to possess them. Avoid at all costs.

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What do you know about good horror movie? Since you definately missed the boat on this one. Definately one of the most overlooked horror films ever, which deserves the praise it gets. I wonder why people dont get this one. Maybe its scientific approach to the god/devil thing, with quatum phisics talk, messages from the future and evil liquid. But it also has excellent, dreary and creepy atmosphere, awesome setting in the old church, and alot of great creapy moments. For me, its one of John's best and it works every time to creeping me out.

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They Live
Roddy Piper kicking ass (with no bubblegum at that!). Nada finds a special pair of sunglasses which reveal that Red Staters are actually aliens hellbent on enslaving humanity via subliminal messages.

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I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I am all out of bubblegum :)
Just a great movie. One of the longest and brutal fist fights in the history of film too.

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Memoirs of an Invisible Man
I don't remember much about this movie except that I enjoyed it when I was a kid. Apparently it's a comedy.

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It was decent comedy affair. But nothing great.

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Escape from LA
I didn't think it was possible to screw up the return of Snake. Well...they did. Lots of silly hijinks and social commentary. Snake has to locate something or some chick. This time it's in post apocalyptic LA. I wached it once, said "WTF?" and quickly wiped it from memory. I only remember the ending and how pissed off I was.

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It not as bad as many make it too be. Snake still bad ass, and it had variety of weird characters, but as the sequel it was somewhat dissapointing. Still the ending was one of the best ever. It takes a badass to to put world back into dark age :)

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Vampires
Good on paper and actually pretty damn cool for the first 15-20 minutes. Then it turns into a subpar straight to video flick. A Vampire hunting squad is targeted by Dracula. Hijinks ensue. It's still watchable but I can't believe Carpenter made this.

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Agree, what a wasted opportunity. I loved western feel, music was cool and it had great first half, and quite bad second. Especially betrayal revelation at the end. Plus alot of gore was cut by MPAA, to score R rating, and it really breaks the movie. James Woods was great as John (or was it Jack) Crow.

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Ghosts of Mars
A remake of Assault on Precint 13 set on Mars. Why? I have no idea. Did it suck? It sure did :(

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Well, At least it was better than Vampires. Gore was aplenty, and action was almost non stop. The story was lacking though, but as a throwback to good old mindless exploitation action flicks of the 80s it worked for me. Better than most pussied out films of nowdays that call themselves action flicks.


Ok, You missed a few: Village of the Dammed, In the Mouse of Madness and Star Man.

Out of 3, In the Mouse of Madness is the best one, which really works well with it Lovecraftian atmosphere and manner of storytelling, creepy setting, and dark, offbeat ending. You should check it out.

Star Man, was decent sci-fi flick, but I havent seen it since long time ago to remember much about it. I remember liking it though. I think it more simple and human film of his, where he deals with human emotions and relationships more than with action, or scares.

Village of the Dead was decent tale of Superman vs evil Alien children :) Well its a bit deeper than that, and not a bad movie. And evil alien kid uses dark jedi force on Luke Skywalker to shoot himself :) Revenge of the Sith right there.

I've heard nothing but good things about Starman. It's supposed to be similar to E.T.. On the other hand, I've heard nothing but bad things about Village of the Damned. As for Mouth of Madness, it's definitely on my list.

I'm sorry but I just couldn't get into Prince of Darkness. Carpenter is low budget by definition but in this one it's overbearing. I can usually deal with cheap but then they add a convoluted story. It's almost as if someone lent Carpenter use of a church for the weekend and he made an impromptu movie right there and then. I'll give it atmosphere (especially with the ending) but otherwise it's crap.

I'll watch any turd but when a turd bores me or insults my intelligence, it can go screw itself.

They Live is my favorite Carpenter film. I'm not a HUGE fan of Carpenter, but he's done some great stuff over the years, most notably the ones starring Kurt Russell, with the exception of Escape From L.A, which was terrible.

They Live, tho, manages to be both a terrible b-movie or lower and still manages to be classic quality in every sense. That fight between Piper and Keith David is probably the best bare knuckle, non-martial arts fight ever put on film. The premise of the movie is somehow both stupid and brilliant, so I guess it's just in the execution that things go so right, which is I guess what went so wrong with Escape From L.A. And Roddy Piper is no Kurt Russell in the acting department and yet he carried that film like a real star. Good stuff.

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Originally Posted by Scourge

They Live, tho, manages to be both a terrible b-movie or lower and still manages to be classic quality in every sense. That fight between Piper and Keith David is probably the best bare knuckle, non-martial arts fight ever put on film.

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Did you ever see the episode of South Park where Timmy and Jimmy get in a fight? It was a scene for scene tribute to They Live, they pulled that shit off perfectly. Anyway, They Live is a classic, definitely one of my favs from the 80's. I never knew he did Big Trouble in Little China though. That was another really great movie that never got the sequel it deserved.

Wow, great thread Revoltor. I was actually recently thinking of doing a Carpenter thread, actually. Too lazy, however.

Easily one of my favorite directors, and The Thing will forever be in my all-time top three. His 70's and 80's stuff is amazing, but later in his career I guess he lost his touch because his movies really started to blow. I'll comment of each of his movies (including a few you skipped, Revoltor):

Dark Star- Never saw it, looks pretty cheesy.

Assault on Precinct 13- Claimed by many to be one of Carpenter's best movies, I thought it sucked. I tracked down the DVD recently (it was a $10 2-for-1, packaged with some movie called Mindscape). It was slow, plodding, and fairly lame and cheesy. I really don't know how it got its rep. As it was described to me it sounded awesome, but in reality it's stuck on some weird middle ground between Blaxploitation and the 80's street gang stuff that Carpenter perfected in Escape from NY. Thumbs-down.

Halloween- like Revoltor I wasn't impressed upon viewing this the first time, but upon subsequent viewings I've come to realize just how brilliant this movie is, and how much all all slasher movies that followed owe to it. I'll always be a much bigger fan of Jason Voorhees and the Friday the 13th series as a whole, but there's no denying that Michael Myers was a horrifying creature under Carpenter's direction. The non-Carpenter sequels (he did write the 2nd movie, however, but it was mostly a re-hash) just made Michael lamer and lamer.

The part when Laurie has just discovered the bodies in the house and backs into a dark doorway, and suddenly The Shape's face slowly appears out of the darkness, is one of the best moments in a horror movie (and completely missed if you don't watch the movie in widescreen).

The Fog- Never saw it.

Escape from New York- Amazing. Kurt Russell and John Carpenter work so goddamn well together. This movie basically launched the whole 80's street gang movie thing. Carpenter did amazing things with his tiny budget, and this movie has such a gritty, bad-ass feeling and the plot, while simple (like most of Carpenter's scripts), was cool. Snake Plisken kicks ass, as does the rest of the cast. People just don't have personalty in action movies nowadays like they did back then. Yes, the film was slow in parts but I think that was just Carpenter trying to give it a lonely, 'you're on your own' feeling, and it worked.

The Thing- Carpenter's best movie, and one of his only that he didn't write or score. Brilliant cast, plot, pacing, and physical effects that completely hold up today (and look better and more realistic than CG). Best horror movie ever made, bar none.

Christine- Decent. Nothing that scary about a car, however.

Big Trouble in Little China- Fun, funny movie. Being a fan of HK kung-fu movies I'm not as impressed with the fight scenes as non-fans seem to be, but it's a very cool and original adventure movie. Yes, Jack Burton is the man.

Starman- You skipped this one, Revoltor. Pretty cool little sci-fi/action/romance pic. Pretty funny in parts too.

Prince of Darkness- Not amazing, but very underrated. Very creepy in parts, especially the broadcasts from the future. I had a hard time buying the mid-40's lead character as being a young college student, however.

They Live- Not that great. Has what I think is the longest fist fight I've ever seen in a movie. Piper actually wasn't bad.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man- Once again, very underrated. This was actually a pretty good movie, with some very creative and well done invisibility effects. However, I was surprised when I found out Carpenter actually directed it…doesn’t seem like his kind of movie. And Chevy Chase actually wasn't annoying for once. It's more of an adventure movie than a comedy, with Chase actually playing it fairly straight for the most part.

In the Mouth of Madness- Pretty cool, creepy movie and Sam Neill is great, as always. The final chapter of Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy" (that started with The Thing and continued with Prince of Darkness), movies that dealt with the end of the world.

Village of the Damned- Never saw it, but I heard it was "eh" at best.

Escape from LA- When Carpenter officially started to suck. The movie's budget dwarfed the original's but it looked like it cost half as much to make. Shameless plot-rehash (Carpenter said in an interview that people only want more of the same for sequels…explain why then that Aliens is the best sequel to a movie ever, John) and some of the worst CG you'll ever see in a movie. Where EFNY was gritty and realistic, EFLA was just cheesy as hell. The bad guy was The Duke of NY's bitch, and the supporting cast had nothing on Brain, Maggie and Cabbie. Bad.

Vampires- Sucked BIG-TIME.

Ghosts of Mars- His last movie to date, and not a moment too soon. I guess all Carpenter's talent went with old age. Almost worthless.

Dolemite, check out The Fog. There is special edition dvd of it, and it pretty cheap too. It is not fast paced, almost gore-less, and more of the simple ghost story, but the atmosphere, direction and musical score makes it an entertaining horror movie.

As for MA scenes in Big Trouble in Little China, dont forget it was US made martial arts film, without much involvment of HK talent, and it still hella entertaining and fun :)

Carpenter is also a composer for his films which is impressive.
In The Mouth of Madness is underappreciated--it's a very creepy Lovecraftian horror/thriller. The Thing is a classic. I really enjoy his action films like Big Trouble in Little China, Escape From New York and They Live--the comedy writing is hilarious. Starman is unlike anything he's done before or since--it is a great role for Jeff Bridges and it shits over similar movies like KPAX. Bridges plays an alien who assumes the likeness of a human. He's very child like and innocent. The widow of the human he looks like helps him learn about humanity as they are chased by government agents. It was popular enough to receive a short-lived TV spinoff. It's definitely very un-Carpenter like but very good.

Edit: I agree with Dole--Carpenter's last two films were ass though I sat through each one. Picture this--Ice Cube...ON MARS!!! James Woods as a bad ass VAMPIRE HUNTER and throw a Baldwin in there a s a sidekick.

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Originally Posted by Despair

Dolemite, check out The Fog. There is special edition dvd of it, and it pretty cheap too. It is not fast paced, almost gore-less, and more of the simple ghost story, but the atmosphere, direction and musical score makes it an entertaining horror movie.

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I'll get around to seeing it sooner or later.

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As for MA scenes in Big Trouble in Little China, dont forget it was US made martial arts film, without much involvment of HK talent, and it still hella entertaining and fun :)

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I know it was a U.S. made kung-fu movie, that's why I said that I wasn't as impressed with the martial arts as I was in HK flicks. The fighting was great by Hollywood standards, but it paled against the originator of the style, Hong Kong.

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Originally Posted by soundwave

Ice Cube...ON MARS!!!

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