You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
I figured i'd just make an an in-general Carpenter thread.
I recently watched "Big Trouble In Little China" (1986) for the first time in years.
My first thought after finishing was... what in the fuck did I just watch? The movie is over the top, self-indulgent, and beyond incoherent. Kurt Russell's John Wayne-impression performance throughout the movie is classic, for all the wrong reasons. I guess that's cool.
Memorable line of it all...
When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail." - Jack Burton
- Gunslinger
- Rep: 88
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
That was an odd one to say the least!
One of my favorite John Carpenter movies is 1988's "They Live". Carpenter quite successfully makes his point about how "THEY" influence our decisions, attitudes and the way we live. Of course he is making the point that the real "THEY" is the media. How true this is. Many Americans have become nothing more than cattle and the media has taken full advantage of this.
The Thing (1982) and The Fog (1980) round out the rest of my top 4 favorite Carpenter movies...Halloween always being #1!
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
I really like all of the man's films. I feel so many are drastically underrated.
I think The Fog however... is actually overrated. That film (despite the Tom Atkins-factor, lol) just never wows me. It's a fair film.
It's been years since i've seen Carpenter's TV movies, so I can't comment.
Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)
--- Way underrated film. Like it an action film, told with a horror movie sensability. A true classic.
Halloween (1978)
--- 'Nuff said. His best.
The Fog (1980)
--- A fair film, and I agree with Carpenter. It just isn't amazing. A cool film, but something i'd pass on, in favor of some of his more underappreciated titles.
Escape From New York (1981)
--- Legendary. Almost right up there with Halloween. A true classic. The ensemble cast is amazing.
The Thing (1982)
--- Masterpiece. It's real tough to edge out The Thing in favor of Halloween, but the ONLY reason I do, is Halloween is an original, and The Thing is (sort of) a remake. The ensemble cast is amazing, and this is DEFINITELY Kurt Russell's finest work, of his entire career imo.
Christine (1983)
--- Another one like The Fog. Not great, not awful, just kind of there. The film takes FAR too long to get going, and by the time it does, you've become bored. I do have to make one statement.... Alexandra Paul is fucking gorgeous. What ever possessed her to cut off her hair (Baywatch) perplexes me. She's stunning.
Starman (1984)
--- Another film that I guess missed me. I'm normally a Jeff Bridges fan, and he did do a great job, but the film never wowed me either. It's not a John Carpenter film. This is something Steven Spielberg would do (whom I believe was attached at one point). Karen Allen also is weak. She's never been lead-material, which amazes me that she got the work she got back in the day. It's once again, not an awful film, but it just never pulls me in. Maybe you gotta be a chick, I dunno.
Big Trouble In Little China (1986)
--- Just bizarre. One of Kurt Russell's more memorable roles, for all the wrong reasons. The supporting cast is great, but the film seems like a clusterfuck. It never knows what it wants to be - a comedy / a drama / an action film / an adventure / fantasy / sci-fi... what? The film obvious appeals on a 'cult' level. I like it in that way... but probably the same way I like films like Howling II or The Big Lebowski.
Prince of Darkness (1987)
--- A true underrated & underappreciated gem from Carpenter's career. I LOVE THIS FILM. Great atmosphere, great story, great music, just... great. Donald Pleasence, Jameson Parker & Victor Wong are great, and majorly make up for the weak supporting cast. Alice Cooper is great, and never says one line. A creepy film too. I hadn't been this creeped out, since The Thing. Very good film.
Even though i've seen Carpenter's other films, i'll wait, rewatch them, and drop some comments on them later.
- Gunslinger
- Rep: 88
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
Christine (1983)
--- Another one like The Fog. Not great, not awful, just kind of there. The film takes FAR too long to get going, and by the time it does, you've become bored. I do have to make one statement.... Alexandra Paul is fucking gorgeous. What ever possessed her to cut off her hair (Baywatch) perplexes me. She's stunning.
I actually liked Christine, can't believe I forgot to mention that one!!
I have to agree with you that Prince of Darkness was another underrated movie, very good! Carpenter's "Cigarette Burns" he did for the Masters of Horror is really good as well.
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
I consider Carpenter overrated, although he does have some classics. My favorites being They Live and The Thing. Both films getting remakes in 2009. The Fog is pure shit. The Fog remake was even worse and that should have been impossible. Escape from New York is pretty damn good, and I also like Escape from L.A.
Yeah, Christine was definitely one of the best Stephen King films. I consider Carpenter's opus 'Halloween' to be WAY overrated, and not just because I believe Bob Clark's side of that story.
Carpenter definitely had the 2nd best entry in the Masters of Horror series. I wasn't expecting much and was surprisingly pleased.
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
Everything Carpenter did up to They Live is passable at least. Everything since is quite turgid, with the possible exception of In the Mouth of Madness, which, even while struggling to be on par with his lesser 80's works, is still head and shoulders above the rest. Which is quite, when you think about it.
Never understood the gloating Masters of Horror: Cigarette Burns gets, as I found nothing beyond the non-sensical plotting and cringe-worthy performances. Even the shooting was uninspired; the elevator scene was the one single instance where I was reminded of the good old Dean Cundey way of framing, the Carpenter standard in the old days. The ending? Please. Never show the McGuffin, particularly if it's a 'haunted' film. Udo Kier was somewhat fun, but when the final line is uttered ('thank you... for this'), I was already shaking my head in disbelief. Formalistically, Cigarette Burns itself might pass for a haunted film. It certainly worked for me in that regard.
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
I certaintly don't want to take anything away from "Halloween". That film is not overrated. It deserves all the credit in the world.
I also don't believe the late Bob Clark fully either. I think he might've joked about it before Halloween's production, I guess after Black Christmas, but it's pretty much been confirmed by anyone that worked on Halloween, that originally it was just going to be a basic film financed by Moustapha Akkad, on a script by Debra Hill, directed by Carpenter, called "The Babysitter Murders". When Irwin Yablans was brought in for financing, he felt he needed a gimmick to appeal to more audiences, and suggested centering the film around the holiday of Halloween, and call the film "Halloween". Then Carpenter went in and contributed basically the Loomis character to the film and all of the holiday themes in the script, and thus the reason the final product was credited Written By: John Carpenter & Debra Hill.
I tend to believe that, other than "John Carpenter robbed my idea, and two years later made it into a film", considering the script was finished, and the film was greenlit, as "The Babysitter Murders".
As for Carpenter's "Masters of Horror" work, I need to check it out. "They Live" is a classic, and I remember "In The Mouth of Madness" being vastly underrated.
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
They Live (1988)
--- Not as good as I remember, but still a cult classic. The fight scene alone in the alley way, is enough to get me pumped for what i'm watching. Just a crazy fight. "Not this year..." / "Put on the fuckin' glasses!" / "You dirty mother fucker!". Not to mention other classic lines, like "I came here to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and i'm all out of bubble gum" / "Life is a bitch... and it's in heat!" With all of the one liners, it's hard not to think that Kurt Russell wasn't in mind when it was being written. The lines are very much like Snake Plissken or Jack Burton. However I think They Live's biggest trip and fall is the WEAK final act of the film. The setup for the first part of the film and second act is fantastic. Great, classic Carpenter, atmosphere. But the end is a big letdown. Everyone basically dies in a very weak way, Meg Foster was EXTREMELY predictable as a bad guy, you knew it, so why shoot the black guy so suddenly, when he was a hero, you were rooting for? You knew it would happen, and it came across as just like "let's wrap this puppy up" in the script. Where did the bum go? What's up with the Andromeda space stuff? So destroying their transmitters make them visable... umm okay. So why not just get a bazooka and shoot the mother fucker from ground level? And no one dies? The ending also was a bit crude for a film ender. Funny, yes, but in hind sight, it totally takes you out of the moment. Here we have all this action, both our heroes just died, and shit is blowing up everywhere, and then we go to a sex scene, and the chick riding the alien, and we play it for laughs? It just didn't work for me.
The film felt like they just lost interest 2/3 of the way through. Still a cult classic, but certaintly not an Oscar-winner by any means. I would take Big Trouble In Little China over it.
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
Village of the Damned (1995)
--- Whew... this one was worse than I remember. Quite possibly Carpenter's worst film. It really tells that tale of Carpenter's 90's efforts, with maybe "In The Mouth of Madness" being the only exception. Damned is just a piss poor effort from beginning to end. I can't believe some on IMDB.com (yes, I know, a garbage can), believe this film is on the level of The Thing, with Carpenter remakes. I'm not a big scholar on the original Damned, but Carpenter's film by itself is WEAK. I mean really weak. It makes some of his weaker 80's efforts like "Big Trouble In Little China" & "They Live", look like "Halloween" & "The Thing". Maybe Damned '95 would've been a bit more benefitted having come out in 1985, rather than 1995, it MIGHT have seemed a bit better. Carpenter's atmosphere, although in his traditional sense, just never leaves you with that very atmospheric, creepy feel, his more classic films have. Even though Carpenter only produced "Halloween III", the northern California scenary and electronic synth music at times harkens a bit back to that film, but H3 looks like a legendary masterpiece in comparison. Damned never feels creepy or exciting once, the script is horrible, the character development is not there, and you don't feel or root for anyone. The music is even among Carpenter's weakest too.
Carpenter's ensemble casts in the past have allowed for great chemistry and great performances, such as the casts of Assault On Precinct 13, Halloween I & II, Escape from N.Y., The Thing, and heck even Big Trouble In Little China to an extent, even if it was pure camp. But Damned suffers from the same problem in my opinion that The Fog does. On paper, a great cast, on screen, a horrible cast, where lines are delievered wooden and unconvincing, and it's just a real chore to watch. The sets are beyond cheap, as are the 'kills' that are overly predictable and not scary, and the film looks like a low-budget made-for-cable film for the mid-80's, rather than a big-budget Universal film for theaters in the mid-90's. Nothing would save this film, BUT, one would have to imagine where a stronger cast would take it. Some of the most horrible scripts, have been managed to be saved. Maybe Jameson Parker ("Prince of Darkness") for Reeve's role, Jamie Lee Curtis for Kirstie Alley's role... "Mrs. Crocodile Dundee" Linda Kozlowski is probably the only salvageable actress.
And really another issue that crops up is the lack of character development. The film drags out in places where it shouldn't (the kids), and rushes through the stuff it shouldn't (the adults). What is the story behind Michael Pare/Kozlawski's characters pregnancy? Why is Meredith Salenger's character suicidal? What's the background on Mark Hamill's priest? What is Reeve's background on "the project"? Was he partners or lovers with Kirstie Alley's character? What is "the project"?
These are all details that should've been throughly explained, with the kids remaining a mystery, to keep it creepier. Instead, the kids existence was practically explained in detail, yet none of the background on the adults (the far more interesting people) was never explained. I wanted to feel truely sorry for Meredith Salenger's character, but it was never explained to me WHY I should.
I could go, but you could really pick this film apart frame-by-frame. A truely poor film.
At this point in his career, Carpenter should've started accepting all those offers for sequels. It's really all he had left in the tank. Escape from L.A., he took, and yes it was a retread of N.Y., but it was still a cool film. If I remember correctly, Carpenter was offered at this time, BOTH a prequel & sequel to "The Thing", and turned them down. He was also offered "Halloween 6", but because they didn't like his 'Michael in Space' concept, they turned him down, and he flat turned down "Halloween H2O", citing everything from lack of interest to no-Donald Pleasence.
I think he screwed up.
Re: The Films of John Carpenter
In The Mouth of Madness (1995)
--- Not as great as I remembered, but still not bad. Not counting Escape From L.A., Madness is certaintly Carpenter's best of the 90's. Story is H.P. Lovecraft-inspired (which is always a good thing), the script is pretty intriguing and well-written, and Carpenter sets a good mood and direction. The look seems to be Carpenter's most-modern in years. Even by the end of the 80's, Carpenter was still looking a bit 70's, and seeming to not catch up with changes in cinematography... cameras, lighting, angles, etc. I certaintly don't think In The Mouth of Madness is going to give any of Carpenter's classics a run for their money, but it's certaintly an overlooked gem in his catalog, and still lightyears better than most of the trash from the 90's in horror. Sam Neill is a great lead also, and very interesting to watch.
My main complaint however is the weak soundtrack. Sure Carpenter's very heavy-metal opening & closing is a pretty good riff, and I really liked it, the rest of the score is half-assed. The reason I pick on Carpenter's score, is because he's so good at it, and some of his scores are more classic than the films themselves. His electronic synth, along with some of Alan Howarth's work, are among my favorite instrumental music, and alot of it led to me being a Buckethead fan, alot of his guitar work, seems to be influenced by some of that synth work, every electronic/progressive sounding. ANYWAYS, this is just a "phone it in" soundtrack by Carpenter. I know he collaborated with another artist, but still, I listened closely to the soundtrack, and even though Carpenter has had recurring themes in his movies, none were ever unoriginal complete lifts. I heard several cues through the film that were complete lifts of music from his scores of "Halloween II" and "Prince of Darkness" specifically. Far better score than "Village of the Damned", but still a bit of the letdown after such a great metal opening theme.
