Let's Talk John Carpenter

Despite their failings, I always return to Carpenter's self described 'apocalypse trilogy.' The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and At the Mouths of Madness. Not without their flaws, they tackle big themes in modest screen times. I'm such a nut for Prince of Darkness, while visiting the in-laws in LA, I went on a location pilgrimage to the church. It's a community arts center now, but man; I crawled all over it taking pictures. 27 years later, it looks almost identical.

The Thing is clearly his best film: tightly paced, well written, utterly eerie and yet still includes serious action and then has the wonderfully ambivalent ending. I love Escape from New York as kind of a king of B movies. There are so many good elements to it and I'll never forget William Gibson's admission that he drew on the memory of Van Cleef and Russell discussing their respective special forces' units (Texas Thunder and Black Flag) when he wrote Armitage's flashback to Operation Screaming Fist ("Omaha Thunder is down!") I certainly appreciate Halloween for the amazing work that was done on a shoestring budget, even though I'm not a fan of the genre it inspired at all.

While I don't actively dislike Little China, it's a pretty bad film, all things considered. If you can appreciate it just for the OTT wuxia elements, it works. I like They Live's message and performances, but MB is right in that it's a little thin otherwise. I'm another person who's fond of Prince of Darkness, even past its flaws. The rest of them? Meh. I think he was at the top of his game early on (Halloween, Escape from New York, The Thing) and kind of descended from there.

Again, I'm the only one who likes Ghost of Mars.

Sevej wrote: Again, I'm the only one who likes Ghost of Mars.

No, I mentioned upthread that I liked Ghost of Mars. It is isn't one of Carpenter's great movies, but it has a certain charm, as well as an unconventional setting.

Ah I see it now.

BTW, the Thing has always hold special place in my heart. Back then my (late) dad often asked me to accompany him to watch late night films. Back in the 80s we only had 1 TV station and the it only played western movies late night. One of the titles that we watched together was the Thing, and I think I was around 8 years old. He certainly had known the movie before because he gave me *that* smirk.

His taste had always been impeccable (being on the other side of the world), I remember we also watched the Shogun (James Clavell) series, a movie about missionary in the new world, and another missionary movie in a island full of people suffering leprosy.

The Vampire$ book is way better than the movie.....way, way better.

Space Ghost wrote: The Vampire$ book is way better than the movie.....way, way better.

It's been a long time since I saw the movie, and even longer since I read the book, but I found the movie fairly average, and didn't even recognize it as John Carpenter movie at the time. However, I also found the book disappointing. The original story is somewhat different, but had some really neat ideas for vampire-killing. The big one was the idea of knocking down the building containing the vamps in the middle of the day, then using a harpoon gun and cable to haul the vamps out into the sunlight to burn. But at some point in the book, all the coolness went out the windown as a big bad master vampire shows up and comes across like some unstoppable evil deity. I don't even remember how the book ended anymore, aside from the good guys winning a costly victory.