Christine is good as well.

He does his own music in his films most of the time.

Carpenter is not crap.

carpenter scores: not crap! amazing, simple, stark, powerful.
carpenter movies: charming, sometimes kinda awesome, but i think i may have vote crap here. his movies are like an 11 year old boy's movies, with the attendant concepts, plot holes etc. that's kinda charming, kinda stupid. but he does know how to create atmosphere. how? see top.

Not crap. I finally got to see "Dark Star" a while back and it was so much fun. Especially that inflatable-looking alien thing. I own "Prince of Darkness" and think it's pretty great. Alice Cooper as a zombie=good. Note: I voted for "Ghosts of Mars" thinking it was "Dark Star" (couldn't remember the name of his first film and guessed it was "Ghost"). Google set me straight after mistakenly casting my vote. Sorry.

nihil wrote:

Ty Webb wrote:Not one mention of Big Trouble in Little China!

John Carpenter seems to bring out the best in Kurt Russell.

That alone should get a NOT CRAP.

"Are you crazy? Is that your problem?"

And let's not forget Escape from New York. Carpenter is singlehandedly responsible for making me a Kurt Russell fan.

Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Thing and Starman are excellent.

Escape From New York, Escape From L.A., Big Trouble in Little China and They Live fun for their camp value.

Everything else is disposable crap with the exception of his scores which are not crap with no exception I can think of.

Not Crap overall but it has been a downward spiral for a while. What was his last work, episodes of Masters of Horror?

toomanyhelicopters wrote:i guess i'm lucky in that when i think of john carpenter, i think of escape from new york and big trouble in little china. i guess i don't even know what he's done since then. maybe i'm lucky.

You are. But you gotta see The Thing. One of his best. Still, that was '82 so point still stands: his crap outweighs his non-crap. I love Big Trouble In Little China, but for a rainy saturday afternoon movie on TBS kinda thing.

CRAP.

God, I saw Ghosts of Mars the other day, that was a bit too much.

The Thing is rad.
Halloween is rad.

They Live is a masterpiece. The fistfight scene goes on for way too long... so perfect.

Some friends of mine wrote a song inspired by Ghosts of Mars.

NOT CRAP

not crap. I love DARK STAR. "these men don't want a happy ship" - so good !