I can't think of another person in any field who has gone so swiftly and so spectacularly from being great to total cowshit. I have to give him a N/C, but boy, he lost it somewhere down the line.

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.

In The Mouth Of Madness was pretty good, and was likely the last good thing he did. NOT CRAP, but with a moderate waffle factor for all the utter crap he's turned out lately. But he did a lot of great, great stuff.

Princo of Darkness is highly underrated.

Haven't seen anything since Village of the Damned (which sucked), though I also thought In the Mouth of Madness was good.

let's not forget the greatness of the THING, people. NC!

Totally not crap. Probably the most underrated American filmmaker to come out of the 70's.

I think his last few films have been pretty decent. His obsession with Howard Hawks has lead him to reexamining his themes in a Hawksian way, ie "Ghosts of Mars" is Carpenter's "Rio Bravo".

Remember that part in "The Thing" when Kurt Russel was putting the hot piece of wire into the containers of blood? That was awesome.

tallchris wrote:Totally not crap. Probably the most underrated American filmmaker to come out of the 70's.

I think his last few films have been pretty decent. His obsession with Howard Hawks has lead him to reexamining his themes in a Hawksian way, ie "Ghosts of Mars" is Carpenter's "Rio Bravo".

Remember that part in "The Thing" when Kurt Russel was putting the hot piece of wire into the containers of blood? That was awesome.

Um...I think 'Assault On Precinct 13' would probably be his 'Rio Bravo', dude. 'Ghosts Of Mars' would be his....lord, I don't know what it could possibly be. His worst movie?

Dark Star, The Thing, The Fog, Escape From New York, Precinct 13, They Live, Halloween....low budget, atmosphere-loaded gems. Some of them are classics, I think. But his recent films....low budget stinkers. He lost it, and badly. I don't know what happened to him.

Did he have kids and mellow out or something?

"the fog" is a cool ghost film, but not quite poltergeist.

"the thing" is a modern masterpiece.

"they live" is a great film despite it's shoddy acting and weak script. if there was ever a film that got by on just a cool idea alone, this would be it.

run joe, run wrote:
Um...I think 'Assault On Precinct 13' would probably be his 'Rio Bravo', dude. 'Ghosts Of Mars' would be his....lord, I don't know what it could possibly be. His worst movie?

"Assault" is Carpenter's pretty liberal stealing of "Rio Bravo," but "Ghosts of Mars" has the same place in his cannon that "Rio Bravo" had in Hawks'.

There's a great article on Carpenter that Kent Jones wrote for Film Comment a few years ago that I wish I had lying around that makes a good case for his later films.

Carpenter Crap/Not Crap?

You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me"