The Horror Addiction: John Carpenter

JOHN CARPENTER

John Carpenter, much like George A. Romero, is a genre director influenced by the generation that claimed him - the peace generation. These two hippies, however, decided to make nasty, effective films that were as well-crafted as they were easy to like.
There are two things that mark John Carpenter out as an essential figure in later 20th Century cinema in general: one is his huge influence on his own films, often writing, co-producing, directing, editing and scoring his own films and the other is his apparently effortless movement from one genre to another. Both "Assault on Precinct 13" and "Escape from New York" are action movies influenced by westerns, but "Escape..." managed to throw sci-fi and a little horror in the the mix, for the audiences' huge benefit. "The Thing" was a dark, sci-fi nightmare that remains powerful to this day."Halloween" was a simplistic and purely horrific film, stripping the genre down to it's barest minimum. "They Live" was a cinematic party, with it's fun, sci-fi action adventure making it's satirical message all the more entertaining.With "Christine", Carpenter managed to make a film about a sentient and evil car that liked to kill into something that was at least emotionally effecting, which is a pretty astounding feat. With "Big Trouble in Little China" he made his most bizarre film - a very funny cross-genre masterpiece.

John Carpenter with his trademark lung-cancer.

or seems to have given Carpenter a bit of a kick in the ass. Over the last few years what I heard about Carpenter was that he was happy to sit at home, smoke dope, watch basketball and play video games. Maybe getting back behind the camera for a project that actually got seen and was received well put the salt back in his shaker.

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