The JOHN CARPENTER THREAD

[Gothicvamp1888]

obviously Halloween is JC best movie IMO with Christine being a close second (im a stephen king fan) but i love all JC movies he is an amazing director.

[Baseball Fury]

Anyone picked up the new Fangoria? There's a decent piece about Carpenter, and fantastic retrospective of Christine and a review (of sorts) of Don't Go In There, his pre-Halloween TV movie. Well worth picking up if you're a fan

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Watched Ghosts of Mars last night.

An underrated film in my eyes. Never a Carpenter classic but very entertaining, always good to see a Carpenter western.

The film is essentially Rio Bravo and 3:10 to Yuma, on Mars.

Also a great cast - Henstridge, Ice Cube, Statham, Grier. Never get fed up of watching this.

[wayfarer]

I liked Ghosts of Mars. Carpenter put a lot into this film and it shows. It's a pity that his hard work wasn't rewarded and it put him off feature films until recently.
It's a low budget movie that has lofty ambitions. The cast is good enough and the effects are fine. I still reckon it gave Joss Whedon ideas for the Reavers, in Firefly and Serenity.

[BioZombie]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

I liked Ghosts of Mars. Carpenter put a lot into this film and it shows. It's a pity that his hard work wasn't rewarded and it put him off feature films until recently.
It's a low budget movie that has lofty ambitions. The cast is good enough and the effects are fine. I still reckon it gave Joss Whedon ideas for the Reavers, in Firefly and Serenity.

I dont know why, but I just cant get on with Ghosts Of Mars. I own it as part of my John Carpenter collection and have tried to watch it a few times, but have always turned it off about a third of the way in (one of the reasons may be I always start it late at night and get tired).

I really should give it a proper chance some day.

[Jani]

Ghosts of Mars is just plain bad,I'm never gonna watch it again.Even the big fight scene at the end is just choreographed to death.There was one funny thumb cutting scene,although I don't know what it had to do with the rest of the movie.There's enough JC classics out there though to make him one of the greatest,let's give attention to the ones that deserve it.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Jani

Ghosts of Mars is just plain bad,I'm never gonna watch it again.Even the big fight scene at the end is just choreographed to death.There was one funny thumb cutting scene,although I don't know what it had to do with the rest of the movie.There's enough JC classics out there though to make him one of the greatest,let's give attention to the ones that deserve it.

Thats boring, everybody knows everything there is to know about Halloween, The Thing etc.

We should be giving a leg up to his lesser movies like Ghosts, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, In the Mouth of Madness, even Escape from LA if anyone can find anything good to say.

[Jani]

Dig 'em all you like.But I'll say this: JC's Masters of Horror episode 'Cigarette Burns' was the best he's made since Prince of Darkness.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Jani

Dig 'em all you like.But I'll say this: JC's Masters of Horror episode 'Cigarette Burns' was the best he's made since Prince of Darkness.

Yes that was good.

[Beyond72]

I love the early stuff from Assault on Precinct 13 up to Christine, He had a unique style then, with his use of cinematography and scores, which gave his work a brooding atmosphere all of it's own.