One of my favourite film directors...every film he made up to 1986 was pure genius (apart from Christine and Elvis) IMO.



Vote for your favourite and tell us what you think of the films of this undisputed genius....! :)

It's between 4/5 different films for me; but I want to see what people say before I'm swayed.....

So vote....NOW!

please.

It just has to be 'The Thing' for me. Far better than the original, although the two films are only loosely comparable anyway.

A lot of other great movies, esp. 'Dark Star' (still makes me laugh every time after countless viewings) and 'Assault On Precinct 13' (extremely gripping). I also enjoy 'Escape From New York' as well as the underrated 'They Live' and 'In The Mouth Of Madness' quite a lot.

'Halloween' and 'The Fog' aren't bad either, but I could never fully fathom their "classic" status.

Well someone disagrees...

The Thing for sure:

Short synopsis via quotes:

"Hey Sweden!"

"Its weird and pissed off whatever it is"

"Watch Clark, and Watch him Good"

"Quit that bickering over there!"

"The Generator's Gone, Mcready, Its Gone"

:lol:

One of my favourite movies



:applaud: :applaud:

'The Thing' is amazing.
His best films are the ones that take place over a short space of time and in a restricted area, 'Dark Star', 'Assault...', 'Halloween', 'The Thing'.

'Christine' was vastly under-rated by me, it seems.

The Fog - "Don't go into the Foggggggg", erm, ok then. Sorted.

Christine

:D

love Assault on Precinct 13 but for me The Thing is just faultless and I can watch it over and over again.

Another vote for The Thing, which really is very good indeed. It scores bonus points for having a downbeat ending.

I've only seen eight of them though.

And some great lines, my favourite being:

"I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH! "

i've only seen 2 of these :o

one of the best directors ever

can't decide.

toss up

Assault On Precinct 13
The Thing
Escape From New York
Big Trouble In Little China

love Dark Star too.

have nine of those films on DVD. German DVD of Assault has a good documentary on Carpenter.

Truly a film-lubbers director. :applaud:
For The Thing, Carpenter for once didn't do his own score, but they got Ennio Morricone do it - I don't know if this was Carpenter's choice or the studio's, but I'd like to think they enjoyed each other's work - Morricone's score is full of little tribute-moments to Carpenter's compositions.

I think i'll go for Escape from New York.

I'm voting for Precinct 13, but could have just as easily gone for Escape from NY or The Thing. Vampires, although nowhere near the level of the earlier films, made me laugh a lot.

The Thing for me, although a seriously impressive body of work all round. I remember The Fog being one of the first movies that really scared the crap out of me. Escape from New York is quality as well - Snake Plisskin has got to be one of the finest anti-heroes ever.

I was so certain this was going to be a video of Christine Hamilton, that I thought twice about clicking it. :lol:

I voted 'The Thing' in the end, watched it again last night. Perfect!

No votes for 'Starman', which I have a particular soft spot for. Not a "great" film, or anywhere near his best, but taken on it's own terms it's a beautiful film, I think...and Jeff Bridges with Karen Allen...and the music! :wub:

Precinct 13...faultless.

"Got a smoke?"

It is indeed great, and one of the few films I expect where you see a kid getting blown away.

Yeah and the blown away kid withe ice cream looked familiar, like off some family sitcom or something. There is one known videogame where you can occasionally shoot children from a distance (and no its not GTA or owt, and the UK version of the game removes that option).
Ever noticed violent videogames dont have kids in them? If youre sick enough to want to know the game's name in which you can shoot them, just PM me ;)
But anyways the start of Cronenburg's FUCKING AWESOME/CREEPY (my description of all his films, prove me wrong) "THE HISTORY OF VIOLENCE" has a girl being shot off camera by a psycho at the start. Very disturbing to watch...
Just reporting that cos I can.

ANYWAYS

John Carpenter films. SO appropriate to a FALL site. (Not sarcasm).
Self made non-compromising artist yet has a strong following. Early product raw. Has own artistic auteur stamp over whole product. Not HUGE success in his domain but respected and welcomed by distributors of choice.

Anyways, I voted "Christine". Lovely subversion of geek/teen/revenge/supernatural/romance movie. Gets better each time you see it.
CRUNCH CRASH CRUNCH

"They Live" is a great little film- an anti consumerist satire in the form of an sf thriller. I voted for "The Thing" though. One of the first wave of films I remember watching on video that really used the emerging new generation of special effects to grisly effect.

It's interesting that after 'They Live' (probably his last truly great film) he didn't make another film for 4 years, and after that the quality drops.
I wonder why he stopped for so long after making a film virtually ever year upto that point.

I think he's got a couple of films in the works now....have to check though...

'Halloween' is a great film too! I saw an interview with Carpenter by Mark Kermode :sick: where Kermode said that Lynch was inspired by Halloween...BS, surely, but I do love the way he films that suburban street in Halloween, and the music is brilliant as usual....

I can't watch Halloween, scares the shit out of me.

But its got Jamie Lee Curtis in it

Christine is my pick 4 today but as I change my mind fairly regularly it could be Precinct 13 next week.

And I've not seen all the movies on the list, obviously I need to see The Thing as alot of you have given it the thumbs up :thumbsup:

Watch it Lusts, it's brilliant. I'm not really a horror fan but this works on so many levels.

A taster

Intro

By the way the sound track is cool too.

Poor Doggie

Thanx for that Snowey,
I would get it out on dvd tonight as its half price Tuesday at the vid shop but I made Fred spend his last $10 on some booze 4 me :rolleyes: So its now no cash Tuesday here, so I'll have ta wait :)

Oooh err. Good poll. Loved Precinct 13 when it came out but seeing it recently, it seems a bit cheesey. Gotta put a bid in for Prince of Darkness because it's about the only horror film that's got close to scaring me (does need real cinema though).

It's official...Christine is the 2nd best JC film ever... :angry:

:lol:

It's as good a place to say it than anywhere else but I hate Kurt Russell. I think he ruins most films he is in. Don't really rate Escape From New York because of it, but I do love him in The Thing, he's perfect for that role and puts in the performance of his life I think.

It's still the film that scares me the most, for some reason (maybe not as much as Ring)...but when I told this to my mate at school, he watched it and said it was the funniest film he'd ever seen... :huh:

He now lives in Alabama, funnily enough........

God, I'm so so sorry BuyK, I feel partly responsible :lol:

:lol:

No, I think I underrated it...I've only seen it once and that was years ago, I'll have to watch it again.... :ohdear:

This is one director that needs a box set. I would buy it for sure.

Halloween is my favourite horror film of all time and one of my favourite films full stop.

Yeah, it's one of my favourite films too. Best performance William Shatner ever gave! :lol:

wheres the shrug?

:confused:

Think I'll be watching Asault on Precinct 13 this afternoon after getting it through Love Film. I look forward to it.

I just found the two sources which, according to wiki, inspired They Live.

The very short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson can be read here.

And the short comic, "Nada", which is basically almost a word for word adaptation of the above story (from Alien Encounters #6 April 1986) is below:

John Carpenter's next film is currently in post-production. Finally! His first film since 2001's Ghost of Mars.
It's called The Ward, and you can see a short film of the production here: The Ward: Before the Cameras Roll.



Hopefully, it'll be out some time next year. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: