John Carpenter once told an interviewer, "If I had three wishes, one of them would be 'Send me back to the 1940's and the studio system and let me direct movies. Because I would have been happiest there. I have much more of a kinship for older-style films, and very few films that are made now interest me at all."
His directing debut, Dark Star (1974), was a tribute to the sci-fi movies he grew up with and which inspired him, such as Buck Rogers and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was a satire about four bored astronauts with a mission to destroy unstable planets. It had a budget of $60,000 and was a promising start for Carpenter.
In 1976 he made Assault on Precinct 13, whose premise was the siege of a nearly deserted L.A. police station by a youth gang. It remains an extremely well regarded suspense film. Of course, the one movie we will always associate Carpenter with is Halloween, the definitive slasher film of modern times. Besides directing it, he also composed the effective music, as he had done two years before with Precinct 13.
The same year, he co-wrote The Eyes of Laura Mars, an exciting, glossy thriller starring Faye Dunaway.
While he didn't direct Halloween II, he produced it, and it was a very good follow-up to the first one. Rumor has it that he went in after the filming, and shot some gore footage over the objections of the director, Rick Rosenthal. The anticipation for the mediocre John Carpenter's Vampires, shows that this talented director has a built-in audience. Hopefully, he'll find more vehicles in the future which are worthy of him and which showcase his creativity.
| NOTABLE CARPENTER FILMS
|
YEAR |
| Assault on Precinct 13 |
1976 |
| Escape from New York |
1981 |
| Christine |
1983 |
| The Fog |
1980 |
| Halloween |
1978 |
| Someone's Watching Me! |
1978 |
| The Thing |
1982 |
