1979 - ELVIS, made for TV film on the life of Elvis Presley is really long

Probably not a lot of people know that John Carpenter's followup to his slasher film Halloween was this made for television film on the life of Elvis Presley.  Carpenter might have seemed like an odd choice for a film like this but he was a musician and had grown up in the South.  This was also Carpenter's first collaboration with Kurt Russell who was transitioning out of those Disney kid movies and into more mature film roles.

The cast for this film is interesting. Shelly Winters in all her hammy glory has the role Elvis's mother Gladys.  Bing Russell a character actor mostly in westerns and the father of Kurt plays the father.  Season Hubley is Priscilla Presley.  Hubley and Russell must have clicked because in real life they got married, well for a while anyway.  Also another favorite character actor Pat Hingle shows up as the legendary Col. Tom Parker.

 

This version of Presley's life was one of the most popular films on network TV.  It beat out showings of Gone With The Wind and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on the other networks much to the surprise of everyone.  As a film this was a very respectful tribute to Elvis and left out the more troubling aspects of his life, i.e. his drug use.  The first half of the film is best with Carpenter doing a good job moving the story along.  However Carpenter seemed to lose interest in the second half of the movie.  He appears to be going through the motions to get to the end of the story Elvis's comeback in Las Vegas.  At the time Elvis was called the ultimate Vegas lounge act by the critics.  Even for John Carpenter who worked with tight budgets early in his career, this film must have been an intense production.  He had 30 days to shot what was essentially a three hour film a major challenge for any filmmaker

 

This was an important film for Kurt Russell it gave cred as a film star.  He moved into more adult roles and working with Carpenter again in films like Escape From New York and The Thing toughened him up in the eyes of movie going public.  Elvis isn't really a great film but it does have some decent scenes and Kurt Russell certainly doesn't embarrass himself in the title role.

The film was written by the producer Anthony Lawrence, the running time is a mind bending 168 minutes.

1983 - CHRISTINE, the possessed car horror film

Christine is an adaption of Stephen King's story of a classic car owned by a high school student which just happens to be possessed by an evil spirit or something.  The film is yet another variation of King's favorite theme possessed stuff.  In King's world, houses are possessed, dead pets are possessed, husbands are possessed, clowns are possessed etc.  John Carpenter was approached to direct this film and apparently it was just a job of work for him.  Not that he didn't bring his usual skill to the story but it sure seems like he didn't have much interest in it.

For a horror film nothing really happens for about an hour.  The viewer sits through a lot of plot about a nerd high school kid played by future director Keith Gordon who restores the possessed vintage  57 Plymouth.  The car then decides to go out on it's own to kill the mean high school shop boys who have been harassing him.   The nerd kid improbably gains confidence and starts dating the hot transfer student played by Alexandra Paul.  Alexandra Paul made a few movies but she is primarily remembered for running down a beach in a swimsuit in the TV series Baywatch.   I suppose it needs to be said that the mean high school shop boys don't exactly look like boys in this film, I would say they were probably pushing their early twenties.  Hollywood just can't get that high school age thing right in these teenager movies.

 

John Carpenter staged a few decent car kills particularity one where the car is on fire and chases one of the bad kids.  However the climax where a bulldozer battles Christine is anticlimactic.  It's just a scene where a bulldozer drives over the car for about ten minutes.

 

When you stop and think about it the premise of this film is a little lame.  It you want to make a film about the horrors of high school, just the basic situation of kids getting picked on by bullies should be enough to build a story around.   You don't need an evil vintage car to drive the point home.

The film was written by Bill Phillips, the running time is 110 minutes.

1981 - ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, Carpenter's cult classic

Recently saw this as a revival in one of those upscale theaters that serves booze and delivers pizza to your seat as you watch the film. The digital copy looked fairly decent and it was sort of a relief not to have the film bathed in pink on an old 35 mm print when I saw this film a couple of years ago.

It always appeared to me that John Carpenter was trying to make a "B" movie action type of picture when this first came out.  As I recall a lot of the critics weren't very impressed with the film.  What were they expecting Wild Strawberries?

The film played fairly well, some of it was a little dated particularly the screenplay which chose 1997 as the date that the United States sealed off New York City and turned it into a maximum security prison.  Carpenter had worked with Kurt Russell before and choose him to play Snake Plissken an ex special forces guy.  Russell kind of channels him as a variation of Clint Eastwood for better or worse.

 

Carpenter also put together an entertaining cast starting with Donald Pleasance, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Isaac Hayes, Lee Van Cleef and Adrienne Barbeau as the big breasted girl. In keeping with the tone of the film it's a cast straight out of a "B" movie.  Carpenter's direction is good, he was in his prime as a film director.  He and his associate Alan Howarth created the effective pulse pounding score.

The cinematographer  Dean Cundy had been working with Carpenter since Halloween and he went on to an impressive career working on films like Jurassic Park, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Carpenter's The Thing.  Escape From New York still entertains because it never pretended to be more that what it was an entertaining summer action film.

The film was written by John Carpenter and Nick Castle, the running time is 99 minutes.

1980 - THE FOG, John Capenter's follow up to Halloween.

Carpenter's next film after Halloween.  The intention was apparently to make a classic ghost story.  Working with a small budget but a much larger cast, Carpenter didn't quite pull it off. Carpenter used all of his old tricks from Halloween. There are jump cuts, the usual tracking camera shots and lots of creative ways to kill people.

The cast is almost a John Carpenter stock company.  Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins, Charles Cyphers and Janet Leigh (Jamie Lee Curtis's mother).  The film has lots of little in jokes as well.  One character is named Dan O'Bannon after the writer of Carpenter's first film Dark Star.  Another character is called Tommy Wallace who was the editor of The Fog and finally there is Carpenter himself in a small role at the beginning of the film.

 

I'm not sure what happened with this film. Certainly all the ingredients were there for a successful horror film but for some reason they just don't come together.  Perhaps the jumping between characters negated the film's suspense and horror moments.  Not even having Jamie Lee Curtis back helped much.  Adding gratuitous violence didn't do much for the film either.

The Fog made money since it was advertised as "from the director of Halloween," but this film is no Halloween.

The film was written by John Carpenter and Deborah Hill, the running time is 90 minutes.

1994 - IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, disappointing John Carpenter film

A private investigator played by Sam Neill is searching for a reclusive horror story writer who is supposed to be based on H.P. Lovecraft a writer from the 1930's but could just as easily be horror novelist Steven King.  As Neill delves into the whereabouts of the writer,  Sutter Cane played by creepy German actor Jurgen Prochnow.  Neill begins to suspect that his stories are actually becoming true.

This is a decent enough premise but unfortunately the execution of the idea is kind of a muddled mess.  The story confusingly jumps around with frenzied editing tricks, jump scares and yucky monsters that are reminiscent of Carpenter's The Thing which was a much better film.  

 

If I step back and objectively think about this film, Carpenter's direction is actually pretty good.  He stages the scenes well and the actors all give fairly decent performances.  The problem is the mess of a screenplay by the writer Michael De Luca who was also the executive producer.  De Luca was also responsible for the horrible Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone which is not to be confused with the good Judge Dredd film simply called Dredd.  

 

Unfortunately towards the end of his career, Carpenter struggled with finding stories that appealed to the film going audience. The running time is 95 minutes.

1996 - ESCAPE FROM L.A. - the sequel to Escape from New York

This film was a big payday for the star Kurt Russell and the director John Carpenter.  Paramount paid out the big bucks for Russell to repeat his Snake Plissken character and for Carpenter to basically revisit his previous film.  The results were rather unspectacular.

 

This time Plissken is dropped into Los Angeles which is now a penal colony controlled by a fascist police force and a crazed president played by Cliff Robinson.  Plissken has to recover a device that will shut down the entire infrastructure of the world.  Escape from L.A. is basically a rehash of Escape from New York without some of the the cleverness and creative invention of the first film.  Russell and Carpenter take a lot of the trends and fads that Los Angeles is known for and attempt to satirize them with limited success.

 

For example Peter Fonda is a hot shot surfer cruising over the sunken ruins of parts of Los Angles, Bruce Campbell is an out of control plastic surgeon, there's a bike gang and a basketball game where the players have to win or they are killed.

Most of the entertainment value is in the supporting cast that was hired for the film, Peter Fonda, Stacey Keach, Michelle Forbes, Paul Bartel and Pam Grier to name a few.  All of these actors are associated with "B" or cult films.

 

The action in the film is okay, the film is basically a time killer without the social satire that the filmmakers were apparently aiming for.

Written by Kurt Russel, John Carpenter and Debra Hill.  The running time is 100 minutes.

1982 -THE THING - on Blu Ray

For once a remake of a film classic that doesn't disgrace the original film.   John Carpenter an admitted fan of Howard Hawks takes the old Hawks film and rethinks it completely. 

Carpenter and his writer Bill Lancaster go back to the original short story and update it with 80's state of the art special effects.

The monsters in this thing are really something to see, the special effects wizard Rob Bottin and his team really outdid themselves in the practical effects department.  When I saw this film on first release this was when I realized that they could now put anything into a motion picture when it came to special effects.

The film probably suffered from being a little too graphic for the general public.  It wasn't the box office success it should have been.  Going against E.T at the time probably didn't help it's commercial possibilities.

109 minutes.

1978 - HALLOWEEN, finally got around to watching this one

Another good looking Blu Ray.  I've put off watching this horror film for years since I am not really a horror film kind of guy.  Have to admit John Carpenter did a very good job with this film considering what he had to work with.

Carpenter essentially had to tease the audience for over an hour before he started in with the killings.  Much to my surprise there are only three dead teenagers in the original Halloween.  The acting of the cast is hit or miss.  I never thought I would watch a film where Donald Pleasence was the headliner. 
Jamie Lee Curtis is a pretty tough little cookie with a brain in her head.  The rest of the cast seems to have a rather limited range of emotions and as is expected in this genre the women are the ones who have to show some skin.

There is an unintentionally hilarious moment where Curtis discovers the bodies of her dead friends but overall the film is pretty good with the suspense and terror stuff.

91 minutes, written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.

1986 -BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, John Carpenter's attempt to introduce Hong Kong fantasy films.

A personal favorite when it came out 25 years ago, I'm not so sure Big Trouble in Little China completely works as a fantasy/comedic/action film.  John Carpenter is good at the action scenes and knows how to build suspense scenes, but at times he seems to struggle finding the right tone for the film.

Big Trouble in Little China requires a director who can walk the line between the campy dialog, fantasy scenes and explaining all the oriental mysticism that make up the film.  Carpenter also had to contend with the fact that at the time the film came out, these over the top fantasy films from Hong Kong were pretty tough for an American audience to understand.

At the time I saw the film, I thought Kurt Russell was sending up a typical John Wayne performance with all of his macho posturing.  Russell now seems a little more on the hammy side than he probably needs to be.  He also doesn't seem to be entirely buying into the premise of the film.

Still, the film does have a lot to recommend it.  It's a one of a kind film, with lots of crazy optical and practical effects, plenty of martial arts action and John Carpenter's very smooth film technique.
 

I saw this film at a 25th anniversary revival.  The studio struck a new 35 mm print for it and the print looked very good.  The trouble was that the projectionist had such little skill running the film, that he tended to miss the film cues and started the reel changes with the white film leader being shown.

Digital projection is taking its toll on the old fashioned way of showing films, apparently projectionists don't know how to run a film with actual celluloid in in.

99 minutes, written by Gary Goldman, David Z. Weinstein and W. D. Richter.

1974 - DARK STAR John Carpenter's science fiction parody

The space ship Dark Star is on a mission to destroy rogue planets whatever they are.  The director John Carpenter is on a mission to make something out of nothing with a next to nothing budget. 

Running the gauntlet from silly to stupid to almost sort of clever,  Dark Star is a reasonably funny film.  For a film with no budget Carpenter stretches a buck pretty well, in fact the obvious cheapness of the production probably works for it since it helps emphasize the silly jokes and situations that were created for the film. 

Besides the goofy beach ball alien the star of Dark Star is also the writer Dan O'Bannon as the put upon crewman,  Sgt. Pinback.  Pinback is pretty much the punching bag for most of this film's very silly humor which ranges from getting stuck in the floor of an elevator to being tickled by the space alien while hanging over the ledge of an air shaft. 

Probably not as funny as it could have been, Dark Star is short and kind of wears out its welcome but is entertaining enough.

83 minutes.

1988 - John Carpenter's THEY LIVE, Republican party taken over by space aliens

Made during the end of the Reagan Presidency and probably containing about as much criticism of the Republican brand of leadership that a Hollywood film was going to have.  They Live is a B-movie dressed up with some mild social criticism.

 

Carpenter wrote the screenplay under an alias.  The story is about space aliens in disguise exploiting the Earth to enrich themselves financially.  They have devices that allow them to go undetected and only a special pair of sunglasses reveals what they actually look like.   

They Live was also an experiment by John Carpenter to make a science fiction film on a really low budget.  Carpenter cast a professional wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper who actually wasn't too bad as the lead.  Wrestlers after all are performers.  "Rowdy" Roddy gets to run around and shoot aliens and he has a very long fight with another guy that must go on about 10 minutes.

 

They Live is in the great tradition of B films. It runs about 90 minutes has a lot of shooting and fighting,  a couple of good lines and an amusing ending.  Carpenter didn't appear to be taking the film very seriously and the film is sort of a minor science fiction classic.

93 minutes.