From heartwarming to disheartening, John Carpenter has brought a realism to the darkness in our lives through his films. He was a prophet of the unpleasant, toying with emotions wrapped up in fears. During the seventies and eighties, Carpenter had the action, science fiction, and horror genres nailed down. Most of his films failed commercially, but became cult classics, like Dark Star, his spoof of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
For his disciples of dread, it was more of an anticipation than an expectation. Carpenter certainly captures and coerces a creative carnage. Unconventional and unfathomable are his stories, tinged with the harsh realities not uncommon to the viewer. Carpenter does this with memorable heroes, antiheroes, and villains who have human (and inhuman) desires. To complete his pictures, Carpenter’s musical scores become characters themselves, treading the dangerous unknown and bringing the nightmares into the light. A cast of courageous characters help tout Carpenter’s fearsome filmography.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
8 Kurt Russell - Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
20th Century Fox
Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) is the laid-back truck driver who knows how to throw down in Chinatown. The reality of driving miles upon miles, hours upon hours, down highways filled with traffic grounded this everyday man. Throw in martial arts with the dark arts from ancient Chinese sorcerers, and you get a comic book fantasy come to life. The bumbling, yet straight-laced charisma of Russell balances the campy action.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
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7 Kurt Russell - Escape from New York (1981)
AVCO Embassy Pictures
Snake Plissken (who predates Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid video game series) is an ex-soldier and current prisoner seeking redemption in 1997’s dystopian United States. He is tasked with saving the President in the next 24 hours to receive an official pardon. Written during the time of the Watergate Scandal, Carpenter wanted to highlight the themes of security, protection, and uncertainty. Russell’s character embodies the catch-22 of having too little and too much of a police state in a future no one wanted, but one that happened due to an imbalance of justice and the temptation of vengeance.
6 Keith - Christine (1983)
Body by Plymouth, sold by Satan. When Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) decides to buy and refurbish a beat-up, red-and-white 1958 Plymouth Fury, the joyride turns into a highway to hell. The car takes on the personality of the previous owner and possesses the driver with that personality and more. The strangest anomaly: the car was possessed right out of the factory, which was explained through “freak accidents.” Gordon has a powerful paranoia and tragic character development and declension behind the wheel of Christine.
5 Kurt Russell - The Thing (1982)
The Antarctic body snatcher that takes over its organisms and assumes their likenesses deserves a Frankenstein death by fire. The team of researchers is overcome by paranoia to the nth degree, not knowing where and who the Thing has nested inside. The loss of trust and the power struggle that ensues forces R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) to face the horrifying truth that man is his worst enemy.
4 Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen - Starman (1984)
Columbia Pictures
Jeff Bridges plays an innocent yet powerful alien who takes the form of the deceased husband of widow Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen, who played Marion Ravenwood, the love interest of Indiana Jones, in Raiders of the Lost Ark). She must return the husband-shaped alien back to its spaceship, or else it will die. The distraught wistfulness of Allen, matched with the curious yet absent-minded boyish charm of Bridge,s instills an emotional joyride in Carpenter’s scientific romance.
3 Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle, and Donald Pleasance - Halloween (1978)
Celebrating the holiday of Halloween became secondary to the added lore of Michael Myers. The troubled youth turned-psychopathic serial killer tricked our treats the night he committed sororicide. Nick Castle plays Myers, better known as The Shape. His subtle movements, sudden movements, and lack of movement gave him a foreboding presence. Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis, Myers’ psychiatrist, brings a missing rationale to the horror. Jamie Lee Curtis is a scream queen as Laurie Strode, who learns she is not cut out for real estate or babysitting.
2 Roddy Piper - They Live (1988)
When you are all out of bubble gum to chew, there is only one thing to do: step into enlightenment and fight against the powers that be. Commercialism, sensationalism, jingoism, all the isms, ideologies, and systems that bind our existence into one long string of entertainment and contention is the trauma bond we face in They Live. The Rock does not compare to Roddy Piper as the drifter Nada, who discovers the mass media’s dark subliminal messages (with a pair of decoder sunglasses) that control and sway the populations that consume them. Rather than be consumed, Nada becomes a nonconformist in a sleepwalking world.
1 Sam Neill - In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
New Line Cinema
In another bending of reality not too far away from Nada’s is In the Mouth of Madness. Sam Neill plays John Trent, who investigates an insurance claim at Arcane Publishing, the publisher of popular horror author Sutter Cane (an unfavorable nod at Stephen King). His books drive his readers insane and the horrors make their way into the real world à la HP. Lovecraft style. Neil’s disbelief, slow dissent, and loss of self is unsettling and horror at its most psychological.
