The Essentials: The Films Of John Carpenter [Full Retrospective]

After the slasher-heavy aughts and the found-footage saturation of the early-2010s, it seems we have finally entered a new era of prestige horror. Between “It Follows,” “The Witch,” “Get Out,” “It,” “Hereditary,” and dozens of others, it’s been proven time and again over the past few years that being a great horror movie and a great movie period are not mutually exclusive. One perpetually mentioned influence on these new horror auteurs is the legendary John Carpenter, whose star has only continued growing in his eight-year-long absence from directing (almost as long as his prior hiatus of nine years). Though his most popular and successful films have always been regarded as classics in their respective genres, it seems as though Carpenter’s singular genius has only come to be widely recognized in his absence from the world of movies. The writer/director/producer/composer has had an incalculable impact on genre filmmaking, with gorgeous widescreen cinematography, groundbreaking use of special effects, and a talent for building tension that rivals the likes of Stanley Kubrick.

Carpenter’s childhood in Kentucky would give him a love of Westerns and science fiction films, leading him to the University of Southern California, where he would hone his skills alongside contemporaries such as future collaborator Dan O’Bannon, with whom he would make 1974’s “Dark Star.” After a brief period working in films for television, Carpenter exploded onto the scene with “Halloween,” singlehandedly birthing the slasher movie, fundamentally changing the horror genre forever, and cementing his legacy as a great filmmaker. Carpenter would then go on to direct almost two dozen films of wildly varying tones, genres, and styles, and with a new (Carpenter-approved) “Halloween” sequel in theaters now, it seems only fitting to reexamine the storied career of one of Hollywood’s most accomplished and multi-talented filmmakers, so here is a retrospective of each of John Carpenter’s films. —Jake Naturman

“Dark Star” (1974)
Everyone needs to start somewhere. For John Carpenter, as well as his one-time screenwriter partner Dan O’Bannon, the beginning was found with “Dark Star,” a sci-fi romp that was more overtly comedic, but no less pulpy and enjoyable, than the films that followed in the next 10 or so years for the legendary genre filmmaker. And like many directors’ first films, it didn’t come easily for Carpenter in the beginning. Produced while he and Bannon were still under the University of Southern California, “Dark Star” was made with a limited budget over an extended period of time (at least, as far as Carpenter’s movies are concerned). With a budget under a measly $60,000 and produced between 1970 and 1972, before making its official theatrical debut in 1974, it is not the film that Carpenter is best known for, nor was it particularly well-received by audiences during its initial run in cinemas. But over time, as it is sometimes the case for Carpenter’s underappreciated works, it grew a substantial following as a cult film, and it became beloved for the film that started it all for the filmmaker that’s pretty much as iconic as they come. Following a crew aboard the starship Dark Star, where we follow them twenty whole years into their mission to terminate planets that might endanger the colonization of other planets, it is certainly a labor of love for the creators. With Carpenter on deck to direct, co-write, produce and, of course, score the feature, while O’Bannon served as an editor, production designer, actor (playing Sergeant Pinback) and visual effects supervisor, it is a movie made with intense passion and clear love for the craft, as many first films tend to be, and while it isn’t without some rough edges, it is an enjoyable film to revisit when knowing what became of the filmmaker behind the ship. It also benefited enormously from the advent of home video, where it grew into the movie that it is known to be today. More than anything else, that’s perhaps the most nostalgic aspect about this first film: the notion that filmmakers could be boosted and brought to prominence through home video release. We are more than thankful to have John Carpenter’s impeccable vision brought before us, and what a legacy he went on to have. — Will Ashton

“Assault on Precinct 13” (1976)
Following “Dark Star,” a goofy sci-fi romp co-conceived by future “Alien” screenwriter Dan O’Bannon (their fallout would become the stuff of legend), Carpenter was approached to make another low budget genre movie. Having just sold the screenplay the investor wanted to do, “The Eyes of Laura Mars,” to Columbia, Carpenter decided to write an old-fashioned “siege” movie, in the style of his hero Howard Hawks‘ beloved Western “Rio Bravo.” But he cannily updated it, relocating the setting to the modern day inner city (to quote one of the movie’s title cards, “a Los Angeles ghetto”), with a police station serving as a stand-in for a besieged mission setting, and a multi-culti crew of gang bangers, hellbent on revenge after the police kill a half dozen of their own, replacing the prototypical Native Americans (“with touches of ‘Night of the Living Dead‘ and exploitation movies of the time,” Carpenter would later admit). For all intents and purposes, “Assault on Precinct 13” was John Carpenter’s first real movie, and as such, it’s a stunner. The movie has a mesmerizing effect that borders on the hypnotic. This is true right from the very beginning, with Carpenter’s percussive, synth-laden score washing over you, bringing with it both anxiety and dread. The images that follow, of the gang bangers riding around Los Angeles on the prowl, is striking due mainly to its simplicity and realism: it could be your street they’re driving down. Carpenter’s love of luxuriously widescreen photography (35 mm Panavision) is already very much in play, and he shoots the arid Los Angeles inner city like he was lensing a desolate border town in an old Western. The director’s preoccupation with an almost apocalyptic gloom is also fully accounted for, with the entire movie staged as the beginnings of an all-out war against cultured civilization and the forces of anarchical lawlessness. This all culminates in the moment, a sequence so shocking Carpenter says that he wouldn’t have included it if he was making the movie today. In this scene, a young girl, complete with blonde, braided hair the color of sunshine, stops for ice cream at an ice cream truck. She walks away, and the gang members overtake the truck. She realizes she was mistakenly given the wrong flavor, and when she returns to exchange it, one of them shoots her dead. This is all explicitly depicted, with the kind of frankness that makes your jaw drop. The fact that the murder is witnessed by the little girl’s father, who then follows the ice cream truck and becomes an integral part of the melee, makes things even more heartbreaking. Censors threatened to give the movie an X-rating, but Carpenter simply removed the sequence during a review, slipping it back into the film after it had secured an R. “Assault on Precinct 13” has a number of flourishes that would become Carpenter hallmarks: Darwin Joston‘s Napoleon Wilson would become the prototypical wise-ass Carpenter antihero (“I don’t sit in chairs as well as I used to”); long, unbroken takes meant to establish mood and atmosphere (the movie seems to have had a profound effect on Nicolas Winding Refn); a playful tweaking of cultural (or counter-cultural) iconography (one of the gang members looks like a version of Che Guevara); and a knowing exploitation of what middle-class white people are deathly afraid of (in this case the violence lurking in the inner city). When “Assault on Precinct 13” was released, it was met with critical and commercial indifference, even though the film played at Cannes, where the director of the festival called it “astonishing” (George A. Romero, who was attending the festival with “Martin,” became an early, vocal supporter). In time, it would become a bonafide cult sensation, but initially, it was largely ignored. — Drew Taylor

“Someone’s Watching Me!” (1978; TV Movie)
Even after the creative explosions that were “Dark Star” and “Assault on Precinct 13,” it was not immediately apparent that Carpenter would be the singular talent that he proved to be. His third film, produced by Warner Bros. and broadcast by NBC, was made just a few months before Carpenter’s breakout “Halloween,” and drops more than a few hints of the brilliance that he would show in that film. Starring Lauren Hutton and Carpenter’s future wife Adrienne Barbeau, “Someone’s Watching Me!” tells the story of a woman who is stalked by an older man after moving to Los Angeles. The film generally doesn’t separate itself too far from other late-night TV movies, but evidence of Carpenter’s eye for visual terror is clear, especially the use of voyeuristic POV that made Michael Myers such an intensely iconic villain. The film was acknowledged as the “lost Carpenter film” due to its lack of availability on home video — NBC never re-aired the film after its initial broadcast and as such, very few copies of it existed. Thankfully, Shout Factory’s horror distribution label Scream Factory restored and released the film on Blu-Ray, finally giving Carpenter completionists the opportunity to finish their collections.—Jake Naturman