Since I paid tribute to John Carpenter earlier today, it only seems appropriate that today’s horror scene that I love should come from one of his best films. The final scene of 1982’s The Thing is chilling, both literally and figuratively. Watch below but remember, it’s also a spoiler if you haven’t seen Carpenter’s film yet.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we are proud to honor one of the greatest and most influential of directors of all time, John Carpenter! Carpenter is something of a patron saint around these parts. He’s more than just a horror director but it would be foolish to pretend as if his horror films haven’t forever changed the genre.
It’s time to celebrate the man and his movie with….
8 Shots Form 8 John Carpenter Films
Halloween (1977, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)
The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)
Escape From New York (1981, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)
The Thing (1982, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)
They Live (1988, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Gary B. Kibbe)
Village of the Damned (1995, dir by John Carpenter, DP; Gary B. Kibbe)
Escape From L.A. (1996, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Gary B. Kibbe)
The Ward (2010, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Yaron Orbach)
Wow, there certainly are a lot of vampires in New Mexico!
Well, I guess I can understand the logic behind it. My family used to visit New Mexico frequently. We even lived there for a few months when I was a kid. If you’re looking for a place to hide out, New Mexico is a good place to do it. You can drive for hours without seeing another car or another person. Add to that, New Mexico is state where people respect your privacy. No one’s going to show up at your house demanding to know why you only come out at night.
Of course, if I was a vampire, I might avoid New Mexico because of the bright sunlight. Seriously, if you’re trying to escape being touched by the sun, the New Mexico desert might not be the ideal place to hide out. I don’t know, though. I’ve never been a vampire.
In John Carpenter’s 1998 film, Vampires (actually, John Carpenter’s Vampires because everyone know the power that the Carpenter name holds for horror fans), Jan Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) is the world’s oldest vampire and he’s looking to perform a ceremony that will take care of that whole sunlight issue. If he can perform the ceremony, he’ll be the most powerful creature in the world.
Fortunately, the Vatican has put together a team of ruthless vampire exterminators. Led by Jack Crow (James Woods), these guys have no problem tracking down vampires and riddling their undead bodies with bullets that have probably been dipped in holy water. Unfortunately, with the exception of Jack and his second-in-command, Tony (Daniel Baldwin), the vampires hunters aren’t too smart because Valek gets the drop on them while they’re partying at a hotel with a bunch of prostitutes. The only survivors are Tony, Jack, and Katrina (Sheryl Lee), a prostitute who was previously bitten by Valek.
After teaming up with an enthusiastic but inexperienced priest named Father Guiteau (Tim Guinee), Jack tries to find a way to stop Valek. Meanwhile, Tony finds himself falling for Katrina despite the fact that Katrina will soon be transforming into a vampire and he and Jack have pledged to destroy every vampire that they come across. It leads to several chases, several bloody shootouts, and a lot of panoramic shots of the New Mexico desert.
The first time I ever watched Vampires, I thought it had its moments of demented fun and I thought that James Woods gave a wonderfully frantic performance as Jack Crow but overall, I got a little bit bored with the film’s constant violence. There’s only so many times that you can watch people die in slow motion before you get tired of it. The second time I watched the movie, I was able to better appreciate the film’s self-awareness. As directed by John Carpenter, it’s intentionally over-the-top in just about every regard and it’s definitely not meat to be taken seriously. It’s a mix of a western and a vampire film and Carpenter is basically saying, “If we’re going to do this, let’s go crazy with it.” The film still has its flaws, of course. Daniel Baldwin seems lost in the role of Tony and the film is oddly paced, It ends awkwardly, with the promise of a direct sequel that was never made. (There were sequels, don’t get me wrong. But Jon Bon Jovi is no substitute for James Woods at his most nervy.) But the important thing is that, on a second viewing, those flaws were overshadowed by John Carpenter’s kinetic direction and the performances of James Woods, Sheryl Lee, and Thomas Ian Griffith.
The first time I watched the film, I thought it was just another movie about modern-day vampires killing people while being hunted by unconventional extrerminators. However, the second time that I watched it, I found myself considering that Vampires is actually a movie about Catholics kicking ass! Yay! The lesson here is to always do a second viewing. Flaws and all, Vampires was far better than I remembered.
Speilberg had 1941, Lucas had Howard the Duck, and John Carpenter had Prince of Darkness. I’m not going to spend a whole review impugning the Master of Horror, BUT….this was really really really bad. When I was young, several months ago Pre-COVID (more on my COVID experience tomorrow- you’ll love it: there’s sweat, fever, explosive things, and I couldn’t smell any of it!) , I reviewed the Dracula mini-series and now Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter). You’re going to start thinking that I have a vampire fetish, but don’t worry Prince of Darkness not only does not have a Dracula figure; it’s unclear if it has much of anything going on at all. Imagine watching a movie called A Man Named John and John appeared briefly at the very end of the movie with no lines. You’d think that was really weird because you are a smart and discerning film consumer.
It starts out in Los Angeles in the 1980s, which looks like the LA of today, but it had MUCH less poop everywhere than today. Ahhh, progress. After the first 10 minutes of the film, I can tell you that: the Prince of Darkness is infact and evil alien who lives inside of a swirling Vitamix that looks alot the green juice they try sell me at the gym
– This is what the POD looked like for most of the film :
Jesus was also an alien and trapped the POD in the Vitamix above; furthermore, the Church was aware of it and kept it quiet in LA because they were Angels fans, a professor of physics at the local community college forced his physicist students to become Ghost Facers in exchange for a higher grade, and homeless people are murderers now. I know these things because I got an expositioning that I shall never ever forget. The students go to see the Eeeeeeevil Vitamix and get sprayed with evil juice and become really lazy zombies. This goes on for a LONG LONG time. You’d think they’d just use tomato juice to get out the evil or some Shout, but maybe Shout wasn’t invented yet?
One of the physicists becomes possessed with POD and tries to reach into a mirror to release her more evil dad. Ok, why not? It’s a family affair, it’s a family affaaaaiiiirr. Just as the evil is about to enter our world one of the physicists pushes the POD into the other dimension through the mirror taking her along with it. This was really dumb. Why not just shove the POD? She didn’t look very big. You’re also physicist; you could’ve made a lever or something. LAZY PHYSICIST!!! You never really got to know the POD or the physicists for that matter. It was like John Carpenter was willed an abandoned building and just wrote a script around that location because why waste a perfectly good abandoned building?!
The biggest puzzle of all was why the main physicist quasi-hero couldn’t get his mustache to line up properly? It’s like the left side of his mustache was trying to escape his face and was willing to leave the right side of the mustache behind- such a cowardly left-side mustache!
Thank you all! You get to learn about COVID tomorrow; it’s pretty pretty…. pretty… gross.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
This October, we’ve been using 4 Shots from 4 Films to pay tribute to some of our favorite horror filmmakers! Today, we honor the one and only John Carpenter!
4 Shots From 4 John Carpenter Films
Halloween (1977, dir by John Carpenter)
The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter)
Christine (1983, dir by John Carpenter)
They Live (1988, dir by John Carpenter)
Okay, so it’s more cyberpunk than horror but ….
Listen, it’s John Carpenter. As a month, October pretty much belongs to John Carpenter and there’s never a more appropriate time to share a music video for one of his songs. Interestingly enough, Night is one of Carpenter’s rare compositions that is not also a part of a soundtrack.
It certainly sounds like it belongs in a movie though, right?
Enjoy!
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we celebrate the life and career Donald Pleasence! One of the greatest of all the horror icons, Pleasence was born 101 years ago today and that means that it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Films
Wake in Fright (1971, dir by Ted Kotcheff)
The Mutations (1974, dir by Jack Cardiff)
Halloween (1978, dir by John Carpenter)
Phenomena (1985, dir by Dario Argento)
To go along with my review of Curtis Richards’s Halloween novelization, today’s scene that I love comes from the film Halloween …. kinda. It wasn’t included in the theatrical release but, instead, it was later added when Halloween made it’s network television premiere.
Now, I’ve actually heard two stories about this scene. One story is that it was shot during the filming of the original Halloween but that it was cut out of the theatrical release. When Halloween premiered on television, the network needed some footage to pad out the running time so this scene was re-inserted.
The other version is that the scene was specifically filmed for the television version of the film. According to this version, the scene was in an early version of the script but Carpenter didn’t film it until after Halloween had already had its theatrical release and was set to make it’s television debut.
(Personally, to me, the second version sounds more plausible.)
Regardless of when this scene was filmed, I like it quite a bit. In this scene, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) attempts to get his colleagues to understand just how dangerous Michael Myers actually is. This, of course, was a running theme for the character of Dr. Loomis and it has always amazed me that no one was ever willing to listen to him. Loomis spent the last 30 years of his life telling people that Michael was an unstoppable killer. Every single time, he was proven correct. And yet no one ever listened to him!
This scene gives us a chance to see Dr. Loomis in a professional setting, as well as giving us a glance of an adolescent Michael at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. “You’ve fooled them, Michael …. but not me.”
As someone who has seen all of the Halloween films multiple times, I have to say that Donald Pleasence’s performance as Dr. Loomis, especially in the first 2 films, has always been underrated. Pleasence gave a convincing portrait of a man who had spent the last ten years of his life dealing with evil on a daily basis. Who could blame him for being a bit fanatical? Wouldn’t you be if you had spent that much time staring into Michael’s soulless eyes?
In the old west, Jimmy Pearls (Ricky Schroder), a seemingly dissolute young man, kills the three men who he hold responsible for the murder of his parents. Unfortunately for Jimmy, one of those men was the son of powerful rancher Henry Logan (John P. Ryan) and Logan is now determined to track down Jimmy and get some revenge of his own.
Jimmy only his one ally in his attempt to make it to safety and that’s Winston Culler (Wilford Brimley). In his younger days, Culler was a legend. He tamed the frontier and he lived with the Indians and everyone knew better than to get in his way. Now, Winston is older and no one give him the respect that he deserves. Winston allows Jimmy to stay with him but Winston has more than just Jimmy’s safety in mind. Winston has his own reasons for wanting to get revenge on Logan and, despite their constant bickering, he and Jimmy are soon working as a team.
Adrienne Barbeau has a cameo as a madam and, while she’s always a welcome sight in any film, I imagine her casting has to do with the fact that this film was actually written by John Carpenter. Yes, that John Carpenter! Carpenter actually wrote the script for what would become Blood River in 1971. When he wrote it, he pictured John Wayne as Winston and either Elvis Presley or Ron Howard as Jimmy. (The Duke and Elvis in the same film? That would have been something, regardless of how the film itself turned out.) Carpenter sent copies of the script to both John Wayne and director Howard Hawks but neither one responded. It would be 19 years before the script was finally filmed.
Blood River is an amiable western. It was ultimately produced for television and it first aired on CBS. Despite the fact that the film was originally written to be a theatrical film, it plays more like a pilot than a film. You could imagine a weekly series featuring Winston and Jimmy riding from town to town and getting into adventures. The plot is nothing special but Ricky Schroder and Wilford Brimley make for a good team. Brimley is especially ornery, even for him. Blood River may be a simple film but it will be appreciated by those looking for a likable and old-fashioned western.
Through the Shattered Lens 