Blood and Synths, Ranking the John Carpenter Filmography
This past month I joined a group of friends in watching all eleven films in the Halloween franchise. I made that choice for a few reasons, among them to see both the 2018 sequel for the first time but also to rewatch John Carpenter’s ’78 slasher classic, a movie for which I harbored both great admiration and cold feelings. Then, just eleven days after watching the original Halloween, that same group of friends got together and watched Big Trouble in Little China to help prevent us each from anxiously refreshing our electoral maps every five seconds to check up on Pennsylvania, Florida and Texas.
Neither of those two films, both of which I’d seen previously, had ever previously registered as a favorite. But in rewatching them this year, I found the spark I had been missing. Surrounded by good company, set in the right season, Carpenter’s B-movie magic really bloomed so much so that I decided to watch or rewatch his entire collection of narrative feature films to see how I feel about the master of horror’s work in 2020.
The only other note I have is that Carpenter, with limited exceptions, is extremely consistent. So if your favorite ranks a bit low, understand it probably still rules, and the ranking only reflects my personal preference. Even if your favorite pulls in low or under something you consider “lesser,” let us take solace in that which is indisputable: John Carpenter was, is and ever shall be a chad. Now onto the movies, starting at the bottom.
18. Ghosts of Mars
Regrettably, every list must have a last place entry just as even the most consistent directors have big, obvious misses. Thankfully, there’s nothing contentious about the placement of this slow moving and poorly shot science fiction film. Ghosts of Mars is Carpenter’s only 2000s movie, and when watching it, it’s not difficult to understand why. If I can give it some credit, the movie never once demands to be taken seriously and the production design is pretty good! Sadly, the story, the acting and virtually everything else is quite bad and dull. An early aughts Jason Statham/Ice Cube has approximately no business being this bland, but the movie never rises above being a sluggish, gory mess. It’s a bad sign when even the music, typically a great strength, is quite uninspired. Comfortably Carpenter’s nadir, makes you wish for a third Escape film instead, or at least a movie that has a structure.
★
17. The Ward
Carpenter’s most contemporary film is unfortunately also his most perfunctory. The Ward is a capable ghostly psychological horror film that takes place, as the title suggests, in a psychiatric facility. The acting and script are nothing to write home about, but it might code for some as a tight, back-to-basics for a great director. Its biggest issue is that it simply doesn’t have a lot of character, either in terms of its filmmaking or in the written sense. It’s more mediocre than outright bad, but considering how little I feel about any of it, I can’t justify a higher placement.
★★
16. Village of the Damned
If I had to isolate what separates the high end Carpenter pictures from the low end, I’d say it’s that the low end feels more by-the-numbers and less driven by ideas. Village of the Damned is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name, but loses a lot of that movie’s signature chill by being a bit too silly. It retains enough atmosphere to keep from being the bottom of the barrel, and frankly it’s a well paced movie which makes for an easy and welcome watch. It’s also notable for being the last theatrical appearance of Christopher Reeve prior to his paralyzing accident in 1995. Reeve’s earnestness is a sincere highlight of the film, which is otherwise marked by average performances.
★★
15. Vampires
The 90s, broadly, were a tough decade for Carpenter. Upon finishing Vampires, I found myself wondering what accounted for the downturn in this decade. With other entries, my answer tends to lean aesthetic, but that’s not so much the issue with this film. The problem for me here is that for a vampire western with a hefty dose of religious imagery, the movie simply isn’t interested in touching any of its thematic content. In spite of having a rich well of history to draw from and a clear approach to show the team of human slayers as amoral, it sets out to mostly be a fun time. That’s a decision I dislike, but what really hurts is it never even gets there. The film is poorly cast, with the notable exception of Sheryl Lee, who gives weak material her all. James Woods and *googles* Daniel Baldwin are big misses for me; each one is flat, neither is remotely cool, and that’s very much the story of this movie. Like so many other 90s Carpenter efforts, the depth isn’t there and the movie is too drenched in a “cool” pastiche without ever achieving that quality in earnest. This film is essentially one big repetitive road montage set to rock and roll music, and I’m sure that’s someone’s definition of a great time. Just ain’t mine.
★★
14. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Assuredly the least Carpenter-y John Carpenter film, Memoirs of an Invisible Man is a comedy/drama Chevy Chase vehicle which tells the story of a stock analyst is rendered invisible. It’s pretty far out from the rest of Carpenter’s narrative films, and it’s a genuinely funny! There are times, arguably many of them, where the tension between the jokes and the sincere moments can be a bit awkward, but my biggest issue with it is that it simply isn’t very memorable. It is a perfectly enjoyable film, but unlike most Chase features, it doesn’t let him cook enough to feel like a proper realization of his uniquely smug charms. This is also one of the few films on this list not scored by Carpenter, but Shirley Walker, best known for her work on Batman: The Animated Series and Mask of the Phantasm turns in some great orchestral work that nicely complements the story.
★★
13. Escape from L.A.
The only sequel in the John Carpenter filmography takes the same basic setup of the 1981 original, in which a Clint Eastwood impersonating, eye patch sporting Kurt Russell has to enter a warzone to save someone important before a bad thing happens. In other words, it’s a rehash and a categorical step down. Neither the cinematography nor the production design are anywhere near the apocalyptic level of the original. The latter is especially surprising, considering it was the work of Lawrence G. Paull, who production designed no less than Blade Runner. What keeps this from being an absolute bomb in my opinion is that it successfully morphs the tone from tense to goofy. It’s easy to dismiss a half-assed Escape sequel, but it adds in enough 90s Point Break spunk to validate its existence. It’s fun, it’s dumb, and I find it impossible to hate. Long live the surfing scene, long live the human race.
★★
12. Prince of Darkness
Prince of Darkness is the Carpenter film about which I am most divided. On one hand, I feel it takes far too long to start and ultimately fails to be as creative or interesting at the conceptual level as the best movies on this list. On the other, I do think the production design and a lot of the imagery make for a visually striking and frequently genuinely scary horror film. This film follows a group of science dork grad students who are confined to a single, contracting environment, and one by one the members are each taken over by a force none of them fully comprehend. That’s a formula Carpenter perfected years prior with The Thing that doesn’t work nearly as well here, in part because it spends far too long getting there. Slow pacing is basically a feature of these movies, but unlike the top shelf stuff, I don’t see the appeal with taking so long to turn the crank here. In spite of the great sets, it doesn’t look as good as other Carpenter films. This is his first collaboration with DP Gary B. Kibbe, whose work to me rarely approaches that of Dean Cundey. The characters aren’t quite interesting enough, and the premise isn’t as thematically rich. This movie cost three times as much as The Fog, but it looks only about half as good. Though the movie throws science and religion into its crucible, it doesn’t do much of interest with the tension between the two. The ending though? Legitimate banger.
★★★
11. Dark Star
An underrated quality of Carpenter as both a director and a screenwriter is his sense of humor. The vast majority of his classic films from The Thing to Halloween are loaded with fantastic gags, and it’s something that makes his movies feel so rich and lived in. Maybe that explains why his extremely lo-fi debut feature Dark Star feels like it works. Carpenter collaborated with screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, who also plays Sergeant Pinback in the film, on the script which shares a lot of DNA with O’Bannon’s opus Alien and thus also with The Thing. It follows four working stiffs (and one actual stiff) on a junky spaceship cruising around, largely stultified by their interstellar adventure. The movie sports some great early sci-fi production design and clever shooting by DP Douglas Knapp that makes the interiors of the ship feel like an oppressively cramped college dorm room. The movie’s also silly as hell, quite easily the most absurd film in Carpenter’s oeuvre. This is a movie that features the screenwriter of Alien getting into a protracted conflict with a tomato red beach ball with chicken feet. It kinda slaps, you know what I mean?
★★★
10. They Live
And here marks the precise point where the list takes a turn for the awesome. They Live is Carpenter’s final film of the 1980s, and while it’s one of my lowest ranked for that decade, that shouldn’t be taken as a knock against it. The setup here is one of the best in the whole filmography, and it’s also an absolute riot of an action film. The basic premise is that society as we know it has been infiltrated by an unseen alien race who use our advertisements to influence our civilization’s thoughts and actions. Like so many of Carpenter’s best films, it’s thematically rich and truly thought-provoking for a movie that’s mostly here to have a good time. Lead actor and professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper is a definite step down from the easy charisma and layered work of frequent collaborator Kurt Russel, but his all-American charm is well suited to the first act of the film and his physicality and wrestling experience are put to absolutely brilliant use in a six minute all-out back alley brawl with Keith David. There’s a bit of a structural issue for me, where the film lays out its clever premise too early and then plods along to the finish line. But this movie manages to play that plodding like a chugging rock and roll guitar riff, and it’s just so fun to bob your head along to.
★★★★
9. Escape from New York
Behold John Carpenter’s horniest film, and also one of his most seething. Escape from New York is one of the most popular of this filmography, and the second I saw after Halloween. It was something of a tradition among my cousins to watch this pretty damn regularly. It’s a brisk film that nonetheless sells you a huge dilapidated wasteland. Joe Alves’ production design and impactful decision to shoot the film on location in East St. Louis are hugely vital to the film’s almost otherworldly apocalyptic atmosphere while still remaining grounded and textured. Ultimately it’s one of the weaker efforts from DP Dean Cundey, and it takes a long time to start, but once the film gets to New York, it just soars. Conceptually the film concerns ex-Special Forces officer turned (attempted) Federal Reserve larcenist who upon arriving to New York City, which has been converted in its entirety into a prison, has to save the President of the United States whose jet crashed inside the walls of Manhattan. In other words, Carpenter was on his bullshit with this one, as evidenced by Russell’s permanently exposed biceps and Eastwood-heavy performance and Adrienne Barbeau (then married to Carpenter) playing the entire film in a low cut nightgown. It also shouldn’t be lost on anyone that the movie about a President lost in a massive prison of his own creation was released in the same year Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Coincidence? Maybe, I have no idea, but I think I know how Plissken would feel about that asshole.
★★★★
8. Big Trouble in Little China
Much like They Live, if you want a pure unadulterated cut of entertainment, look no further than Big Trouble in Little China, another back alley bruiser with a keen eye for cool. In addition to being an utterly wild actioner, it’s also one of the most visually striking Carpenter features, thanks to wonderful art direction and some excellent lighting from Dean Cundey. This movie works in part due to Kurt Russell’s iconic John Wayne riffing, airhead dudebro truck driver who gets caught in an ancient battle between good and evil, so it also works in part because it’s insane. Dennis Dun, who plays the film’s deuteragonist brings a ton of charisma and physicality to his part, and both members of the duo have great chemistry. And as if that weren’t all enough, Big Trouble in Little China’s visual effects also deserve a shout. While perhaps a bit retrograde by contemporary standards, it’s impressive to me just how put together this is. John Carpenter always wanted to make a martial arts film, and I love how much passion and supernatural genre fuckery went is baked into its premise. It’s a massively ambitious work, and that approach pays off in a big way.
★★★★
7. Halloween
From its iconic opening scene until the final credits roll, Halloween is a virtually perfect piece of horror direction. It is, in truth, the platonic ideal of a slasher movie. Michael Myers, The Boogeyman, The Shape. Whatever his name, the Captain Kirk mask sporting killer is a physical manifestation of a force of absolute evil turned loose on an unsuspecting suburbia, and Carpenter and Cundey invite us to join as voyeurs as he celebrates the film’s namesake holiday. To that end, the steady pace of the first half helps to establish the world, down to the most mundane detail. It is absolutely critical to see the town of Haddonfield at peace before turning it quite literally inside out. In some ways the movie is almost too basic, particularly as a person who’s less interested in slashers than any other subgenre of horror. Scream got to me too early to have canonized this, but after many years of being snooty, the technical perfection, the shooting, the music, the performances and the deeply underrated script, co-written by Deborah Hill all finally got me. It’s a classic, and it deserves every ounce of hype that is bestowed upon it.
★★★★
6. Assault on Precinct 13
Great John Carpenter movies are a pleasant mix of his most complex and most simplistic stories. Assault on Precinct 13, to its absolute benefit, is the latter. Here Carpenter methodically sets up a single location thriller that evokes the late career works of western director Howard Hawks. Here the film trades the wild west for sunny California, where prisoners, civilians and police have to band together to defend themselves against a vicious gang out for blood. The movie is gleefully cruel, totally unafraid to throw a full force punch right to your jugular. It’s lean, mean filmmaking, and it features for my money, the most badass theme of Carpenter’s musical career. It’s righteous as hell, tight as a drum, and along with the next entry on the list, probably his most underrated movie.
★★★★
5. Starman
I’ve talked a bit extensively about cinematographers throughout this list, namely Dean Cundey and Gary B. Kibbe. There’s also Douglas Knapp who shot Carpenter’s first two features, Dark Star and Assault on Precinct 13. Finally, there’s the prolific yet totally unheralded Donald M. Morgan, who I think goes toe to toe with the best of them. This movie and Morgan’s other Carpenter collaboration, which is yet to come on this list, look flat out amazing, which is a perfect match for this beautiful science fiction tale about an extra terrestrial traveler who assumes the form of a widow’s deceased husband. In many reviews contemporaneously and contemporarily, people are wont to compare Starman to E.T., but the initials-only Spielberg movie it made me think of was A.I. It’s a profoundly moving portrait of grief, love and humanity that is very likely Carpenter’s most evocative film. It’s pitiable plot of the movie is, at times, bogged down by military shenanigans, which I feel detract or at least distract from what makes the story work so well. Ultimately this full-chested display of emotion ending in a helicopter showdown is about the only thing keeping it out of the highest shelf of Carpenter’s filmography.
★★★★
4. In the Mouth of Madness
Given that the 90s were pretty demonstrably Carpenter’s worst decade (at of those during which he made multiple films) and the positively boffo premise of In the Mouth of Madness, it’s not hard to understand why it was received so poorly critically and commercially. Very thankfully, a couple generations of nerds found the film on home video where it came into its own as Carpenter’s single biggest cult classic and the hispter’s pick for his top tier. The film details the search for a missing Stephen King-like horror author who has the ability to spin fiction into reality. Sam Neill, a lowkey classic horror actor, is the straight man lead who refuses to buy into the Lovecraftian cosmic nightmare, even as reality itself is crashing around him. It is a thematically dense movie, yet still exhilarating and briskly paced. It sports the best monster designs in a Carpenter movie not called The Thing, and it’s genuinely mind altering if you can access its wild wavelength. The nighttime driving scenes in the back half of the movie are especially menacing late at night in a shroud of darkness. Easily A-tier Carpenter, the revisionists got this one right.
★★★★
3. Christine
Nostalgia is a strong quality that runs through Carpenter’s filmography. Whether it’s Haddonfield Illinois or Chinatown, he crafts detailed worlds that feel lived in and familiar, even if it’s your very first visit. For me, no Carpenter film is nostalgic quite like Christine. It is a film I watched at a young age with my father more than once, and it’s a favorite Stephen King adaptation of his, an author both he and I spent a lot of time reading, often together. But even with that background, on revisit this year, I was blown away by the intensity of feeling I had while watching this film. Broadly, it is a story about a car that does murder. Having read the King novel upon which it is based, I can confidently assert it is in his mid or even low tier, but that is not at all true of the movie. Aesthetically, this is top notch. Morgan’s lighting is visually sumptuous and effortlessly awesome and terrifying whenever it needs to be. Thematically, this also clicks hard for me. Christine is a story of toxic masculinity. Not unlike Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, it concerns meek protagonist who finds a confidence and a darkness within himself. It’s a complex representation that truly shows both the character’s hopelessness, his resolve and eventually his emotional deterioration. This movie’s also funny as hell, a note perfect of dopey high school dudes that had me grinning either with or at the characters. My biggest issue is Keith Gordon’s performance, which is decent but not amazing, even though he is tremendously cast in the part. Either the direction or just his lack of polish show, but not nearly enough to keep the beats from landing in my estimation.
★★★★
2. The Fog
The Fog is John Carpenter’s musical masterpiece and for my money, his most aesthetically beautiful film. I realize how high both bars are, and the latter point I can only shrug and say is subjective. Once again, Dean Cundey’s cinematography is fantastic, here helping to capture the seaside town of Antonio Bay in all its gritty and atmospheric maritime detail. Like Halloween it patiently ingratiates you into its world before dropping the floor out from underneath its unsuspecting community. The Fog evokes a fantastic ghost story, eerie and unnerving, and also packed with strong meaning. At the heart of this tale is the deep sense of guilt of an American community and its traditions built on a foundation of violence. The monster that stalks the town is embedded directly in its center, which is a fascinating and haunting choice. This central tragedy is reflected in its incredible score, the very best of Carpenter’s fantastic career. Its lilting piano melodies evoke a deep mournfulness, and as the nightmare unfolds they devolve into guttural and oppressive synths. Basically the entire final act is soundtracked by a low rumbling bass offset by bone-chilling sharp staccatos. Diegetically, music also plays a critical role in the film, as the radio station helmed by one of the lead characters is used to stitch together the pieces of its story. To its great benefit, this is truly a film without a protagonist, instead electing to focus on the community of Antonio Bay and their collective conflict with the horror in the fog.
★★★★
1. The Thing
No surprises here, like the movie itself, there’s only one way this could end. The Thing is not only the best Carpenter movie and not only one the best horror films ever, it’s one of the best movies ever made full stop. A remake of the Howard Hawks The Thing From Another World, this is an absolute masterclass of technical filmmaking, writing and direction. The cautionary tale of taking in stray dogs is tense and harrowing, and it’s arctic environment makes it one of the most visually and sensually distinct films of its kind. The state of the art body horror remains the peak of that craft nearly four decades after its release. As a narrative, it achieves so much by turning Carpenter’s predilection for thematically rich material internal as an inspection of human nature. For all its wizardry, what makes the film tick are its people. Like other canonical horror classics Alien and The Shining, The Thing makes elite use of its contained environment and the characters’ isolation from the outside world, but its signature magic trick is how it takes each relationship, pulls it as taut as possible and brutally plucks it like the string of a mandolin until the crew physically or psychologically tear one another apart. The film is a staggering achievement at every conceivable level, and it’s quite easily one of my ten favorite movies ever. The only correct position for it is the final one.
★★★★★
