John Carpenter
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On Set with Flamethrowers: Keith Thomas on Firestarter
Released in the fall of 1980, while Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining continued to horrify audiences in theaters, Stephen King’s eighth novel, Firestarter, tells the story of Charlie McGee, a young girl struggling to control her pyrokinetic powers. Her parents knew this would be an issue: years earlier, Andy and Vicky McGee participated in a trial run of a new chemical compound, Lot Six, that embedded telekinetic and mind-controlling powers that shady government officials now wish to end. A run in with Rainbird, who had also been experimented on and now acts as a hired assassin wiping out […]
by Erik Luers on May 16, 2022 -
John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna, and an Obscure Discovery for Die-Hard Horror Fans: Jim Hemphill’s Weekend Viewing Recommendations
After writing and directing the most savage, uncompromising film of his career with the independently financed They Live (1988), John Carpenter made one last stab at big-budget studio filmmaking with the 1992 Chevy Chase vehicle Memoirs of an Invisible Man to disappointing commercial and critical results. In spite of its reception at the time, however, Memoirs is a fascinating film on a number of levels – more fascinating, perhaps, than Carpenter realizes. It’s one of his few movies on which he declined to take a possessory credit, but Carpenter’s signature is all over Memoirs in its deft juggling of emotions […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jul 27, 2018 -
“I’m a Cheap Guy”: John Carpenter on Vampires
John Carpenter is a unique case among American filmmakers, in that his work is immensely popular and acclaimed yet still weirdly underrated – he’s acknowledged in many circles as great, yet he’s even better than most people think he is. Just about everyone agrees that he directed two of the greatest horror films ever made, Halloween and The Thing, though the second of these was largely considered to be a critical and commercial disappointment when it was released in 1982. And there’s no denying the massive influence of his 1981 action classic Escape From New York, or the prescience of […]
by Jim Hemphill on Oct 29, 2015 -
Lady Vengeance: Halloween Dream
While theaters all across America have been raiding the vault to bring us horror favorites throughout the month of October, there’s just nothing like catching something gory, bloody, spooky or flat out disgusting on Halloween night, sweating in your topical costume and getting sugar-high on candy corn. Here are my All Hallow’s Eve picks from a few special theaters around the country, and if you don’t happen to reside in one of the cities below, there is always Netflix and Amazon streaming, several options on demand, and a typically killer lineup on Turner Classic Movies, including Lady Vengeance favorite Village […]
by Farihah Zaman on Oct 31, 2011
