John Carpenter Films

[Unwell Cat]

Having just watched 'Big Trouble in Little China' it had me thinking what a great film it was and what a great character Jack Burton was. Another John Carpenter film I really loved was ' Prince of Darkness' with Donald Pleasance. A geniunely creepy film.

[Mad Gear]

The Thing is teh thread winner here. Mind blowing practical effects that still look fantastic today.

[Matt]

The Thing is my favourite of his. I like Escape From New York as well

It's odd, he went from a streak of brilliant films to, what, 20 years of crap? It's been a while since he's made anything even approaching "Good"

[baad bwoy]

The Fog is also very very good, didnt like it too much at first, but found it grew on me.

[Unwell Cat]

The Thing is my favourite of his. I like Escape From New York as well

It's odd, he went from a streak of brilliant films to, what, 20 years of crap? It's been a while since he's made anything even approaching "Good"

This is true, everything made recently is rubbish but the 80's and 90's stuff is fantastic.

[Darwock]

'They Live' is my all time favourite, closely followed by 'Escape from New York' and 'Assault on Precinct 13' (although I confess that is now largely due to the soundtrack).

I've never really rated Halloween very highly despite it being probably his most famous/successful movie.

[Unwell Cat]

'They Live' is my all time favourite, closely followed by 'Escape from New York' and 'Assault on Precinct 13' (although I confess that is now largely due to the soundtrack).

I've never really rated Halloween very highly despite it being probably his most famous/successful movie.

They Live is fantastic. The fight were his trying get the other guy to wear the glasses for the first time is great. Wasn't one of the guys Roddy Piper (or something), I seem to recall him being an ex american football player.

[Dogg Thang]

So many classics. Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, They Live, Escape From New York, Big Trouble. Not just classic movies - stunning soundtracks. To this day, Carpenter is a huge influence on electronic musicians. Yeah, he's done done films I'm not a fan of but his number of hits for me still outnumber most other top directors.

Unwell Cat, he's Rowdy Roddy Piper. A wrestler I think and star of Hell Comes To Frogtown.

[Spatial]

Knew I shouldn't have come into this thread, now I have the urge to watch They Live again.

"You, you're okay. This one: real fuppin' ugly."*



*that's from the ITV dub, which also brought us the wonders of Robocop's hold-up scene with the guy shouting "Why me! Why me! Why me!" instead of nasty swear words.

[SuperBeatBoy]

They Live is fantastic. The fight were his trying get the other guy to wear the glasses for the first time is great. Wasn't one of the guys Roddy Piper (or something), I seem to recall him being an ex american football player.

Can't find the South Park version of this though. :/

[NemesiS]

The Thing is his best by a mile.

Halloween

In the Mouth of Madness with Sam Neill was another good film

They Live and Prince of Darkness were also excellent.

I have to disagree with The Fog tho. I thought it was absolute pants. After reading the stellar book by Herbert the film is a massive letdown. Pirates, WTF.???? It could have been awesome had he actually followed the story

[charlesr]

They Live is just so cool. Also, is this where the bubblegum quote came from originally?

Assault on Precint 13 is a nice tense film, with a great soundtrack.

[Matt]

Carpenter sure does good soundtracks. You can argue they're all much of the same, but I like them. It's a nice signature, and he knows how to write a catchy little ditty.

[averybluemonkey]

Yeah They Live was where the quote came from.

I definitely prefer his early stuff, finally getting to see The Thing on the big screen last year was immense, but I still like his later films too, Vampires has an awesome atmosphere and after years of pathetic, effeminite vamps was a nice change. And I liked Ghosts of Mars too, I just wish the studio hadn't vetoed his decision to have Jason Statham playing Desolation as Ice Cube really can't carry the tough guy routine off.

My personal favourite is Prince of Darkness though, the atmosphere in that flick is so thick throughout and the ending .

[averybluemonkey]

Assault on Precint 13 is a nice tense film, with a great soundtrack.

I recommend never, ever, ever seeing the remake. I don't mind remakes in general but this one is an abomination with no pacing, awful dialogue, pretty poor acting, apart from Lawrence Fishburne, and I was just amazed at how bad it was. I normally like most films and this and Swordfish are the only two DVDs I've ever tried to get rid of.