John Carpenter – A Retrospective

John Carpenter and the Moviegoing PublicJohn Carpenter has a special place in the hearts of many, many film fans. His output from 1978 to 1988 is the sort of thing that almost any filmmaker would be incredibly jealous of. Beginning with the original Halloween and ending with They Live, Carpenter directed nine films that have more than their…

Advertisement

Hear me talk!

Click here to listen to me speak about John Carpenter with film critic Christian Toto. I also plug my book, The Sharp Kid. Be sure to pre-order dozens of copies.

The Ward

#13 in my ranking of John Carpenter's films. You know, I was expecting far worse. The little I've heard of Carpenter's last feature film as a director, The Ward, was outright bad, and the IMDb rating is not kind. I was fully prepared to be bored stiff for 88 minutes, but Carpenter actually produced something…

Pro-Life

#23 in my ranking of John Carpenter's films. Do you love irony? Do you love irony above character, plot, or basic narrative structure? If you do, then do I have the episode of television for you. John Carpenter came back for the second season of Masters of Horror with another script co-written by Drew McWeeny,…

Cigarette Burns

#7 in my ranking of John Carpenter's films. This is what John Carpenter needed after Escape from L.A. He didn't need to keep trying to make big films after his largest production bombed critically and commercially. He didn't need to try and keep making action films into his 60s. He needed to pull back and…