What makes a great filmmaker? Is it a singularity of vision, characterized by bold camera movements, stylized writing, and the intersection of similar themes across decades of work? Maybe it's mastery of genre -- one genre, two genres, maybe multiple? John Carpenter is certainly a master of horror. But dive a little deeper into his filmography, and you'll realize he even rises about that lofty title.
His work is funny, incisive, occasionally more interested in ideas than characters and occasionally the other way around. His camera is subtle, thanks in large part to his longtime cinematographer Dean Cundey. The color isn't over-manipulated, the writing is simple and effective, and his scores, though often composed by him, infrequently overshadow the action on-screen. Still, despite his restraint, he's made some all-time classics, and not just Halloween and The Thing. John Carpenter is a master filmmaker because he can do it all, and make it all look easy.
'Assault on Precinct 13' (1976)
For readers looking for something to be impressed by: Carpenter released his second feature film, Assault on Precinct 13, when he was just 28-years-old. Shot over a fast-paced 20 days, Carpenter worked on a shoestring $100,000 budget and created an action chamber piece with all the viciousness of 1970s grindhouse cinema.
A group of people are trapped in a police station by a sadistic street gang. They have a choice: fight them off or die. Initially, Precinct 13 received mixed reviews because of its sheer brutality, but over the years it's grown into a cult classic and an early sign of Carpenter's directing prowess. It also, no doubt, inspired countless other films just like it, including 2021's little seen, but well-reviewed Copshop.
'The Fog' (1980)
The Fog is exactly what is sounds like. A deadly fog sweeps into small coastal town in Northern California. The residents must discover what's causing it before it's too late...
When Carpenter saw the first rough cut of The Fog, he thought he had a disaster on his hands. So he went out and shot a campfire prologue with John Houseman and doubled the amount of gore. The result was sublime horror. The Fog, like Assault on Precinct 13, uses the sparseness of its set and photography to give a sense of isolated dread. Even though viewers can't see the monsters, that doesn't make them any less frightening.
'Escape from New York' (1981)
The year is 1997. All of New York City is a prison. Without exaggeration, that might be the coolest movie premise of all time. John Carpenter's Escape from New York stars Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, a former super-solider turned convict who must drop into New York City to save...the President of the United States.
Russell does his best Clint Eastwood as the snarling, eye-patched Plissken, and the performance (along with his role two years earlier in Carpenter's Elvis) helped propel him to stardom. It's the first collaboration between the actor and director, but thankfully not the last. They'd re-team two years later for The Thing and six years later for the next pick on the list.
'Big Trouble in Little China' (1986)
While known as the master of horror, Carpenter is also one of the funniest directors alive, and Big Trouble in Little China may be his best comedy. How to explain the plot? Kurt Russell's truck is stolen by an ancient Chinese group who hopes to revive the evil sorcerer Lo Pan (James Hong). Now, Burton is on a quest to recover his truck...and also defeat evil.
Throughout his career, Carpenter loved to poke fun at the put-on bravado of the American leading man (see: They Live, In the Mouth of Madness). That satire is sharpest here, where Russell's Jack Burton doesn't realize he's the sidekick in his own story. He's a fool! One time, he gets so excited to fight, he shoots the ceiling and knocks himself unconscious with the ceiling stones. Years before Marvel superheroes, Carpenter was picking apart the needless narcissism of America's white male protagonists, drawing a bold italicized underline under their arrogance. In Little China, he asks: Who really are the heroes of our stories?
'Prince of Darkness' (1987)
One of Carpenter's most overlooked films may actually be one of his best: Prince of Darkness. A team of physics graduate students are brought in to research a mysterious green glowing cylinder in the basement of a church. Soon though, they discover the Hellish evil that lurks within.
Though underrated in its time, Prince of Darkness has garnered a cult following, with some even calling it Carpenter's scariest movie ever. (Yes, this is the man who made Halloween and The Thing). The second half is not for the faint of heart, especially for those people with deep Catholic backgrounds who may, or may not, fear the rise of Satan.
'They Live' (1988)
They Live is about many things: the police state, capitalistic oppression, systematic tranquilization, etc. Plus, it also stars professional wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, so it's got that going for it, which is nice. Piper's character, John Nada, puts on a pair of sunglasses that show him the world for what it really is.
Billboards advertising computers actually say "OBEY." Another with a woman in a swimsuit says, "MARRY AND REPRODUCE." Oh, and the planet's ruling class are all actually hideous aliens controlling the world in secret. They Live may be Carpenter's most outright political film, but he never loses his sense of humor, not when Piper and Keith David fight for six uninterrupted minutes, and certainly not when Piper enters a bank with a shotgun and says, "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."
'In the Mouth of Madness' (1994)
When the most famous horror writer in the world (think Stephen King) vanishes into thin air, a brilliant insurance investigator (played by Sam Neill) is hired to find to him. The investigator is skeptical that this isn't all one big publicity stunt by the publishing house...until he drives to the mysterious Hobb's End.
Though billed as a horror movie, In the Mouth of Madness may secretly be one of Carpenter's best comedies, in no small part because of a performance from Neill that harkens back to Cary Grant in North by Northwest. It's also arguably Carpenter's most meta film. Spoiler: At the end, Neill's character goes to see the movie version of In the Mouth of Madness, and the poster says "Directed by John Carpenter." In a movie that begins with its ending, In the Mouth of Madness somehow keeps viewers guessing from minute to minute.
'Escape from L.A.' (1996)
Carpenter's only sequel doesn't have the pinpoint focus of the original or the same commitment to its premise. It doesn't feature the horrors of Prince of Darkness or the pinpoint satire of They Live or Big Trouble in Little China. But it does have one thing: Snake Plissken surfing with Peter Fonda.
Roger Ebert gave Escape From L.A. three-and-a-half stars and wrote that audiences could equally enjoy it as a satire of the sequel genre or as the genuine article. Viewers can make up their own minds, but for what it's worth: there is a scene where Snake Plissken has to save his own life by hitting a half-court shot. Four stars out of four.