They Live

Dir: John Carpenter

1988

*****

They Live is memorable for many different reasons and is a cult film like no other. I have raved about it to so many of my non-cinephile friends, generally those who are interested in social issues and the odd conspiracy theory. I get them interested until I tell them the part about our protagonist only being able to see aliens when he puts on a pair of special sunglasses, after that, they laugh and dismiss the idea of watching the film with me or ever. They are missing out on one of the most brilliant films ever made. On the face of it They Live looks like a 1980s big hair version of a 1950s sci-fi b-movie – and in many respects it is. However, there is a brilliant social message beyond the fighting and alien invaders. The idea for They Live actually came from a short story called "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1963, involving an alien invasion in the tradition of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which Nelson, along with artist Bill Wray, adapted into a story called "Nada", published in the Alien Encounters comics anthology. The story sees a man put in a trance by a stage hypnotist, awakening to find that the entire human race has been hypnotized, and that alien creatures are controlling humanity. He has only until eight o'clock in the morning to solve the problem. Director John Carpenter acquired the film rights to both the comic book and short story and wrote the screenplay, using Nelson's story as a basis for the film's structure but ditching the hypnotics. In Carpenters film, we follow John Nada (played by my favorite Wrestler of all time Roddy Piper), a drifter who goes from town to town looking for work. Arriving in LA and seeking out work in construction. Once at his job he befriends Frank Armitage (the brilliant Keith David) who invites him to a local church soup kitchen that helps out guys like him who have fallen on hard times and don’t have much money. The church’s preacher both warn of the men about various conspiracies of control and Nada discovers the church is a front for something, finding lots of scientific equipment hidden inside. Knowing something is going on, Nada keeps a eye on the church and that night the shanty town he has settled in is raided and the church is bulldozed in the commotion. Nade visits the ruins of the church and discovers a box full of sunglasses without thinking much of them until he puts on a pair. The sunglasses reveal a hidden reality where media and advertising hide omnipresent subliminal stimuli to obey, consume, reproduce, and conform, while many of the elite are actually humanoid aliens with a blue skinless complexion. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the history of cinema. Nada can’t quite cope with this new and frightening knowledge and in true brash Roddy Piper fashion he confronts one of the aliens who alerts the others via a communicator that they have have someone that can see them. Nada, being a tough guy – and being Roddy Piper – beats up two alien policemen, steals their guns and goes on an alien killing spree uttering the now immortal line "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum". It becomes clear to Nada that while most people are unaware they are walking among aliens, some people do. He tries to save a woman while evading the alien police but she promptly pushes him out of a window, not believing a word he is saying. Now a fugitive of the law and the aliens, Nada goes back to the wreck of the church to fetch more sunglasses to hand round. He finds Frank and tells him of his revelation but Frank doesn’t believe him. When Nada tries to force Frank to put on the sunglasses the pair begin one of the longest, most grueling fights ever in the history of cinema. Nada eventually manages to put sunglasses on Frank once he’s beaten him to a pulp. Frank soon agrees to help Nada get to the truth and both men soon find a group of anti-alien activists, who give them contact lenses to replace the sunglasses. They learn that the aliens control Earth as they have other planets in the past; they deplete each planet's resources and destroy its environment before moving on to others. They broadcast a signal that effects people’s sensory perception of what they see, so if they take out the source of the aliens' broadcast signal then everyone will see the hidden reality. Nada and Frank then set out to find said signal with the intent to destroy it, using loads of gadgets (also seen in Ghostbusters 2) from the anti-alien activists to achieve their goal. If any of that sounds awesome it is because it is. Some 1950s b-movies had ulterior motives and hidden meanings, with propaganda being used heavily if the country of origin was at war. They Live is no different, as Carpenter unleashed his growing distaste with the ever-increasing commercialization of 1980s popular culture and politics, particularly the economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Carpenter commented that "I began watching TV again. I quickly realized that everything we see is designed to sell us something... It's all about wanting us to buy something. The only thing they want to do is take our money." The aliens were deliberately made to look like ghouls, according to Carpenter, who said, "The creatures are corrupting us, so they, themselves, are corruptions of human beings." The aliens represent capitalism, best represented in 1988 as the ‘yuppie’. Slavoj Žižek explores the meaning behind They Live perfectly in 2012’s The Pervert's Guide to Ideology were he uses the main trope of the film, the wearing of the special sun-glasses revealing the truth of that which is perceived, to explain his definition of ideology. “The sunglasses function like a critique of ideology. They allow you to see the real message beneath all the propaganda, glitz, posters and so on. … When you put the sunglasses on you see the dictatorship in democracy, the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom”. He cast Piper after meeting him at 1987’s WrestleMania III because "Unlike most Hollywood actors, Roddy has life written all over him.” Carpenter wrote the role of Frank specifically for Keith David because he needed someone "who wouldn't be a traditional sidekick, but could hold his own." And he knew he would be perfect for this after working with him on The Thing. You may think that their long fighting scene was purely because the audience expected a bit of brawling from Piper, but that isn’t the case. It’s probably the most important and poignant part of the film. Frank fights off Nada until he he’s nearly dead. He is fighting the truth – he doesn’t want to know – he represents a big slice of society who would rather cling onto the comfort of ignorance than to face the harsh truth that we are all slaves to the system. It’s loony and it’s certainly lefty but it’s a remarkably clever film that uses horror, comedy and sci-fi to explore a society that is far more frightening and far more ridiculous than They Live could ever be. It’s a modern masterpiece.

Halloween

Dir: John Carpenter

1978

*****

Halloween is a lot of things and it has since been remembered as something it isn’t as well as all the things it is. For starters, it isn’t the first pure slasher – Black Christmas is – but I would argue that it is the first time the horror sub-genre had been perfected. John Carpenter’s classic can be compared to quite a few horror films that came before it and it covers a few sub-genres when you break it down. There is a haunted house theme to the film as well the revenge element. Much like in 1974’s Black Christmas, you see through the eyes of the film’s villain. In truth, Halloween is a post-modern combination of every horror film made before, only deconstructed and perfected. However, although many themes are revisited, no horror film had looked quite as good as this or would become quite as influential. You can see the change in horror movies after Halloween, it was a huge game-changer, and it is a slasher that is still yet to be matched. The winning recipe is actually quite simple. Director John Carpenter had a simple idea, he wanted to scare babysitters. Producer Irwin Yablans, who sought out Carpenter after viewing Assault on Precinct 13 to direct a film for him about a psychotic killer that stalked babysitters, eventually convinced the director to set the movie on Halloween night and name it Halloween instead of the original title The babysitter. Perfect really, and who better to scare then babysitters who would no doubt watch such a film when babysitting. Many suggested the film was a social critique of the immorality of youth and teenagers in 1970s America, with many of Myers' victims being sexually promiscuous substance abusers, while the lone heroine is depicted as innocent and pure, hence her survival. Carpenter dismisses such analyses but you have to admit, kids who were being sexually promiscuous and experimenting with drug watching the film probably made up a lot of the audience and they probably loved it for involving them. It certainly doesn’t do a film any harm to stir up a little controversy, although the critics who suggested that Halloween may encourage sadism and misogyny by audiences identifying with its villain took the laughable sudo-psychology embarrassingly serious. Carpenter added his own gloriously creepy score to the film and shot it beautifully. It was his direction and camera work made Halloween a resounding success. Shooting a basic horror film is easy, show some blood, maybe someone getting chased and you’ve got yourself a horror movie. To shoot a horror film and make frightening, unnerving and full of suspense however, it a fine art. It’s possibly the hardest thing for a film director to achieve and the reason why there are, in reality, very few genuinely terrifying horror films. The opening title, featuring a jack-o'-lantern placed against a black backdrop, sets the mood for the entire film. The camera slowly moves toward the jack-o'-lantern's left eye as the main title theme plays. After the camera fully closes in, the jack-o'-lantern's light dims and goes out. This scene clearly announces that the film's primary concern will be with the way in which we see ourselves and others and the consequences that often attend our usual manner of perception. This is emphasized even more so by the first-person point of view through Michael Myers’ eyes. Add the fantastic debut performances from Jamie Lee Curtis – who had huge pressure on her given that her parents were acting royalty (Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis) – and acting legend Donald Pleasence, and you’ve got a class act, a polished cinematic experience not usually associated with horror. In 1963, on Halloween night in the Midwestern town of Haddonfield, Illinois, young Michael Myers, dressed in a clown costume and mask, inexplicably stabs his older sister Judith to death with a kitchen knife in their home. He is subsequently hospitalized at Warren County's Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Fifteen years later, on the night of October 30, 1978, Michael's child psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis, and his colleague, Marion Chambers, arrive at Smith's Grove Sanitarium to escort Michael to court. Michael escapes from the sanitarium, stealing Loomis's car. Returning home to Haddonfield, Michael kills a mechanic for his uniform and steals a white mask, knives, and rope from a local hardware store. The next day, on Halloween, Michael stalks high school student Laurie Strode after she and local boy Tommy Doyle drop off a key at the former Myers house; the home is being sold by Laurie's father, a real estate broker. Throughout the day, Laurie notices Michael following her, but her friends Annie Brackett and Lynda Van der Klok dismiss her concerns. Loomis arrives in Haddonfield in search of Michael, knowing his intentions. After discovering that Judith Myers' headstone has been stolen from the local cemetery, Loomis meets with Annie's father, Sheriff Leigh Brackett. The two begin their search at Michael's house, where Loomis tries to warn the skeptical sheriff about the danger Michael poses, explaining that Michael is pure evil and capable of further violence, despite years of catatonia. Sheriff Brackett patrols the streets while Loomis waits and watches the house, expecting Michael to return there. Later that night, Laurie goes over to babysit Tommy, while Annie babysits Lindsey Wallace just across the street, unaware that Michael has followed them. When Annie's boyfriend, Paul, calls her to come and pick him up, she takes Lindsey over to the Doyle house to spend the night with Laurie and Tommy. Annie is just about to leave in her car when Michael, who stowed away in the back seat, strangles her before slitting her throat, killing her. Soon after, Lynda and her boyfriend Bob Simms arrive at the Wallace house. After having sex, Bob goes downstairs to get a beer for Lynda, but Michael stabs him with a knife which pins him to the wall, killing him. Michael then poses as Bob in a ghost costume and confronts Lynda, who teases him, having no effect. Lynda calls Laurie; just as Laurie picks up, Michael strangles Lynda to death with the telephone cord. Meanwhile, Loomis discovers the stolen car and begins combing the streets. Suspicious, Laurie goes over to the Wallace house. There, she finds the corpses of Annie, Bob, and Lynda in an upstairs bedroom, as well as Judith Myers' headstone. Horrified, Laurie cowers in the hallway, when Michael suddenly appears and attacks her, slashing her arm. Barely escaping, Laurie races back to the Doyle house. Michael gets in and attacks her again, but Laurie manages to fend him off long enough for Tommy and Lindsey to escape. Laurie defends herself by stabbing him with a knitting needle, a metal hanger, and his own knife, but Michael re-animates and attacks Laurie. Loomis sees the two children fleeing the house, and goes to investigate, finding Michael and Laurie fighting upstairs. Loomis shoots Michael six times, knocking him off the balcony; when Loomis goes to check Michael's body, he finds it missing. Loomis stares off into the night, while Laurie begins sobbing in terror. Producer Yablans stated: "I was thinking what would make sense in the horror genre, and what I wanted to do was make a picture that had the same impact as The Exorcist.” In that he succeeded. Carpenter agreed to direct the film contingent on his having full creative control, and was paid a $10,000 for his work, which included writing, directing, and scoring the film. He and his then-girlfriend Debra Hill began drafting a story originally titled The Babysitter. Hill, who had worked as a babysitter during her teenage years, wrote most of the female characters' dialogue, while Carpenter drafted Loomis' speeches on the soullessness of Michael Myers. The idea was to create a character, an evil, that refused to die. The idea that a child could be so scared by watching his own sister have sex instead to look after him he would then commit murder is pop-psychology at its very best and exactly the sort of nonsense that is behind every great horror film. The low budget limited the number of big names that Carpenter could attract, and most of the actors received very little compensation for their roles. Pleasence was paid the highest amount at $20,000, Curtis received $8,000, and Nick Castle earned $25 a day. The role of Dr. Loomis was originally intended for Peter Cushing, who had recently appeared as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars; Cushing's agent rejected Carpenter's offer due to the low salary. Christopher Lee was also approached for the role; he too turned it down, although the actor would later tell Carpenter and Hill that declining the role was the biggest mistake he made during his career. Yablans then suggested Pleasence, who agreed to star because his daughter Lucy, a guitarist, had enjoyed Assault on Precinct 13 for Carpenter's score. In an interview, Carpenter admits that "Jamie Lee wasn't the first choice for Laurie. I had no idea who she was. She was 19 and in a TV show at the time, but I didn't watch TV." He originally wanted to cast Anne Lockhart, the daughter of June Lockhart from Lassie, as Laurie Strode. However, Lockhart had commitments to several other film and television projects. Hill says of learning that Jamie Lee was the daughter of Psycho actress Janet Leigh: "I knew casting Jamie Lee would be great publicity for the film because her mother was in Psycho.” The role of Michael Myers, or "The Shape" as he was billed in the end credits, was played by Nick Castle, who befriended Carpenter while they attended the University together.  After Halloween, Castle became a director, making two of my favorite films of the 1980s; The Last Starfighter and The Boy Who Could Fly. Carpenter hired the great Tommy Lee Wallace as production designer, art director, location scout and co-editor. Wallace created the trademark mask worn by Michael Myers throughout the film from a Captain Kirk mask purchased for $1.98 from a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard. Carpenter recalled how Wallace "widened the eye holes and spray-painted the flesh a bluish white. In the script it said Michael Myers's mask had 'the pale features of a human face' and it truly was spooky looking. The director admitted he was first worried that children would be checking their closet for William Shatner after watching the film but not after Tommy got through with it. Everything about the film is perfect; Dr Loomis’s desperation, Michael Myers’s silent and focused revenge and Laurie Strode’s desperate and terrified attempts of escape. The music is the best of any horror film and is one of the greatest of all time. The scene where Myers comes out of the dark closet is not just perfect horror but it is sublime film making in general. It’s a horror masterpiece that raised the level high for the genre.

The Thing

Dir: John Carpenter

1982

*****

John Carpenter is definitely responsible for my favorite horror film of all time, I’m just not sure whether it is Halloween, Prince of Darkness or his 1982 masterpiece The Thing. I think The Thing might just have the edge. While Carpenter was hugely influenced by Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby's 1951 film The Thing from Another World, his version, like the original, was an adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There?. It was released in 1982 to very negative reviews. It was described as "instant junk" by one critic and "a wretched excess" by another, and proposed as the most hated film of all time. Reviews both praised the special effects achievements and criticized their visual repulsiveness, while others focused on poor characterization. The film earned $19.6 million during its theatrical run. Many reasons have been cited for its failure to impress audiences, competition from films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which offered an optimistic take on alien visitation; a summer that had been filled with successful science fiction and fantasy films; and an audience, living through a recession, diametrically opposed to The Thing's nihilistic tone. How wrong they were, as not long after the film became one of the biggest cult horrors of all time. It is a masterpiece. Finding its feet in realms of home entertainment, The Thing is one of the key films that popularised the VHS market. Development of the film began in the mid-1970s when producers David Foster and Lawrence Turman suggested an adaptation of Who Goes There? to Universal Pictures. It had been loosely adapted once before but Foster and Turman wanted to develop a project that stuck more closely to the source material. Screenwriters Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins held the rights to make an adaptation, but passed on the opportunity to make a new film, so Universal obtained the rights from them. In 1976, Wilbur Stark had purchased the remake rights to 23 RKO Pictures films, including The Thing from Another World, from three Wall Street financiers who did not know what to do with them, in exchange for a return when the films were produced. Universal in turn acquired the rights to remake the film from Stark, resulting in him being given an executive producer credit on all print advertisements, posters, television commercials, and studio press material. John Carpenter was first approached about the project in 1976 by co-producer and friend Stuart Cohen, but Carpenter was mainly an independent film director, so Universal chose The Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper as they already had him under contract. The producers were ultimately unhappy with Hooper and his writing partner Kim Henkel's concept. After several more failed pitches by different writers, and attempts to bring on other directors, such as John Landis, the project was put on hold. Even so, the success of Ridley Scott's 1979 science fiction horror film Alien helped revitalize the project, at which point Carpenter became loosely attached following his success with horror classic Halloween. Carpenter was reluctant to join the project as he thought Hawks's adaptation would be difficult to surpass, although he considered the film's monster to be unnotable. Cohen suggested that he read the original. Carpenter found the "creepiness" of the imitations conducted by the creature, and the questions it raised, interesting. Carpenter drew parallels between the novel and Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None, and noted that the story of Who Goes There? was "timely" for him, meaning he could make it "true to his day" as Hawks had in his time. Carpenter, a fan of Hawks's adaptation, paid homage to it in Halloween, and he watched The Thing from Another World several times for inspiration before filming began. Carpenter and cinematographer Dean Cundey first worked together on Halloween, and The Thing was their first big-budget project for a major film studio. Universal initially set a budget of $10 million, with a modest $200,000 for "creature effects," which at the time was more than the studio had ever allocated to a monster film. Filming was scheduled to be completed within 98 days. Universal's production studios estimated that it would require at least $17 million before marketing and other costs, as the plan involved more set construction, including external sets and a large set piece for the original scripted death of Bennings, which was estimated to cost $1.5 million alone. As storyboarding and designs were finalised, the crew estimated they would need at least $750,000 for creature effects, a figure Universal executives agreed to after seeing the number of workers employed under Rob Bottin, the special make-up effects designer. Bottin, who had previously worked with Carpenter on The Fog, designed the majority of the special effects. When he joined the project in mid-1981, pre-production was in progress, but no design had been settled on for the alien. Artist Dale Kuipers had created some preliminary paintings of the creature's look, but he left the project after being hospitalised following a traffic accident before he could develop them further with Bottin. Carpenter conceived the Thing as a single creature, but Bottin suggested that it should be constantly changing and able to look like anything. Carpenter initially considered Bottin's description of his ideas as "too weird", and had him work with Ploog to sketch them instead. As part of the Thing's design, it was agreed anyone assimilated by it would be a perfect imitation and would not know they were the Thing. The actors spent hours during rehearsals discussing whether they would know they were the Thing when taken over. Clennon said that it did not matter, because everyone acted, looked and smelled exactly the same before being taken over. At its peak, Bottin had a 35-person crew of artists and technicians, and he found it difficult to work with so many people. To help manage the team, he hired Erik Jensen, a special effects line producer who he had worked with on The Howling, to be in charge of the special make-up effects unit. In designing the Thing's different forms, Bottin explained that the creature had been all over the galaxy. This allowed it to call on different attributes as necessary, such as stomachs that transform into giant mouths and spider legs sprouting from heads. Bottin said the pressure he experienced caused him to dream about working on designs, some of which he would take note of after waking. One abandoned idea included a series of dead baby monsters, which was deemed "too gross". Bottin admitted he had no idea how his designs would be implemented practically, but Carpenter did not reject them. Carpenter said, "what I didn't want to end up with in this movie was a guy in a suit ... I grew up as a kid watching science-fiction monster movies, and it was always a guy in a suit.” According to Cundey, Bottin was very sensitive about his designs, and worried about the film showing too many of them. At one point, as a preemptive move against any censorship, Bottin suggested making the creature's violent transformations and the appearance of the internal organs more fantastical using colors. The decision was made to tone down the color of the blood and viscera, although much of the filming had been completed by that point. The creature effects used a variety of materials including mayonnaise, creamed corn, microwaved bubble gum, and K-Y Jelly. During filming, then-21-year-old Bottin was hospitalized for exhaustion, double pneumonia, and a bleeding ulcer, caused by his extensive workload. Bottin himself explained he would "hoard the work", opting to be directly involved in many of the complicated tasks. His dedication to the project saw him spend over a year living on the Universal lot. Bottin said he did not take a day off during that time, and slept on the sets or in locker rooms. To take some pressure off his crew, Bottin enlisted the aid of special effects creator Stan Winston to complete some of the designs, primarily the Dog-Thing. With insufficient time to create a sophisticated mechanical creature, Winston opted to create a hand puppet. A cast was made of makeup artists Lance Anderson's arm and head, around which the Dog-Thing was sculpted in oil-based clay. The final foam-latex puppet, worn by Anderson, featured radio-controlled eyes and cable-controlled legs, and was operated from below a raised set on which the kennel was built. Slime from the puppet would leak onto Anderson during the two days it took to film the scene, and he had to wear a helmet to protect himself from the explosive squibs simulating gunfire. Anderson pulled the tentacles into the Dog-Thing and reverse motion was used to create the effect of them slithering from its body. Winston refused to be credited for his work, insisting that Bottin deserved sole credit; Winston was given a "thank you" in the credits instead. In the infamous "chest chomp" scene, Dr. Copper attempts to revive Norris with a defibrillator. Revealing himself as the Thing, Norris-Thing's chest transforms into a large mouth that severs Copper's arms. Bottin accomplished this scene by recruiting a double amputee and fitting him with prosthetic arms filled with wax bones, rubber veins and Jell-O. The arms were then placed into the practical stomach mouth where the mechanical jaws clamped down on them, at which point the actor pulled away, severing the false arms. The effect of the Norris-Thing's head detaching from the body to save itself took many months of testing before Bottin was satisfied enough to film it. The scene involved a fire effect, but the crew were unaware that fumes from the rubber foam chemicals inside the puppet were flammable. The fire ignited the fumes, creating a large fireball that engulfed the puppet. It suffered only minimal damage after the fire had been put out, and the crew successfully filmed the scene. A good horror film should always be more than its special effects but the brilliant work by Bottin and his team here is phenomenal and of the highest quality. When one of the characters says “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me” when one of the team’s heads falls off and turns into a spider, he takes the words straight out of the audience’s mouth and Bottin is to thank for it. It’s a wonderful piece of cinema. Kurt Russell, who was good friends with the director, was involved in the production before being cast, helping Carpenter develop his ideas. Russell was actually the last actor to be cast. Carpenter had worked with Russell twice before, but wanted to keep his options open. Discussions with the studio involved using actors Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, or Nick Nolte, who were either unavailable or declined, and Sam Shepard, who showed interest but was never pursued. Ernie Hudson was the front-runner to play Childs and was almost cast until they met with Keith David. The Thing was David's first film, and coming from a theater background, he had to learn on set how to hold himself back and not show every emotion his character was feeling. Carpenter also wanted to cast Donald Pleasence, but it was decided that he was too recognizable to accommodate any of the roles. The rest of the cast were made up of A. Wilford Brimley, T. K. Carter, David Clennon, Richard Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis, and Thomas Waites – all solid actors much like in the 1951 version. The story begins once more in Antarctica. We see a Norwegian helicopter pursue and shoot at a sled dog as it runs to an American research station. The Americans witness the Norwegian passenger accidentally blow up the helicopter and himself from a distance. A Norwegian on the ground fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, but they cannot understand him and he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander Garry. The American helicopter pilot, R.J. MacReady, and Dr. Copper leave to investigate the Norwegian base. Among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burned remains of a malformed humanoid which they recover to the American station. Their biologist, Blair, performs autopsies on the remains and finds a normal set of human organs. Clark kennels the sled dog, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs their own dogs. This disturbance alerts the team and Childs uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature. Blair autopsies the new creature and learns that it can perfectly imitate other organisms. Recovered Norwegian data leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried flying saucer, and a smaller, human-sized dig site. Norris estimates that the saucer has been buried for at least 100,000 years. Blair grows paranoid that the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years. The station implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation. The "dead", malformed humanoid creature assimilates an isolated Bennings, but Windows interrupts the process and MacReady burns the Bennings-Thing. Blair sabotages all the vehicles, kills the remaining sled dogs, and destroys the radio to prevent escape. The team imprison him in a tool shed. Copper suggests a test to compare each member's blood against uncontaminated blood held in storage, but after learning that the blood stores have been destroyed, the men lose faith in Garry, and MacReady takes command. MacReady, Windows and Nauls find Fuchs's burnt corpse and surmise he committed suicide to avoid assimilation. Windows returns to base while MacReady and Nauls investigate MacReady's shack. On their return, Nauls abandons MacReady in a snowstorm, believing he has been assimilated after finding his torn clothes in the shack. The team debate whether to allow MacReady inside, but he breaks in and holds the group at bay with dynamite. During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. The following scene is cinematic gold. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms. MacReady incinerates the Norris-Thing, but its head separates from the body, grows giant spider legs and walks off before also being burnt. MacReady is forced to kill Clark in self-defense when he refuses to follow MacReady's orders. He hypothesizes that the Norris-Thing's head demonstrated that every part of the Thing is an individual life form with its own survival instinct. He sequentially tests blood samples with a heated piece of wire. Everyone passes the test except Palmer, whose blood jumps from the heat. Palmer transforms and infects Windows after his head turns into a giant mouth and bites his head off, forcing MacReady to burn them both. Childs is left on guard while the others go to test Blair. They find that Blair has escaped, and has been using vehicle components to craft a small spaceship. On their return, Childs is missing and the power generator is destroyed. MacReady speculates that the Thing intends to return to hibernation until a rescue team arrives. MacReady, Garry, and Nauls decide to detonate the station to destroy the Thing. As they set explosives, Blair kills Garry and Nauls disappears. Blair transforms into an enormous creature and destroys the detonator. MacReady triggers the explosives using a stick of dynamite, destroying the base. MacReady sits nearby as the camp burns. Childs returns, saying he became lost in the storm while pursuing Blair. Exhausted and slowly freezing to death, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust and share a bottle of scotch. The ending is beautifully ambiguous and stays with you for a very long time. Carpenter filmed multiple endings, including a happier ending because editor Todd Ramsay thought that the bleak, nihilistic conclusion would not test well with audiences. In the alternate take, MacReady is rescued and given a blood test that proves he is not infected. Carpenter said that stylistically this ending would have been "cheesy". Editor Verna Fields was tasked with reworking the ending to add clarity and resolution. It was finally decided to create an entirely new scene, which omitted the suspicion of Childs being infected by removing him completely, leaving MacReady alone. This new ending tested only slightly better with audiences than the original, and the production team agreed to the studio's request to use it. It was set to go to print for theaters when the producers, Carpenter, and executive Helena Hacker decided that the film was better left with ambiguity instead of nothing at all. Carpenter gave his approval to restore the ambiguous ending, but a scream was inserted over the outpost explosion to posit the monster's death. Universal executive Sidney Sheinberg disliked the ending's nihilism and, according to Carpenter, said, "Think about how the audience will react if we see the Thing die with a giant orchestra playing". Carpenter later noted that both the original ending and the ending without Childs tested poorly with audiences, which he interpreted as the film simply not being heroic enough. To hell with test audiences. All good horror films are either left ambiguous or are unhappy and for me the ending to The Thing, as well as everything else about it, is perfect.

Prince of Darkness
Dir: John Carpenter
1987
*****

I would argue that 1987's Prince of Darkness is John Carpenter's scariest film of all. The Thing had lots of gore, The Fog had chills and Halloween pretty much invented the slasher but it is Prince of Darkness, with its atmospheric portrayal of inescapable and impending doom, of the most evil kind, that makes it something rather unique. Of all the horror films I've seen, it is only Prince of Darkness that makes me feel fear at the thought of entering a room alone or going down into the basement. I love the fact that the characters aren't a bunch of kids entering a haunted house either, they are all scientists and technicians, none are superstitious or even afraid for the most part, making the scary parts seem even more natural and realistic. I didn't feel the same sense of dread with Carpenter's Halloween, it made me jump out of my skin and it is often uncomfortably intense but it was a case of either the characters die or they don't. It's the best example of a slasher/haunted house horror, Prince of Darkness takes that idea to the next level. It's a slasher of sorts, it has a lot in common with exorcism movies, it's also a Zombie film and it deals with hell and other dimensions, making it a great sci-fi horror too. It begins with a priest (Pleasence) who invites a quantum physics Professor Howard Birack (Wong) and his students to join him in the basement of an abandoned Los Angeles church. He requires their assistance in investigating a mysterious cylinder containing a swirling green liquid. Among the thirteen academics present are wise-cracking Walter (Dennis Dun), demure Kelly (Susan Blanchard), and lovers Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount). They decipher text found next to the cylinder which describes the liquid as the corporeal embodiment of Satan. The liquid appears sentient, and broadcasts increasingly complex streams of data. The academics use a computer to analyze the data, and find that it includes differential equations. Over a period of two days, small jets of liquid escape from the cylinder. Members of the group exposed to the liquid become possessed by the entity and attack the others. Anyone attempting to leave is killed by the growing mass of enthralled schizophrenic homeless people who surround the building. Birack and the priest theorize that Satan is actually the offspring of an even more powerful force of evil, the "Anti-God", who is bound to the realm of anti-matter. The survivors find themselves sharing a recurring dream (apparently a tachyon transmission sent as a warning from the future year "one-nine-nine-nine") showing a shadowy figure emerging from the front of the church. The hazy transmission changes slightly with each occurrence of the dream, revealing progressively more detail. The narration of the transmission each time instructs the dreamer that they are witnessing an actual broadcast from the future, and they must prevent this possible outcome. Walter, trapped in a closet, witnesses the possessed bring the cylinder to a sleeping Kelly. It opens itself and the remaining liquid absorbs into Kelly, transforming her into the physical vessel of Satan: a gruesomely disfigured being, with powers of telekinesis and regeneration. Kelly attempts to summon the Anti-God through a dimensional portal using a mirror, but the mirror is too small and the effort fails. While the rest of the team is occupied fighting the possessed, Kelly finds a larger wall mirror and draws the Anti-God's hand through it. Danforth is the only one free to act: she tackles Kelly, causing both of them to fall through the portal. The priest shatters the mirror, trapping Kelly, the Anti-God, and Danforth in the other realm. Danforth is seen briefly on the other side of the mirror reaching out to the portal before it closes. Immediately, the possessed die, the street people wander away, and the survivors (Marsh, Walter, Birack, and the priest) are rescued. Marsh has the recurring dream again, except now Danforth, apparently possessed, is the figure emerging from the church. Marsh awakens and finds Danforth, gruesomely disfigured, lying in bed with him. This is still part of his dream, however, and he awakens screaming. Rising, he approaches his bedroom mirror, hand outstretched. Carpenter became inspired while researching theoretical physics and atomic theory. He recalled, "I thought it would be interesting to create some sort of ultimate evil and combine it with the notion of matter and anti-matter.” This idea, which would eventually develop into the screenplay for Prince of Darkness, was to be the first of a multi-picture deal with Alive Pictures, where Carpenter was allocated $3 million per picture and complete creative control. It is the second installment in what Carpenter calls his "Apocalypse Trilogy", which began with The Thing in 1982 and concludes with In the Mouth of Madness made in 1995. Like nearly all of Carpenter’s films it was a flop and was panned by critics. Utterly ridiculous. It has everything you could want from a real, non-comedy horror film. It's the only film I could watch alone and feel uncomfortable, and I recommend all horror fans watch it late, with the lights off and alone at least once for full effect. Highlights include; Alice Cooper as evil homeless man, death by half a bicycle (Cooper’s stage show trick), "Lisa Lisa, Mona Lisa", the great Donald Pleasence and Victor Wong, a brilliant ensemble supporting cast and of course Carpenter's signature score. If anyone has any doubts regarding Carpenter's capabilities as a horror director (and I'm not sure anyone has) then they can't deny that everything scary he shoots is double effective, thanks to his amazing soundtracks. For me, Carpenter is the masters of horror and Prince of Darkness is criminally overlooked.

Christine
Dir: John Carpenter
1983
***
Stephen King's novel Christine is brought to life by the king of horror, it's not an exact adaptation but I've always thought the changes were justified. The story is subjective. Does Christine represent the folly of consumerism and ownership, is it making comment on the many tragic deaths of young people in car accidents that reached a peak in middle-America between the 50s-70s, is it a warning to the pre-pubescent to control new urges or is it a warning against over confidence and arrogance, substance being what is most important? Does the Car represent Rock and Roll, sex or maybe drugs, all the things kids should stay clear of in wholesome American town? Or is it just simply a film about a car that kills people, like Jaws but on land and by something that kids generally like. It's interesting to see a horror whereby people are killed by something that is cool, if the film had come first I would wonder if it was purely because a Car is cheaper than making a fake shark but obsession is clearly the underline theme. As a film it works, Carpenter is the king of tension, the apprehension of impending doom is often unnerving, Christine could have been a toaster and Carpenter would have made it work. However, the acting is brilliant, it is very quotable and nostalgia tells me I like it more than it possibly deserves.

Dark Star
Dir: John Carpenter
1974
****
Dark Star is an intelligent and funny parody of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001--A Space Odyssey, one of my favorite films of all time. If you're going to parody a great film, you've got to do it well, and they did. The budget was visibly small but the inventive camera tricks really work well and also add to what is so charming about it. Space film parodies have been made since but this is the daddy. I've got no doubt at all that this was the inspiration for the great British TV sitcom Red Dwarf. The beginning is a little slow and you may wonder what the hell is going on but the last 20 minutes is cinematic gold. The beach-ball alien had me in stitches too.