Carpenter's Films

John Carpenter began making short films in 1962 and won an academy award for Best Live-Action Short Subject in 1970, for The Resurrection of Bronco Billy (1970). A keen student of the book Hitchcock/Truffaut, who openly admits to his veneration of Howard Hawks, Carpenter was, determined to find a style of his own. Some of his films operate like Hawks imitations or homage with diversions, but in his first big success, Halloween, Carpenter established his own prowling, Panaglide (or SteadiCam) look. Carpenter often, cleverly used camera movement, lighting, design, choreography of action and editing to compensate for lack of financial resources. John Carpenter’s films before The Thing include, ark Star (1974), the archetypal slasher film Halloween (1978), the ghost story The Fog (1980), the action film, Escape from New York, (1981), and a the Stephen King killer car adaptation, Christine (1983). After The Thing came the romantic alien visitor, Starman (1984), a Hong Kong-styled martial arts fantasy, Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), another alien takeover film They Live (1988), Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) and the H.P. Lovecraft homage, In the Mouth of Madness (1995). These were followed by a remake of Village of the Damned (1995); Escape from L.A. (1996); a vampire hunter film, Vampires (1998); and the sci fi film Ghosts of Mars (2001). Carpenter wrote the screenplays for The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Black Moon Rising (1985) and was executive producer for The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) wrote and directed such TV movies as Someone's Watching Me! (1978) and Elvis (1979), and produced the cable-TV series John Carpenter's Body Bags.