Screamstress Director Spotlight: John Carpenter
May 21, 2008 by Alexandra
This week, I wanted to take a fun look at one of our most influential horror directors, and today’s director spotlight is on John Carpenter.
Although Carpenter has directed in other film genres, he is most known and influential in the genre of horror. I had a really cool picture of John here, but had some trouble with images today, so I apologize for that. You can see John Carpenter here, and find out which of his movies changed the world of horror cinema forever.
Movies That Put His Work on the Map
John Carpenter’s 1976 Halloween has been called not only the birth of Michael Myers, but the birth of horror slasher films. 
His next big hit was a film based on a tale of ghostly revenge, called The Fog in 1980. Interestingly, both of these films have been remade, with Halloween having Rob Zombie as the producer and director. The Fog remake which stars Tom Welling, was produced by Carpenter. This is by no means an all encompassing list of his early work, merely a focus of some of his most popular.
Screamstress’ Favorite John Carpenter Films
One of my favorite John Carpenter films is Vampires, which starred James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, and Thomas Ian Griffith (photo). Vampires was not considered a huge success at the box office, however, James Wood’s performance was considered Oscar worthy by a noted film critic.
Besides the films already named, In the Mouth of Madness and Village Of The Damned are both movies that top my Carpenter list. In The Mouth of Madness pays tribute to horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and deals with themes of insanity, and the division between reality and fantasy. Sam Neill’s performance as the crazed private investigator is classic.
Carpenter’s Village Of The Damned is admittedly a sci-fi-horror/movie, and it has the interesting mix of stars such as the late Christopher Reeve, and Kirstie Alley. The film deals with themes of abduction, government conspiracy and morality. Although I feel a loss for the fictional town of Midwich, I’d never visit.
More On John Carpenter:
John Carpenter’s Official Site
John Carpenter at IMDB
Via IMDB, Wikipedia, RottenTomatoes, & Sci-Fi.com; images via Amazon & morguefile
Carpenter is one of the most influential directors of all time. I love nearly all of his films, with the exception of a few. My favorite horror film by him would be, of course, Halloween; Followed closely by The Thing. I also love Body Bags, (which was a anthology film in the same vein as George Romero & Stephen King’s Creepshow.)
As for his non-horror stuff, I love Escape from New York and Big Trouble In Little China. Both of which are also influential in their own way.
The list of Directors that were/are inspired by Carpenter is a who’s who of filmmakers; Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are two of the most noteable.
Great topic!
If I were rich, and I had my own movie library…I’d have a huge wall of Carpenter. I loved reading that the original movie,The Fog was to him sort of a disaster at the time, and he had to “save” it.
Even what he considers to be his not so greats are gold.