John Carpenter

[The_Return]

Originally posted by urgeok
i thionk - sadly - that they guys who truely love the genre end up making these little backyard films - that although entheusiastic - end up being unwatchable because of rank amateuristic performances, inexperienced fimmakers, and zero budget.

and lets face it - not everyone who loves the genre is good at it either ...

Agreed completly on those points. As for the first one though, dont you think that if folks like Rob Zombie or Eli Roth continue to prove that a low budget aproach to horror can still make money, dont you think that these guys making garbage films in their backyeards might actually start getting funding, and their garbage might turn into something good?

On part two, I definatly see where you're coming from. Ill use myself as an example; I absolutly love horror, but if I tried to make a movie I assure you it would make House of the Dead look like The Shining.

Originally posted by urgeok
i can appreciate their efforts .. i just cant enjoy them.

Never said you should; I usually feel the same way. However like Ive been saying...give them some money and some talented people to work with and you could have a classic.

[urgeok]

i think the key to making a good film - especially horror - is the same thing as having a good band, or a good sports team ..

it is all about hard work, brains, perseverance, skills
(talent), and a bit of luck thrown in.

budget is good .. but unless all or most of the things above are present .... lets just say there is a lot of room for error.

zombie looks like he puts money into his films .. i dont get the low budget vibe from him .. but what i did get was good performances from an eccentric mix of character actors ..(the actual kids didnt matter - all they had to do is run and scream.)

know the strengths and weaknesses of your players.

a good director can do that .. dont make a less skilled person stretch past the bounds of what's credible .. give them something they can do well, and eliminate what they cant.

example . (and it involves carpenter)

hell comes to frog town. Piper was ass in that .. i dont care what anyone else thinks.

They Live .. piper was great .. Carpenter was fully aware of what piper was capable and he exploited that.


god i'm all over the place in this post ..

i guess what i'm trying to say is that it isnt as easy as one thing to make a success .. budget isnt the answer .. a stellar actor isnt the answer.... or director ..

it's a combination of several things jelling together at once.
there have been a few excellent no-budget productions made by people with brains, vision, imagination and talent.


how does this all apply to the Carpenter question ?

in the beginning he had these things working for him ... as the years progressed, and with the lack of interest in horror films (proper horror films) he didnt always have all of those cylinders firing at the same time.

[slasherman]

Here you see Carpenters form curve:

[Zero]

OK - wow great conversation - most intelligent exchange (and no one has called anyone 'stupid' or told them to STFU!) I've seen on here in a while.

(and i love the phrase 'zero passion' being thrown about - but do you mean my passion or the general passion that other people have for me!?!?)

2 thoughts about the above:
1) I agree with Urge about the decline in the horror director but I think its a broader trend. It seems to me that the real high point in the 'big independent director" ran from the mid/late 60s through the 70s and then largely died in the mid-80s. Early BIG directors - Hawkes, Hitchcock, Ford, etc. - were part of the transition away from the BIG Studio systems (as some of these directors names became more influential than the name of the studio attached - I think was caused, in part, as big actors began to break out of the studio contract system and, largely, because the studios were forced to sell off their theater chains after the supreme court decision in the late 40s). The independence of theaters pushed the need for more non-studio films to fill the screens, which opened the space for more experimentation. In turn, as people began taking film 'seriously' in the late 60s and early 70s (beginning of real film criticism and studies) and the advent of "film schools" pushed more and more intelligent and 'educated' filmmakers into the spotlight. Soon, people were at least aware of intelligent filmmakers as the center of the film world - Kubrick, Scorsese, Allen, Altman, etc.

But, (god this is a long rant) the 80s saw the push of the 'blockbuster' and with it more emphasis on effects and actors - hence, the decline of the independent/interesting director (i guess what you'd call auteurs).

I mean, who would be the prominent interesting and unique directors now? A handful it seems to me - Burton, Rodriguez, Shyamalan - maybe the cohen brothers - but it seems to me the films are sold by effects and spectacle more than on the unique authorial vision of the filmmaker.

2) as for carpenter- I think Urge hits the head with the phrase he uses for EfLA - 'tired'. It seems to me that almost every film since his opening quartet - Halloween, Fog, Escape from NY and The Thing (I know not his actual first films but the ones that were prominent) - Carpenter has been at a loss to really craft films that carry the idea effectively through the whole film. (in interviews I've read it seems that the wide negative reaction to The Thing, easily his most accomplished film, really took the wind out of his sails - it was released in 82 just a few months after that other little alien film, ET).

Prince of Darkness is, for me, the best example of this failure. The idea - physics, god, satan, radio transmissions beamed into our dreams from the future - is remarkably cool. But the film fails to really exploit these ideas and ends up with lots of 'people trapped in the building' and hackneyed attempts to 'build tension' a la hack and slash films. I could make the same case about Vampire$ as a more recent film.

(but enough - my fingers hurt and I can't imagine anyone would bother to read this rant all the way to the end anyway)

[sabersword]

Ya, all you guys make good points. What I wonder about is, how much further can horror films go? What more can be said? Just from one mans point of view, the ones that allways scared me were the movies that were on a personal basis. You know, the killer coming after you, the monster looking for you. When you involve to many people, it just becomes body count.Which may be why I dislike slasher films so much except halloween;now, that was personal.

[Despare]

I really like John Carpenter and most of his films, even some of the films most other people don't enjoy. I do think however that Carpenter reuses his ideas and maybe he's not even doing it consciously but it's VERY apparent in Ghosts of Mars in which he seems to "rip off" a few of his own movies. Now some people might say he's run out of ideas and is just coasting but maybe he doesn't realize his "new" idea isn't exactly new until it's too late. How many people here saw the Masters of Horrors short Carpenter did called Cigarette Burns? I think that may have proved he's still got it. Everybody is fallible and I'm very willing to take a little big of Vampires with my They Live. I'm actually looking forward to The 13th Apostle, hopefully he's got "it" back whether it be passion, drive, or ideas.