**Note to reader**
"I am lifting my self imposed ban on talking about $$ because the Hollywood studio system / movie business attitude towards Carpenter is key to track his career and when I say "Attitude" I mean their ability to make $$ from his art"
John Howard Carpenter was born on the 16th of January 1948 in Carthage, New York, US
He is an American filmmaker and composer. He has made horror, action and science-fiction films. He is recognised as a “Master of Horror” but he really is a master of “genre cinema”.
John Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York but his family relocated to to Bowling Green, Kentucky, when John was four years old when his father took a job as a music professor at Western Kentucky University so for much of his childhood, John and his family lived in a log cabin on Western Kentucky University's campus.
John fell in love with films at a young age, particularly Westerns made by legends like John Ford and Howard Hawks and low-budget horror films. Carpenter started making short horror films with his home 8mm film camera before he had even started high school.
When he was 14 he made a claymation short called “Godzilla vs. Gorgo” and a sci-fi western called “Terror from Space”.
After graduating high school he enrolled in Western Kentucky University to study English and History. He obviously wanted to study film making but sadly there were no film schools in Kentucky at that time. He transferred to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts in 1968. Carpenter did drop out of film school in his final senior semester to make his first feature film.
“Dark Star” (1974)
Directed by John Carpenter, Written by John Carpenter & Dan O’Bannon, Produced by John Carpenter, Music by John Carpenter, Cinematography by Douglas Knapp and Special effects by Dan O’Bannon.
Set in the 22nd century, humans have started colonising interstellar space. The scout ship Dark Star is a kind of space bulldozer that travels through space looking for "unstable planets" and demolishing them. Once identified by the ship’s A.I. control system the ship deploys AI-controlled Thermostellar Bombs to destroy the planets.
This movie is pretty amazing considering it started as his student film and then morphed into Carpenter's feature film debut. Dark Star blends elements of late 60s counterculture, fears surrounding nuclear destruction and subversive humour. On top of Carpenter being a visionary genius and gifted filmmaker the magic of Dark Star is that it was co-written by Dan O'Bannon.
Dan O’Bannon went on to re-write Walter Hill’s script for the 1979 hit sci-fi/horror movie “Alien”.
There is definitely some Dark Star DNA present in the Alien script with the whole blue-collar “Truckers in space” vibe.
It’s hard to say if Dark Star was a financial success… But it is a true cult classic and it was made for $60k in 1974 ($374k in 2024 money)
They managed to make the movie for such a modest budget by working incredibly hard and multi-tasking with Carpenter doing the musical score as well as co-writing, producing and directing. while O'Bannon acted in the film, co-wrote the script and did the special effects. O’Bannon’s effects caught the attention of George Lucas who hired him to work on his 1977 film Star Wars.
I am sure with all its midnight screenings and VHS, DVD and Blu-ray releases over the years Dark Star has made its money back.
With Dark Star John Carpenter proved he could make a low-budget “proper film” which led to him getting hired to make….
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Directed by John Carpenter, Written by John Carpenter, Produced by J. S Kaplin, Music by John Carpenter and Cinematography by Douglas Knapp.
An LA street gang called “Street Thunder” steals a cache of guns in the Anderson neighbourhood of the city. A team of heavily armed LAPD officers ambush and kill six members of the gang. The gang's leaders swear to get revenge against the police and the citizens of Los Angeles.
The gang lay siege to a police station manned only with a skeleton staff and the father of a child the gang had killed in cold blood.
I'm not going to do a lengthy synopsis because this film is widely available on streaming and you should watch it.
Assault on Precinct 13 was written as a neo-western by Carpenter in 8 days, shot in 20 days, Carpenter wrote and recorded the score with Tommy Lee Wallace in 3 days and the movie was made for $100k. This was also the first film where he worked with Debra Hill as a producer whom he would go on to collaborate on some of his best work.
It is also a great violent 70s thriller and is now regarded as one of the best low-budget exploitation movies ever made.
After a screening of Assault on Precinct 13 at the Milan Film Festival, independent film producer Irwin Yablans and financier Moustapha Akkad sought out Carpenter to direct a film for them about a psychotic killer that stalked babysitters…
Halloween (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter, Written by John Carpenter & Debra Hill, Produced by Debra Hill, Music by John Carpenter and Cinematography by Dean Cundey.
On Halloween night 1963, in Haddonfield, Illinois, A six-year-old boy Michael Myers brutally stabs his teenage sister Judith to death with a kitchen knife. Fifteen years later Michael escapes from the sanitarium he has been incarcerated in. Michael makes his way back to Haddonfield, on the way he kills a mechanic for his overalls and then steals a white mask from a local hardware store. When he arrives in Haddonfield he starts stalking teenager Laurie Strode. Dr Loomis from the sanitarium arrives in town hunting Myers. Loomis discovers that Michael has stolen his sister Judith's tombstone from the local cemetery. Loomis teams up with the local Sheriff Leigh Brackett, and they begin to search for Michael. While they investigate the old Myers house, Loomis tells the Sheriff how he has come to realise that Michael is pure evil. Michael is a pure seemingly unstoppable force of evil that is now on the loose in Haddonfield.
Although Halloween was not the first slasher film it was the one that was such a massive success others jumped on the bandwagon.
It had a production budget of $350k and grossed $70m worldwide.
The film had so much going for it. Ontop of the dynamite casting of the young Jamie Lee Curtis and veteran actor Donald Pleasence a lot of what makes this film great is the script that Carpenter co-wrote with the film’s producer Debra Hill. The film’s tremendous iconic score which was written and performed by John Carpenter looms large in its legend. This film was the first time Carpenter teamed up with the cinematographer Dean Cundey who went on to enjoy fruitful collaborations together in the coming years.
At this point in his career, he made two TV movies
The thriller “Someone’s Watching Me!” (1978) and the Biopic “Elvis” (1979) the significance of the Elvis project is it’s the first time Carpenter worked with Kurt Russell.
The Fog (1980)
Directed by John Carpenter, Written by John Carpenter & Debra Hill, Produced by Debra Hill, Music by John Carpenter, Cinematography by Dean Cundey and creature effects by the wunderkind Rob Bottin.
As the centennial celebrations approach for the small coastal town of Antonio Bay in Northern California, Strange events begin to occur in the town. On the centenary itself, A strange glowing fog envelops the town bringing with it the exposure of Antonio Bay’s darkest secret and peril to the founders of the town's direct descendants.
Needless to say, this is a banger of a film. Made for $1.1m and took $21.3m at the worldwide box office. Sadly it was not received well by critics at the time but as with so many great movies they get reevaluated in time and get the respect they deserve. There is something of a proper Weird Tales, pulp, ghost story about this film and I love it.
Onwards and upwards! Because in Hollywood when your movies can make back 20 times or 200 times its budget… they want to talk to you.
Escape from New York (1981)
Directed by John Carpenter, Written by John Carpenter and Nick Castle (the man who played Michael Myers in Halloween) Produced by Debra Hill & Larry Franco, Music by John Carpenter & Alan Howarth and Cinematography by Dean Cundey.
In a dystopian 1997, Crime in the US is at an all-time high so the government have walled off the Island of Manhattan making it a massive open-air prison. The perimeter is heavily patrolled and electronically monitored. When Air Force One is hijacked and the President of the United States has to jettison the aircraft via an escape pod which unfortunately lands inside the perimeter of the Manhattan prison. The President is captured by a powerful crime boss named The Duke of New York. Initial rescue attempts by the police fail leaving them no choice but to send in former Special Forces soldier Snake Plissken. Plissken has just been convicted of robbing the Federal Reserve and is facing a life sentence inside the Manhattan compound. Police Commissioner Hauk offers Snake a deal, If he goes in rescue and extract the president within a strict time frame he will arrange a full presidential pardon. If he fails Plissken will be killed.
I adore this movie it was one of the first 4k discs I bought after I got my 4k set up. It is just such a great, grimy, action film with one foot definitely in the “B Movie” camp. The production design of the dystopian hellscape of Manhattan and the sleek cyberpunk world on the outside with the cool neon lights and computer displays. Plissken must be one of the best anti-heroes in cinema ever and the narrative device of the literal ticking clock injects urgency and the countdown wrist display on Plisskin's wrist is so iconic.
This film was generally well-received by critics and it made $25.2m at the North American Box office with a production budget of $6m.
Carpenter was hitting his stride in the early 1980s enjoying success as a truly independent film director making great low budget genre movies for no more than $6m. Showcasing his unique style including composing his synthesizer-based musical scores while collaborating with producer Debra Hill and cinematographer Dean Cundey.
What could possibly go wrong!!
