My Best Film: John Carpenter

[LaGoosh]

On 1/17/2023 at 11:36 AM, chokeout said:

Oh and the score! you know what's better than Carpenter scoring his own movie? Getting Morricone in!

Fun bit of trivia for you: most of Morricone's score for The Thing was thrown out and John Carpenter basically scored nearly all of it. Ennio Morricone would much later re-work his original unused score for The Thing as the score for The Hateful Eight. 

Edited January 18, 2023 by LaGoosh

[SuperBacon]

Thought this would be of interest. 

Maybe it'll make it over here?

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Fun bit of trivia for you: most of Morricone's score for The Thing was thrown out and John Carpenter basically scored nearly all of it. Ennio Morricone would much later re-work his original unused score for The Thing as the score for The Hateful Eight. 

@Chris B mentioned this on the first page, but he said that Carpenter used Morricone's preliminary synth sample:

On 1/16/2023 at 1:29 PM, Chris B said:

I also love that Carpenter brought in Ennio Morricone to do the score, as the producers didn't want what they saw as a lower-budget Carpenter score, and Morricone wrote the most perfect Carpenter score you've ever heard. He produced the synth version as a 'here's what it will overall sound like' before producing the entire sountrack with an orchestra - which Carpenter promptly ignored, massively preferring the synth version... and Morricone didn't know until he saw the film at the premiere. (Some unused tunes were later used for The Hateful Eight).

 

[LaGoosh]

Ah apologies Chris B, I missed that. Worth listening to the great Hateful Eight score with The Thing in mind, you can definitely see how it would work. Especially as the films have similarities in their set ups: characters stranded in the snow, one or more of them is not who they say there are, building dread/threat.

[WeeAl]

2 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Ah apologies Chris B, I missed that. Worth listening to the great Hateful Eight score with The Thing in mind, you can definitely see how it would work. Especially as the films have similarities in their set ups: characters stranded in the snow, one or more of them is not who they say there are, building dread/threat.

With the main difference being that The Thing was great, and The Hateful Eight was a boring let down. I swear it's still going on. 

I've never seen the Prince of Darkness unfortunately, will have to change that as I expect it's probably excellent. 

[Chris B]

A little more context:

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I don't know about best, who knows what best is anymore, but the two I have seen most are Big Trouble In Little China and Escape From New York. Big Trouble just edges it for me as my favourite. 

[Loki]

Carpenter's scores were as big a part of the experience of his films as anything else.  He made the right choice in dropping Morricone's orchestra in that case - there's something about the purity of those synth tones and the darkness of his film-making technique that really works.

I absolutely adore the Precinct 13 score, so minimal and foreboding.  Without it, honestly the film would feel a lot more low-budget.

I've banged on about this before but Carpenter wrote the music randomly for the Sentinel Returns videogame on PS1 and it's the most amazing thing.  The game is so unlike any other game you'll ever play, and has almost no visual movement in at all, and then this awesome synth score underneath.  A lost classic.

But yeah, his best film is The Thing, which as you've all said is also one of the greatest movies of all time.  And it's hardly aged - those special effects are so visceral that they still shock.  I've always sighed when I read about another remake of one of his films, as they always completely miss the point of his films and just make a more polished one with cgi.

...

Does anyone else find that they talk about Carpenter as if he's already dead, and has done for years?  It feels like his career has been over for a long time, but really he stopped in his 50s when a lot of directors hit their peak.  Maybe he couldn't get financing any more, but also his last films were probably his weakest.  Compare that with David Cronenberg his contemporary, who's actually older, who is still making great movies.

[chokeout]

He just couldn't get films made and when he did they didn't make any money. He's probably the least successful 'successful' director of all time. Even his most popular films flopped. The Thing was seen as a disaster at the time and was heavily critised for the level of gore, not really finding an audience till its home release. When you actually look through his filmography almost none of it made money, which is shocking. 

Studios were still willing to give him a chance because Halloween wasn't only successful, it was the success story, the original indie hit. The Fog was another decent money maker for him and followed up with Escape From New York which did well but its now only 1981 and the hits have stopped and never return and Universal buy him out of his contract. 

The only job he can get is Christine. The Carpenter curse always seemed to be that he would make a good film that barely made money, then follow it up with a bomb that lost people money . For every Starman, there was a Big Trouble. For every They Live, we had a Memoirs of an Invisible Man

[Devon Malcolm]

9 minutes ago, chokeout said:

He just couldn't get films made and when he did they didn't make any money. He's probably the least successful 'successful' director of all time.

Similar to Peter Hyams. Made consistently entertaining genre films that audiences and critics liked but he rarely coined it in. Capricorn One did alright and Timecop was a hit but otherwise his films struggled. 

[gmoney]

13 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Similar to Peter Hyams. Made consistently entertaining genre films that audiences and critics liked but he rarely coined it in. Capricorn One did alright and Timecop was a hit but otherwise his films struggled. 

Stay Tuned was the first film I ever saw at the cinema. I love it, most people have never heard of it. 

[chokeout]

37 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Similar to Peter Hyams. Made consistently entertaining genre films that audiences and critics liked but he rarely coined it in. Capricorn One did alright and Timecop was a hit but otherwise his films struggled. 

Hyams is a great shout and is, in many ways, a far more versatile director than Carpenter with solid comedy, Sci Fi and action films. But unless you are getting 2 big hits in a row no one is giving you the good jobs. 

[Mr_Danger]

Wasn’t The Thing released in the same week as E.T or something? Not exactly the same genre but you’d imagine E.T was sucking up the audience for a while.

[Loki]

I’ma big fan of The Relic, it’s one of those great monster B movies, like Deep Rising or Lake Placid that were made in the 90s - B movie style but a bit  more budget.

 

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, gmoney said:

Stay Tuned was the first film I ever saw at the cinema. I love it, most people have never heard of it. 

I saw it last year, really enjoyed it! It probably would have done better in the 1980s, it felt like it came along 5 or 6 years too late for the type of film it was.

1 hour ago, chokeout said:

Hyams is a great shout and is, in many ways, a far more versatile director than Carpenter with solid comedy, Sci Fi and action films. But unless you are getting 2 big hits in a row no one is giving you the good jobs. 

I always gravitate towards directors that have a diverse body of work. Same reason I love Robert Wise.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Devon Malcolm