Lone drifter, George Nada, winds up in a recession ridden Los Angeles looking for work. Beginning to piece his life back together, George stumbles into a chilling conspiracy. Beneath the glitz and grime of contemporary Los Angeles, an alien species stalks among us, controlling humanity and the world in plain sight. Gifted with a pair of sunglasses that reveal the stark monochromatic truth, George is swept into a burgeoning rebellion for humanity’s future.
The critical and financial failure of Big Trouble in Little China caused director John Carpenter to split from Hollywood and return to independent film making. They Live is one of Carpenter’s films from his return to independent film, and from my experience his best so far. An action loaded thriller which does not take itself too seriously, They Live was critically panned upon its release for being a nonsensical thriller. Critics, just like they have done with other Carpenter’s films, were wrong. Behind the goofy appearance, They Live holds a message which should be listened to. The alien fifth column linked to the gaudy consumerism and rising human misery within the film is a critique of capitalist excess. Beneath the alien elite, the world is a grey world of oppressive control and conformity. George Nada, the man whose own surname means “nothing”, is the epitome of the everyman in this reality; a man who has been robbed of agency. The sunglasses not only reveal how little power George has, but the degree by which he is controlled by others. For all its apparent abundance, Carpenter sees democratic capitalism as a mirage draining most people of any real choice. Released in 1988, They Live’s message was muffled by the still ongoing Cold War. Yet by the 1990’s saw the sentiment of They Live echo into the mainstream. From the raging self-destruction of protagonist “D-Fens” in Falling Down to the rebellion of office worker Peter in Office Space, the 1990’s saw lone individuals realising that the system under which they lived ; be it society at large or their office was offering them nothing. Contemporary critics of They Live, just like the human population in the film, could not see past the surface.
Away from the film’s social and political message, They Live remains an enjoyable and engaging film, sporting the best parts of Carpenter’s style. The film has the pulpy adventurism of Escape from New York, while sporting the sharp humour and memorable quotes of The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China. There are a few events in the film’s first act which do feel like a leap, but They Live is overall a great story which cleverly and quietly loops back to earlier details in the background. Echoing The Thing, They Live is another ode by Carpenter to the sci-fi and horror b-movies of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The monochromatic reality and design of the alien infiltrators mimic the visual style of the genre. They Live is also helped by great performances from wrestler-turned-actor Roddy Piper as George and the great Keith David as Frank. The score, created by Carpenter and Alan Howarth, bears the classic sound of Carpenters work from the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Overall, They Live is one of Carpenter’s lesser known films, but is certainly one of his best.
Financed upon a tiny budget and filmed in a farmhouse inhabited by the crew, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead crept onto audiences during 1968. The directorial debut for Romero, Night of the Living Dead birthed the modern zombie genre. Ten years later, Romero released Dawn of the Dead. The zombies of Romero’s original film have morphed into an apocalypse as four survivors flee the chaos of Philadelphia. Stumbling upon a shopping mall, the group seemingly find an oasis amid the end of days. Yet is the mall paradise, a prison, or a tomb?
The undead of Romero’s three original zombie films were a mirror, held up to society and trapping the contemporary zeitgeist. Dawn of the Dead swirls with the tumult of the fading 1970’s. Echoes of Vietnam, police violence and racial divides filter into the Dawn of the Dead. The central figure of Francine channels feminism and abortion rights as she transforms into a prototype of the final girl figure within Horror. The zombie hordes engulfing the world are a corporeal reflection of looming nuclear destruction as the East and West remained braced within a Cold War.
The state of Philadelphia is one of complete disarray within the film’s opening. SWAT teams raid a minority populated tenement unwilling to give up their now reanimated dead. Harking to the image of the “crazed” Vietnam veteran, one of the SWAT team turns on both the living and the dead. By contrast no one in power is in control. The ineffectiveness of the city’s rulers is symbolised by the local news station, as managers enraged by the chaos are met by apathy from their crews. The two sides form into one image, a city besieged by violence, crime and ineffectual rule. It is the perception of the 1970’s inner city through the eyes of middle-class America; a den of vice and danger best avoided. Being either journalists or policemen the flight of the four survivors represent a fleeing of authority from the inner-city, as repeated by other authority figures while Philadelphia collapses. Shunning the city, the group find paradise in safe suburbia, taking up residence in a mall. Yet the mall, a pinnacle of consumerist culture, ultimately nullifies its residents; its bounties rendering them as brainless and dependent as the zombies which paw at its gates. Condemning gentrification, Dawn of the Dead’s suburban dream of plenty is more destructive than the urban “real” which its survivors escape from. Dawn of the Dead is the counterargument to John Carpenter’s Halloween. Released a year after Dawn of the Dead, Halloween charts the rampage of a supernatural serial killer against teenagers in suburban Illinois. Behind its teenage immorality, Halloween is the fear of the inner-city invading and despoiling the sanctuary of suburbia.
The inventive effects and the zombies may have aged, but Dawn of the Dead remains unsettling. The greyed flesh of the undead, carmine globs of blood and extracted innards have a hallucinogenic quality as the zombies are felled or tear apart the living. The visceral shock of Dawn of the Dead has receded, but the film depicts in discomforting detail a society in its death throes. The inspiration Dawn of the Dead was Romero being informed while visiting the Munroeville Mall that the mall was the best places for survival if the nuclear bombs dropped. Atop his original idea Romero crafted a grounded narrative of social breakdown. The viewer witnesses the slow disintegration of order as despair and the rising dead mounts while citizens quietly abandon the larger urban areas to wait things out.
The central characters of Dawn of the Dead are likeable and believable as Romero takes his time to establish each individual and the fault lines within the group. Through the group’s initial flight and their exploration of mall the divides appear between military and civilian backgrounds, while establishing each character’s flaws and strengths. None are natural born survivors and rely upon each other as much as their own skills. My favourite characters are Stephen the helicopter pilot and SWAT officer Roger. It is their skills forethought which ensures all four survivors escape the city. Yet once in the mall John becomes the weakest of the team, unable to fend off the dead, while Roger struggles with the toil of the past weeks. By upending the initially strong characters, Romero leaves the viewer uncertain as to who will survive while the letting the group’s dynamic realistically shift. Credit is also due to the actors who portrayed Dawn of the Dead’s group of survivors. They each throw themselves into their respective roles especially as they begin to unravel within the confines of the mall.
There is a deeper poignancy within Dawn of the Dead’s story. Behind the bloodshed, apocalypses can be the ultimate power fantasy, completely unshackling the individual from society’s rules. The group’s refuge within the mall is a lesson of human want. Only as the world ends around them do the survivors gain everything they could desire. Surrounded by endless material wealth, their spoils seemingly turn to ashes, and each among them craves escape from a mall they now see as a prison. Once satisfied, human want shapes itself into another drive.
You may struggle to find access to Dawn of the Dead in the U.K. The film is absent from streaming services and is unavailable to rent on digital platforms. DVDs have ceased to be printed but a limited Blu Ray and 4K Blu Ray release did happen this year . If you are looking to watch the film, a second hand copy is the best route to watch and is well worth the effort.
A stranger visits the grieving Peterson family claiming to have served alongside their deceased son Caleb in the U.S army. The stranger, named David, becomes the guest of the Petersons as he supposedly settles back into civilian life. Yet is David a guardian angel, a veteran racked by PTSD, or something else entirely?
Directed by Adam Wingard and written by his frequent collaborator Simon Barrett, The Guest is a pulpy homage to thrillers and horror films from the 1980’s. Saturated by a pulsing synthetic soundtrack, the film openly borrows from John Carpenter and James Cameron. Both the films’ visuals and its narrative invoke elements of Halloween alongside The Terminator and even Escape From New York. The purpose and reasons for David’s visit are slowly teased from his actions, while Wingard and Barrett make it clear from The Guest’s beginning that nothing is quire right. David’s presence among the Petersons also satirises the trope of the mysterious stranger who helps or rescues those he encounters, as David tries to better the family. In his own way, David echoes the desires of the Peterson family, even if those are desires best left unfulfilled. The Guest is made even more engaging and unnerving thanks to Dan Stevens. Known for his role in British period drama Downton Abbey, Dan Stevens is captivating as David, appearing at The Petersons like a nefarious cuckoo, his intentions unknown but his menace plain for the audience. At times he is like Thomas Ripley with even less humanity, extolling a cold predatory drive behind his handsome exterior. Later on David morphs into an almost supernatural presence mirroring the unstoppable force of Halloween’s Michael Myers. Given the film’s focus around the titular “Guest”, Dan Stevens is perfect for the role. Steven’s range; from cold sadism to comedic timing imbues both life and complexity to the role of David.
In the pull of the moment, it is easy to be swept along by the twisting stream which is The Guest as it ravines from slow burn mystery to a horror film. Wingard and Barrett clearly drew from multiple genres for The Guest, and the resulting hybrid is enjoyable if not a little jarring. There is a clear, and unforeseen, leap in events during The Guest’s final act. Although a few hints lay scattered in early scenes, not enough context is left for the viewer to accept this transition in The Guest’s narrative. The film remains entertaining, but there are clear and jarring shifts as Wingard and Barrett clunk The Guest through different genres into its final form. The whole may not quite work in retrospect, yet The Guest is one of the more unique and overlooked thrillers of recent years. Looking back after the rise of Stranger Things, it is hard to not see The Guest as a prelude to our more contemporary nostalgia for a gritty reimagining of the 1980’s.
Freelance insurance investigator John Trent is tasked to find Sutter Cane, a famed horror writer who has now vanished as his increasingly erratic throng of fans clamour for his yet unfinished book, In the Mouth of Madness.
Directed by John Carpenter, In the Mouth of Madness acts as meta-narrative twist on H.P. Lovecraft’s works. The title, which plays on the name of Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness, is an eerie descent into a labyrinth of perception as sanity and insanity twist into one another. Against the backdrop of a looming crisis and civil unrest, John Trent finds himself being enveloped by eldritch forces as his search expands for Sutter Cane. Mirroring Carpenter’s The Thing, the narration of events become unclear as the film plays with the subjectivity of what is sanity, alongside Lovecraft’s trope of mankind’s inability to comprehend certain forces. For all its potential, In the Mouth of Madness feels lacking but not for a want of trying. Carpenter, who is a fan of Lovecraft’s stories, clearly poured passion into the film. In many ways Carpenter successfully invokes the eldritch spirit of Lovecraft’s words; of a darker reality whispering at a few unlucky human beings. Moments also do truly terrify, while the films surreal opening within an undisclosed asylum subtly forewarns viewers that their perception of events cannot be trusted. The narrative is later hamstrung by its own confusing twists which weakens the impact of the film’s moments of horror. Some of the practical effects fail to past muster by today’s standards while Trent’s journey to another reality acts as a dead sea within the story. This problem may stem from the budget and from the source material. Although Carpenter ignited his career by crafting low-budget films which gained critical and or commercial success, by the time he made In the Mouth of Madness Carpenter had fallen out with the big budget Hollywood system. There are some scenes in the film, especially when monsters are alluded to, that In the Mouth of Madness feels a bit thin. The lack of impact as the film progresses may in large part be due to the weakness of Lovecraft’s own style. Despite his fantastic command of prose, Lovecraft’s stories often peter out. In the Mouth of Madness intermittently shares the same sense of ebbing momentum.
Ignoring its flaws, In the Mouth of Madness is enjoyable and will understandably draw fans of H.P. Lovecraft and Carpenter alike. The certainty of film’s events, especially its ending, will stay on the mind long after viewing. The film has moments of dread and conjures the essence of a strange reality mixing with our own. The film also boasts a great performance by Sam Neill, of Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders fame, as John Trent. Mimicking a Mid-Atlantic accent closer to the English side, Neill is still convincing and charismatic as the lead in this troubling word.
The crew of a U.S research base in the Antarctic are attacked by members from the neighbouring Norwegian camp. Bemused by the attack, the research base and its crew become the unwitting host to an alien creature able to mimic any life form and driven by its own survival. Vilified by contemporary critics, The Thing remains one of John Carpenter’s best works and a staple of the horror genre, still played across cinemas every Halloween.
Adapted from the novella Who Goes There? John Carpenter’s sixth film is a confluence of Carpenter’s own style and other influences. The frigid confines of the U.S research base bears the cold claustrophobia of The Outlook Hotel; the central location of Stanley Kubrick’s’ The Shining. Instead of building towards a terrifying culmination as The Shining does, The Thing unfolds unreal time, the days marked by establishing shots of the research base as panic and horror sets in. Located in the dark corners of the Antarctic as men battle an unspecified monster, The Thing walks in the shadow of H.P. Lovecraft and his story, At The Mountains of Madness. Shades of Ridley Scott’s Alien also trickle into The Thing . Both films share the premise of a ragtag crew whose mundane routine is upended by an alien encounter. Despite its mixed parentage, The Thing is undeniably a Carpenter creation. Eerie P.O.V shots and long takes which hallmarked Halloween reappear while a synthetic score permeates The Thing as it splices with classical overtures. A thread of dry humour, prevalent in Escape From New York, appears throughout The Thing despite its mounting horror.
Going mad together
MacReady casually walks out to face the Norwegians
The Thing makes it plain that nothing is right from its beginning. The characters who populate the base, much like The Shining’s Jack Torrance, are already at breaking point. The crew members of the research base all appear under the spell of cabin fever. MacReady wrecks his chess computer upon losing to the machine while others nonchalantly gawk at the crazed Norwegians. Divisions are all too apparent among the crew. After The Thing’s opening, the older generation clash with the youngsters among their team; their quiet card and pool games a stark contrast to the casual dope smoking of their successors. The working-class support staff are distinguished visually from the more refined research staff while the pilots and security crew exude a tight self restraint.
The research base of The Thing is already a tinder box, and the monster is the light. Alerted to the thing’s presence, the crew become completely corrupted by paranoia. Every act by another, however minor, may be genuine, the thing in disguise, or a person cracking under the pressure. The confusion is compounded by the camera’s unreliable narration. The camera begins with a degree of objective detachment, distantly observing the Norwegians while cutting to a medium close-up of the fleeing husky, highlighting that something is not right with this situation. Yet Carpenter’s use of point of view upends all trust in the camera. Once calm is relatively restored and a few men go to investigate the Norwegian camp, Carpenter switches to a first-person perspective. Slowly proceeding through the quiet research facility, the camera becomes the creature, skulking through its surroundings until resting on the husky, now rescued from the Norwegians and within the facility. The audience becomes submerged in the paranoia as subsequent clues could be real or the fear induced sights of crew men pumped by adrenaline and fatigue. The creature itself becomes lost in the mayhem, its progression from one imitation to another becoming deliberately obscured while it increasingly manipulates events.
The camera’s unreliability as an objective viewer begins in the scene above as the husky explores the research base
A slow thaw
The Thing is not driven by the spectacle of its central monster. A broader story, in which the mythos of the shape-shifting creature is couched, slowly emerges from the film’s cold surroundings. The story’s development is remarkably grounded, built upon fragments as the crew investigate the creature. The narrative splits between the crew and the creature as it actions are uncovered or it is caught. The narrative fractures further as the crew turn against each other. Crew members uncover clues about the alien and the danger it poses but, wracked by fear, do not share their knowledge with each other. Echoing MacReady’s lost game of chess at The Thing’s beginning, the crew find themselves in a one-sided game against a far greater, and far more dangerous, intelligence. The Thing follows the pattern of a chess match, with move and counter move between the crew and the creature. At each new step, the two sides take more extreme measures to ensure their success. The slow ratcheting of the stakes at play is layered with foreshadowing as the actions once considered crazy become the most viable options.
The opening chess match: a sign of things to come
The Thing’s deliberate confusion over events begins to clear upon a second viewing. Incongruous details and unexplained scenes collect into a clearer narrative. The hero-figure also shifts from the gruff young pilot MacReady to the reserved Dr. Blair. The Doctor is the first to understand how the creature operates, the consequences of its existence and most importantly, where the Norwegians went wrong. Although MacReady may deliver the physical combat against the thing, it is Blair’s intelligence which offers hope for stopping the creature. Understanding Blair’s motives during the second act of The Thing makes his character arc that more tragic upon revisiting the film. For first-time viewers who may be inured by more recent horror films, The Thing works equally well as a thriller; a complex murder-mystery in which the killer really could be anyone.
Investigating the Norwegian base
Making a monster
The greatest element of The Thing is its design. From Halloween and throughout his work in the 1980’s, Carpenter had a clear visual watermark of long panning takes, P.O.V shots, alongside the extensive use of shadow and synthetic scores. The film also benefits from great practical effects and a team of producers, editors, photographers and designers who often joined Carpenter across multiple films. The documentary, The Making of The Thing, is a useful source for the practical history of The Thing. Alongside Carpenter’s regular crew is Rob Bottin’s work on the creature itself. Encompassing one-tenth of The Thing’s fifteen-million-dollar budget, Bottin had a bold vision of the creature as an amalgamation of multiple life-forms, both terrestrial and alien. Subjecting himself to a gruelling schedule, Bottin’s creations define The Thing. Intricately grotesque, the creature’s appearances were removed from the typical horror trope of the monster being, as Carpenter says, “just a guy in a suit”. The decades may have passed but the monster’s rubbery appearance and animations make the creature only seem more unearthly.
Beyond the monster, the reliance on practical effects and the creativity of the effects team have preserved The Thing. From the use of models to matte paintings, The Thing marks a zenith of what practical effects are able to achieve. Throughout the twilight period of the 1970s and 1980’s; from The Thing to Blade Runner, films were created which remain visually impressive to this day without computer graphics. It is a mantle which contemporary directors, such as Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan have fortunately taken up in big budget cinema. Perhaps my favourite visual effects during The Thing are the moments when the creature is caught mid-transition, with simple prosthetics upon one of the crewmen blurring the line between the normal and the alien. The Thing also resonates in the mind due to its soundscape. The score by Ennio Morricone haunts the film, its thudding beat invoking the patient stalking by the creature. Besides Morricone’s score, the sound design is equally spectacular. The bellows and screams of the creature eerily invoke the sounds of a cornered animal, viscerally connecting with the audience as it fends off the crewmen.
The thing is caught as it changes
The right team
The casting of The Thing was a perfect fit for the film. Carpenter involved Kurt Russell early in the Thing’s development to help with the film’s creation, but Russell was the last actor to be selected for a role. Each actor breathes life into their character, providing a subtle yet clear distinctiveness to this odd assortment of persons living at the edge of the world. The absence of women unintentionally reinforces the crew’s existence at the strained edges of society. The believability of the cast’s performance comes from their extensive time on set in Alaska and Canada. According to Richard Masur who played the dog handler Clark, the cast spent two weeks together on location before filming to work out the dynamics across the research crew. This preparation pays off when viewing The Thing, as fault-lines within the crew organically appear from the beginning.
The Thing remains among Carpenter’s best works and will always be a favourite of mine as Halloween nears.
Set in 1983 among the unnamed forests of the North Western U.S, Mandy follows gruff logger Red (Nicolas Cage) as an eerie cult leader becomes obsessed with his wife Mandy (Andrea Riseborough). The film is a psychedelic pastiche of 1980’s aesthetics intermingled with Lynchian absurdism and exploitation flicks.
Mandy is contrived for prescribed tastes. The film’s design and events will appeal to followers of Nicolas Cage, 1980’s films and David Lynch. For other viewers Mandy is an enjoyable film which attempts to balance the supernatural alongside a revenge quest. The supernatural aspects of Mandy which dominate the film’s first sixty minutes are superbly crafted. The film is scored by pock marks of visible grain while scenes are swathed in lens flare or stained by colour tints. Strange objects and rituals by the cult seem to be the nightmare spawn of the very pulp fantasy novel Mandy herself enjoys on screen. The cult’s biker gang of enforcers, all heavily inspired by Hellraiser, terrifyingly suggest that cult leader Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) may have powers after all. Then Mandy is subjected to one scene which dispels all allusions and plonks the plot straight into the well-worn territory of a revenge tale.
Despite a delightfully strange encounter between Red and an LSD dealer later on, Mandy’s supernatural elements devolve into dressing for Red’s quest for retribution. Mandy descends down a particular path which has been better covered by films such as Blue Ruin. Mandy is also plagued later on by details which sadly push the film towards the farcical. Red suffers a fatal wound yet marches on, calmly forging a ridiculous axe and then slices his way through foes. Red’s transformation from blue collar worker to avenging angel panders to the mad persona affiliated online with Nicolas Cage. Only Cage’s devoted performance stops whole sections becoming ripe meme fodder. Mandy remains enjoyable even if audiences become detached from the film’s ridiculousness.
Mandy cannot be damned however for its visuals or its cast. The film faultlessly replicates the feel of John Carpenter films from the 1980’s, as well as borrowing from Manhunter and other contemporary thrillers and horror films. The film is not devoid of uniqueness, with director Panos Cosmatos’ use of lighting, colour and animation converging into an ethereal film of strangeness. The cast all commit to their roles, with cult members being particularly creepy. Besides Nicolas Cage, Linus Roache is alarming as he displays two symbiotic personalities living inside cult leader Jeremiah.
Mandy is a commendable ode to the grime and the gore of 1970’s and 1980’s cinema, but it is also fairly flawed.
Nearing its 100th anniversary, the Californian coastal town of Antonia Bay is swept under a supernatural fog, whose lurking terror threatens to reveal bloody secrets long forgotten.
The enduring power of John Carpenter’s best films, from The Thing to Escape From New York stems from their complexity. From multiple narratives to social commentary, Carpenter’s best works remain fresh because they morph into something new with each viewing.
The Fog, by contrast to Carpenter’s classics, is ironically transparent. Directed, scored and partly written by Carpenter himself, The Fog is a shallow thriller which grasps at one idea and overextends that premise into a film. The fog itself, with its connotations of the unknown, could have built a brooding tale of suspense as Frank Darabont provided with 2008’s The Mist. Instead Carpenter focuses upon shipwrecked ghosts who badly mimic slasher horror villains as they butcher the townsfolk. The Fog’s often flat dialogue and variable acting is not compensated by tension or terror despite some decent build ups. John Carpenter strongly displays some of his best direction in the film; especially during the opening sequence where the random acts of ordinary objects create a delicious dread. Despite Carpenter’s visual brilliance, which like ancient alchemy can turn low budget ideas into Hollywood gold, The Fog never becomes an excellent film. The Fog’s biggest problem is that it is neither scary nor engrossing. The film never elicits strong emotional responses or leaves any intrigue in the viewer for a second watch.
Having now watched The Fog and The Prince of Darkness, two of Carpenter’s less remembered works, it is astonishing to see how Carpenter’s ideas have rippled across our zeitgeist. Even his weaker films have shaped or predicated films to come. The Prince of Darkness’ biblical distillation of horror preceded the 1990’s slew of apocalyptic films supping on Christian myth. From the eerie setting of the Silent Hill video games to Netflix’s Stranger Things, The Fog’s distinguishing feature of a town sealed up by something unnatural has been recycled repeatedly. Classic B Movie The Lost Boys borrowed and then developed The Fog’s underused theme of a town bound up by a secret. John Carpenter may at times falter, but his willingness to follow a unique vision has bequeathed a legacy both direct and subtle upon Western cinema.
Despite its flaws, The Fog is enjoyable for Carpenter fans and is a decent film to have in the background on a lazy Sunday.
Synopsis: Hidden for centuries by the Catholic church in an L.A cathedral, a mysterious container can no longer hold back the force within. An anonymous priest (Donald Pleasance) enlists physics professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) and his PhD cohort to understand the container before it is all too late.
Jaded by the big Hollywood studios after Big Trouble in Little China, John Carpenter’s The Prince of Darkness is an unsuccessful attempt by the auteur director to return to his low-budget roots. Emulating the siege in Assault on Precinct 13 alongside the hidden enemy of The Thing and Halloween’s sudden scares; The Prince of Darkness is an enjoyable but forgettable sum of Carpenter’s classics.
Despite an overly long title sequence, The Prince of Darkness’ opening act creates a brooding air of tension due to Donald Pleasance’s performance and Carpenter’s direction. The mystery as to what the container holds is slowly teased through environmental design, indirect clues and yet another synth laden score by Carpenter himself. The film’s revelation about the container is an odd mix of Lovecraft, Christianity and quantum physics which loses integrity as The Prince of Darkness morphs into a zombie film. An abrupt ending with a cliff hanger twist also does little to resolve the plot’s lapsing logic.
The Prince of Darkness does frighten and sports moments of typical Carpenter humour, but hammy acting and some truly awful dialogue are glaring flaws. Carpenter’s Halloween has similar problems, but its originality overcomes its weaknesses. Occasionally struggling from a narrative perspective, The Prince of Darkness’ true positive is Carpenter’s direction. Using practical effects and wide-angle lenses, Carpenter creates moments of shock, surrealism and brooding without modern horror’s reliance on blaring sound, big budgets and CGI. At the film’s best moments Carpenter’s camera conjures the same dread in the viewer as Halloween.
Ultimately The Prince of Darkness is a T.V film, something to be half observed by Carpenter fans curious to see a lesser known Carpenter work. Having reserved a month in advance to watch the film’s 4K re-release, The Prince of Darkness was a little underwhelming.
Released in 1978, Halloween was a low budget horror flick crafted on 300,000 dollars with director John Carpenter composing the score in three days. The result was an unexpected phenomenon whose mix of moral commentary, taut suspense and supernatural intrigue propelled Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis to public prominence. What followed in Halloween’s wake was a string of ever poorer copy-cat sequels each taking a failing stab to recreate the magic of the original.
Set 40 years after John Carpenter’s classic, 2018’s Halloween uses the distance in time to its advantage. It is a distinct narrative which springboards from the original, creating a great introduction to the myth of Michael Myers while also paying homage to the 1978 film. Halloween greatly benefits from being written, produced and directed by fans who love the original film. No part of the new film acts as a soft reboot or a cynical capitalisation upon the Halloween brand. The essence of the original’s brilliance is present while new ideas are cast into the cauldron of horrors, creating something similar yet distinct. The boldest distinction is to let time pass and not reset the clock as other horror franchises clean up the massacred from prior films and place a new cast of teens ripe for slaughter. The past forty years since the 1978 film has seasoned the new Halloween with maturity. It honestly depicts the toll upon an ordinary person, Laurie Strode, of surviving the first film and observes the ricochet of one night through her daughter and granddaughter in turn.
In the real-world Michael Myers, riding high on the era of video nasties, became part of the cultural zeitgeist and a favourite of budding horror hounds. In Halloween’s reality Michael Myers has developed his own macabre personality cult of intrigue from podcasters to psychiatrics obsessing over the mysterious figure. The theme of compulsion runs throughout Halloween, with Laurie committing her life to destroying Michael, others becoming infatuated by the mystery of Michael and then there is Michael himself.
A major difference between the Halloween of 1978 and the Halloween of today is the attention on Michael Myers. Director David Gordon Green’s camera lingers longer than past films on Michael, whose acts are more sadistic and brutal than before. Many scenes set from Michael’s perspective mirror and upend moments from the original, thwarting the expectations of long-time fans. The scariest part is Myer’s boogeyman persona. From Green’s eerie bird’s eye shot of Myers in the insane asylum yard, Michael is an unknown force compelled by an unknown objective. The more that the viewer follows Myers’ path, the more his madness has a sick logic to it; of him being compelled to complete a dark and invisible mission.
The only flaw in the new Halloween is its inclusion of Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson and her teenage pals. Laurie’s granddaughter and her friends are a retinue of bland Disney kids trying to be rebellious and mature. Their dialogue and their antics are feigned attempts to convey the adolescent air of self-importance and shallow seriousness. Now that Horror films have grown up, in large part due to Carpenter’s own works, monsters do not need a setting of sex, drugs and teenagers to be scary.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Judy Greer, as mother and daughter separated by trauma, are an excellent combination while Green’s eye brings a visual richness often unseen in Horror films. The new Halloween may have issues, but it is easily the best slasher sequel so far.
Readily admitted by the film’s director Jordan Peele, Get Out is a subversive amalgam of horror films and other movies. Through what it does and does not do, Get Out implants you into the life of African Americans today. From Peele’s point of view, the threat to African Americans of Klansmen and burning crosses is dwarfed by a white suburban culture that fetishizes and fears black identity.
Get Out’s opening scene inverts John Carpenter’s Halloween. Halloween begins with protagonist Laurie unaware of villain Michael Myers stalking her in broad daylight. Upon release Halloween was perceived as a damning commentary on declining teenage morality with the slasher Michael Myers acting as judge and executioner. On another level Halloween reflects social anxiety among the middle class in 1970’s America towards the decaying and predominantly black inner-city. Myers’ entrance into the Illinois suburbs and the bloodshed he causes is the dreaded violence, crime and drugs of urban areas flooding into the prosperous environs. In stark contrast Get Out begins with a black man warily walking through the suburbs at night. In Get Out, the shooting of Trayvon Martin and others render the suburbs an alien territory for black people instead of what most audiences originally saw in Michael Myer’s hunting ground, a sanctuary away from the stormy city.
The contrasting narrative of perception and location persists throughout Get Out’s first five minutes. A tracking shot of woodland alongside the score evokes the southern backwaters of Deliverance and Southern Comfort. Yet once protagonist Chris travels to meet his white girlfriend’s family we find ourselves not in the archaic deep south but the pristine woods of upstate New York.
By inverting what we expect from film, Jordan Peele rips the viewer out from the white male vision of most directors and firmly plants the narrative into a black perspective. Take Get Out’s first interaction with a white character besides Rose. Chris is stopped while driving and questioned by a police officer, opening the sadly familiar mix of inferiority and fear which can be projected onto African Americans.
Chris’s reception at Rose’s home is unexpected. He doesn’t receive the anticipated mix of hostility and condescension of which the police officer’s reaction to him was a forewarning. More alarmingly, Chris is lavished with adoration from Rose’s family and friends, praising him with an unfettered frankness for the traits they stereo-typically expect him and African Americans to have.
The appreciation of the older white suburbanites populating Rose’s community for Chris and black identity is skin deep. Their infatuation with the attributes black people supposedly possess is a fetishization of black identity, reducing black identity from an equal to a body of trophies covering sex appeal to just plain coolness. In turn the white man’s obsession with Chris’ uniqueness reverts the black man into a physical object, a band-aid for their own flaws, something to be auctioned off and used. Instead of progressing from the prejudice of segregation and slavery, the racism of white America towards African America has simply inverted; from sub-human to superhuman but not yet a fellow man.
The big reveal of Get Out is that Rose and her family have been luring black people to their home to be auctioned off to their white clientele. Their victims are first brainwashed by Rose’s mother into compliance then Rose’s father transplants the client’s brain into the younger black victim.
The sanitised racism lurking beneath the surface of Get Out is personified in the film’s four black victims including Chris. Each victim of Rose’s family, having been brainwashed into becoming hosts for the minds of the older white clientele, represent a stereotype of African American identity. Georgina the maid is motherliness and domestic servility, Walter the gardener embodies athleticism and Andre King is sex appeal. Chris, the fourth victim, represents artistry. In an ironic foreshadowing Chris talks to Jim Hudson before Jim buys Chris in the auction. Jim, an older blind art collector who never had ‘the vision’ for photography comments that Chris, a professional photographer, truly has ‘the eyes’. Jim’s words, and his later attempt to have his brain transplanted into Chris’ head, have an irony to them. Jim never sees Chris beyond being a pair of eyes, forgetting that it is Chris’ mind, along with his heritage, that adds the colour to his vibrant photos of New York City which make up his work.
Ultimately, I could be wrong about Get Out’s deeper meaning. Yet the film still exemplifies the power of film to take someone like myself, a white middle-class kid from England, and put me in someone else’s shoes.
Title Roll Reviews 