John Carpenter

**John Howard Carpenter** is an American filmmaker, composer and musician. Carpenter has often been remarked as the master of horror, seeing as he is known for several iconic horror movies throughout the years.

## History

At an early age, Carpenter was interested in films, particularly films by John Ford and Howard Hawks, such as The Thing from Another World, and began filming short horror films even before starting high school. Carpenter's father was a music professor who also chaired the music department at Western Kentucky University. Carpenter eventually transferred to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts during 1968, but quit to make his first feature film.

In a beginning film course during 1969, Carpenter wrote and directed an 8 minute short film, Captain Voyeur. The film, interestingly enough, was rediscovered in 2011 and was considered interesting as it contained elements which would appear Carpenter's full feature movie Halloween in 1978. Halloween became instantly iconic and is remarked to have ignited the Slasher genre of horror. Carpenter, along with Debra Hill stuck around in the series as producers for the sequel Halloween II. For the third movie, Carpenter had other plans for the plot and made it the one movie in the series not to be involved with the main villain Michael Myers. For the third one, Carpenter wanted the Halloween series to be an anthology series, with each film telling a new tale of the holiday. In 1982, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was made and starred Tom Atkins, who had already worked with Carpenter, and Dick Warlock, who had played Michael Myers in Halloween II. However, fans were disappointed by the lack of Michael Myers and the idea was scrapped and Carpenter would not be involved with the rest of the series until the latest Halloween in 2018.

After directing Halloween, Carpenter would direct The Fog, based off a book by James Herbert, in 1980, although the titular fog was set differently than in the book. While in the book, the fog drove people to insanity, the movie had the fog contain the ghosts of vengeful leper sailors. After The Fog, Carpenter would then make Escape from New York, a crime film starring several actors who would be involved in his later films, such as Harry Dean Stanton, Kurt Russell, Charles Cyphers, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins and Donald Pleasence, with Cyphers and Pleasence already having acted in Halloween.

After that, Carpenter would then go on to create his own remake of Howard Hawks' The Thing from Another World in 1982, simply named The Thing and serving more faithful to the original story by John W. Campbell. The Thing also stars Kurt Russell as the main character yet again after Escape from New York. When The Thing was released, it received generally negative reviews due to being released not long after E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, which presented a more light hearted tone to alien visitations, while The Thing was more graphic. Over time, however, The Thing gained a cult following and is remarked as one of the best horror movies ever made, most likely due to the practical effects of the film and how most of it is left in uncertainty to play into the feeling of paranoia to the audience, to which people still speculate what exactly happened in the events of the film even to this day.

Carpenter was then approached to direct an adaptation of Stephen King's Firestarter by Universal Studios, but due to the financial disappointment of The Thing, Carpenter was replaced as director. However, Carpenter would then direct his first Stephen King adaptation, Christine, in 1983. The movie was at first not well received by critics or box offices, but eventually got to be appreciated in later years, just as The Thing did, Carpenter has been quoted to say that he only directed it because it was the only thing offered to him at the time.

Carpenter would then make several more films such as Starman, Big Trouble in Little China and Prince of Darkness. Another one of Carpenter's seminal works is 1988's They Live, which also stars Keith David, who had previously acted in The Thing. During the 1990s, Carpenter would create a sequel to Escape from New York: 1995's Escape from L.A. However, this was one of Carpenter's film failures along with several other films of his from the 90s. In 1998, Jamie Lee Curtis, the star of Carpenter's original Halloween, approached Carpenter and asked him to direct Halloween H2O, the 7th film in the series. Although Carpenter agreed, his fee was $10 million, which he wasn't pleased with and after balking with the series' producer, Moustapha Akkad, Carpenter left the project, prompting Steve Miner, who had previously directed the first two sequels to Friday the 13th, to take over as director.

In 2005, Carpenter's The Fog was remade, but received very negative reviews. In 2007, Carpenter allowed Rob Zombie to remake the original Halloween, which would gain a sequel in 2009, despite Zombie initially not wanting to. Interestingly enough, in 2002, Carpenter would also be a voice actor of a character in the video game version of The Thing. Eventually, in 2018, a 40th anniversary to Carpenter's Halloween would be made, with Carpenter serving as executive producer, making this his first involvement with the series since Season of the Witch.