John Carpenter Week: Contributions - Tuesday, October 5

A new day and a new batch of superb contributions from around the blogosphere. This page will be updated throughout the day so check back often.

 
"Ladies and gentlemen, 600 words into this review I’m here to tell you that ‘Vampires’ – while not perfect – is still a decent chunk of red-blooded entertainment, nicely shot, peppered with jet black humour and boasting two stand-out set-pieces dragged out to squirmily tense effect."
- Vampires - The Agitation of the Mind
 
 
"In the cool night air, the silhouettes of three men descended an otherwise deserted staircase. The red carpet which lined the steps was sullied by discarded ticket stubs and little flecks of popcorn. The steps led away from a walkway which in turn led away from a picturesque movie house, decorated in a grand style rarely seen since the heyday of the nickelodeons. Lights were systematically shut down by unseen hands, and finally even the lamps which illuminated the marquee were switched off. Before the neon dimmed, the chipped red plastic lettering on the marquee could be seen to report "MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN.""
- John Carpenter Fanfiction: CARPY & THE CAP'N- PART 1 - Junta Juleil's Culture Shock
 
 
"Carpenter agreed to the challenge and, turning to his muse (and girlfriend at the time), Debra Hill, hammered out a script together for The Babysitter Murders, with Hill concentrating on the teenage protagonists while Carpenter focused on the psycho and the kooky doctor trying to rein him back in. Here, Yablans stepped in again and suggested that they set the tale around Halloween, and even co-opted the holiday for the title. And with that in mind, the script galvanized itself with several more elements about evil's durability, terrible family (and community) secrets best forgotten reasserting themselves and coming home to roost with a vengeance, and some old fashioned carnival spook-show thrills, where there's always something lurking in the shadows around the next turn, waiting to jump out and say "boo.""
- Evil Cannot Die -- It'll Just Scare the Seeds out of Your Pumpkin: John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) - Scenes from the Morgue: Retro-Pulp Movie Ads
 
 
"No. This wasn't any kind of old school biblical dread that I felt that night, but ghosts. Ghosts of the unsettled dead, who linger, fed by a need for vengeance, and walk the earth until their untimely and unjust deaths are avenged ... That's right, in the middle of nowhere, and several time zones removed from any major body of water, I was worried that Captain Blake and his men were out there, somewhere, waiting for me to turn my back to his best advantage. So, yeah, you could say John Carpenter's The Fog made a helluva impression on me, too."
- Trailer Park: What You Can't See Might Kill You: John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) - 3B Theater: Micro-Brewed Reviews.
 
 
"James Woods brings the full brunt of his skeevy charm to the role of Jack Crow, vampire hunter extraordinaire. But he’s dragged down by his partner, played by one of the lesser Baldwins, who’s what we refer to as a drag on the ticket. And Sheryl Lee who spends the majority of her time looking utterly befuddled. Together, they participate in one of the least engaging perfunctory romances in recent memory. They stop the film dead whenever they appear onscreen. Which is with unfortunate regularity."
- 31 Days of Horror: Day 5: Vampires - Things That Don't Suck
 
 
"Hollywood no longer takes risks like having an all male cast, unless the film is Oscar bait. While it has no basis in fact- women served in Antarctica since the '60s- it makes for a tight screenplay that can safely ignore romantic subplots. Unless you think Blair and Doc Copper were a secret couple. Maybe that's what Doc's nose ring signified? That's a nice little touch that we notice again now that big screen TVs and HD transfers are commonplace, that Doc has a nose ring, very uncommon in the '80s, showing him to be a bit of an odd character like his compatriots."
- the thing about The Thing - Pluck You, Too!!!