John Carpenter Week: Contributions - Friday, October 8

Here is the latest round of contributions from around the blogosphere. This page will be updated throughout the day so check back often.
 

"What is surprising is the level of earnest philosophizing that finds its way into the script. There's a heightened, poetic quality to much of the dialogue - which Wong and Pleasence naturally prove especially adept at delivering - and the younger characters in this film (who may be college students but are still unusually mature both in age and temperament by '80s horror standards) are not just tested physically by their ordeal, but as they fight on through day and night, their accepted concepts of good and evil, of science, and of reality itself, are all proven to be wrong in a darkly-told case of finding themselves 'Through the Looking-Glass.'"
- Hello Darkness, My Old Friend - Dinner with Max Jenke
 
 
"Though studios and producers have a lot of say in selecting the artwork for distribution and publicity, John Carpenter's films have received some stunning graphics to help promote his work through the decades. Here, then, are some of my favorites among the various poster artwork developed (by talented graphic designers) for the man's films."
- Works of Art - John Carpenter Film Posters - Lazy Thoughts from a Boomer
 
 
"So sorry, 14 year old me...you were probably never going to like PRINCE OF DARKNESS.  37 year old me, though?  Loves it and (finally) recognizes it for what it is - one of Carpenter's boldest, far reaching ideas that manages to connect on a number of different levels, and does it on a fraction of the budget his previous film (the awesome for completely different reasons BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) had."
- Prince of Darkness - Celluloid Moon
 
 
"Outside of Grauman's Chinese theater, all was quiet. The stillness was quite remarkable given the sheer amount number of raucous Cap'n Ron fans in attendance, John Carpenter thought as he thrust his hands deeply in his pockets. He paced back and forth, quite aimlessly. He'd survived a sufficient number of premieres to shed any real, crippling anxieties, yet his legs were still restless. He turned toward the theater again. It was draped with four enormous one-sheets, symmetrically arranged."
- John Carpenter Fanfiction: CARPY & THE CAP'N- PART 3: Season of the Witch - Junta Juleil's Culture Shock


"The pre-CG fog, a dry ice aficionado’s paradise, which Cundy backlights to appropriate eerie results, is another impressive feat that for the, what, 8,781,051st time proves the superiority of practical effects over their digital counterparts. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen the 2005 remake for a direct comparison, but actually considering the word of mouth on that one, let’s make that fortunately. On the subject of effects, The Fog features early work from Rob Bottin, whose make-up on the pirate zombie/ghosts are shown just enough to startle, but always in shadows, allowing the viewer’s imagination to add specific details."
- The Fog - Colonel Mortimer Will Have His Revenge


"If one purpose of film is to transport the audience to a new world, one unimagined and unreal (but nonetheless believable), then Escape from New York succeeds wildly, landing us in a future that might have been, but thankfully wasn't.  It's a great dark, dystopian fantasy."
- Cult Movie Review: Escape from New York - John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Film/TV


"With a simple, ominous synthesizer score, Carpenter makes an empty beach in daytime into something genuinely eerie. A row of fog horns bellow with menace along the coastline and the protagonists are hip enough, for the most part, to know when to run rather than say stupid things like: "You stay here, I'm going to go check out that noise." They don't have to say anything about how this stuff 'can't be happening'-- in short, they're smart. They just accept the weirdness as a given, it was the 1970s after all, and Northern California has a spooky life all its own."
- "Are You Weird?" The Fog - Acidemic- Film


"But even this is surprisingly underwhelming. Aside from the suitably OTT finale; which features a bulldozer duel, and a sequence in which the Car drives around while on fire (something impossible not to make look badass and metal as hell) most of the crash sequences are strangely underwhelming. For a movie that features cars running into things the stalk sequences are surprisingly “low impact” (sorry I was possessed by the ghost of Peter Travers). Most of the time, people run screaming from the car, the car corners them, and we cut away. Death Proof this is not."
- 31 Days of Horror: Day 8: Christine - Things That Don't Suck