HALLOWEEN 2K20: John Carpenter Tribute - A Re-Review of "Halloween", Plus More!

"I'm just in love with my new pin-up calendar. Gonna suck when I
have to change months, though."

Happy Halloween. Well, we've made it through another glorious October, and quite frankly, "glorious" is a bit of a stretch thanks to the 'vid. Things are returning back to earlier phases, restaurants are shutting down and business are ordered close earlier, which means we've got all the time in the world to sit around and horror watch movies. So you know I'm good with it. Now I know what you're thinking, "Cody, weren't you supposed to review Village of the Damned as part of this John Carpenter tribute?" Yes. I was. I ran out of time this week and simply didn't feel the need to address it. Don't worry, though. I'm sure it'll rear it's ugly head once again as it is a John Carpenter movie, so I'll probably talk about it in the future. There are other Carpenter movies I wanted to review too, including Escape from L.A. and Vampires, but the month got away from me. So... that addresses that. Maybe they'll come sooner than we think.

I got a Ph.D. in psychiatry with a minor
in blowing holes in monsters' faces.

With all that out of the way, let's get to the main event. The one you all knew was coming. A girthy re-review of the classic that launched Carpenter into the stratosphere. A masked killer visits his hometown fifteen years after he was originally locked away for murder. Halloween. But not just Halloween, we're also going to talk about the other films in the forty-year franchise that John Carpenter had at least something to do with, even if it was just a glancing involvement. So this is going to be a long-winded, epic post to celebrate quite possibly the quietest, lamest Halloween I've lived through in my entire life. So sit back, light a few Jack O'Lanterns, grab a few beers, order a pizza and let's look back on the history of Halloween.

Halloween (1978)

The plot of the original Halloween from 1978 tells the story of a mental patient named Michael Myers who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween night when he was six years old. Fifteen years later, he escapes and returns to his hometown, where he stalks a female babysitter and her friends, while under pursuit by his psychiatrist. The original slasher movie; the one that set up so many tropes for future slasher movies to come, especially Friday the 13th, and we've covered those in great detail. So let's dive into the original Halloween, which Carpenter obviously had all to do with, writing the film, directing it, as well as composing and recording the score... as was his nature. This is Halloween; A movie that teaches us that even serial killers can peak in life, even being so bad as being nostalgically drawn to their lame hometown.

"Hey, you teenagers! Stop having premarital
unprotected sex down there, I'm trying to sleep!"

On October 31, 1963, on Halloween night in the fictional small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, six-year-old Michael Myers (multiple actors, most notably Nick Castle) inexplicably stabs his older sister Judith (Sandy Johnson) to death with a kitchen knife in their home... staring at his knife in the process for some reason... and is incarcerated at Smith's Grove sanitarium. Fifteen years later, on October 30, 1978, Michael's psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and his colleague, Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens) arrive at the sanitarium to escort Michael to court. Michael escapes by stealing their car and returns to Haddonfield, killing some nameless mechanic for his coveralls, as well as stealing a white mask, a rope and knives from a local hardware store. Oddly specific, hopefully we see Michael show up with a Batman-style utility belt carrying all this junk.

The next day on Halloween, high school student Laurie Strode (then-newcomer Jamie Lee Curtis) drops off a key at the still unoccupied and dilapidated Myers home her father is trying to sell. Michael stalks her throughout the day, as one would in a small town and she notices, but her friends Annie Brackett (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda Van der Klok (P.J. Soles) dismiss her concerns. Loomis arrives in Haddonfield in search of Michael, and finds Judith's tombstone missing from the local cemetery. Why Michael goes out of his way to steal to his sister's tombstone is beyond me. I guess Michael, while nuts, has a taste for the theatrics. He meets with Annie's father, Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers), and they both investigate Michael's house, where Loomis tells Sheriff Brackett of the danger Michael poses. Sheriff Brackett is doubtful of Michael's danger but goes to patrol the streets, while Loomis waits at the house, expecting Michael to return.

"Michael, please come out of the bathroom. I have to
go really bad!" ... "Nope."

Later that night, Laurie babysits Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews), while Annie babysits Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards) across the street, unaware that Michael has followed them. Michael also kills the Wallaces' dog. When Annie's boyfriend, Paul (voice of John Carpenter himself), calls her to come and pick him up, she takes Lindsey over to the Doyle house to spend the night with Laurie and Tommy. Before Annie can leave, Michael, who hid in the back seat of her car, strangles her and slits her throat. I like how Michael does both... strangles her, then slits her throat. Michael couldn't decide? Soon after, Lynda and her boyfriend, Bob Simms (John Michael Graham), arrive at the Wallace house. After having sex, Bob goes downstairs to get a beer for Lynda and Michael stabs him to death, in the iconic-yet-unfeasible scene of Michael stabs Bob to the door and pins him there. In yet another iconic scene, Michael then poses as Bob in a ghost costume and confronts Lynda, who teases him with her breasts, but to no effect. I guess Michael is a eunuch. Annoyed, Lynda calls Laurie, but Michael strangles her to death with the telephone cord just as Laurie picks up. Meanwhile, Loomis discovers the stolen car, realizing Michael is indeed nearby and begins searching the streets.

"Michael, I'm heading out for Wendy's. You want anything?"

Suspicious, Laurie goes over to the Wallace house to find her friends and figure out what the heck is happening, and finds the bodies of Annie, Bob, and Lynda, as well as Judith's headstone, in the upstairs bedroom. In yet another iconic scene, Laurie cowers in the hallway, where Michael suddenly appears and attacks her, causing her to fall backwards on the staircase. Laurie narrowly escapes and flees back to the Doyle house, where she gets Tommy to wake up and let her in. Michael gets in and attacks her again, but she keeps him at bay by stabbing him with a knitting needle, a coat hanger, and his own knife, temporarily knocking him out each time, then sends Tommy and Lindsey to go to a neighbor's house down the street and have them call the police. Loomis sees Tommy and Lindsey running from the house and goes to investigate, finding Michael and Laurie fighting upstairs; during the fight, Laurie rips Michael's mask off, making him hesitate and put it back on. Loomis shoots Michael six times, knocking him off the balcony. Agreeing with Laurie that Michael is the "boogeyman", Loomis walks to the balcony and looks down to see that Michael has vanished. Unsurprised, he stares off into the night as Laurie begins to sob. Michael's breathing is heard during a montage of locations he had recently been, indicating he could be anywhere...

Halloween II

In 1980, Carpenter and his then-girlfriend and producer Debra Hill were asked to come back to write and direct Halloween II. By then, The Fog had come out and Carpenter was well into production on Escape from New York, and neither he nor Debra Hill had interest in making a sequel as they believed the original film was a standalone movie, and the ending was supposed to remain entirely ambiguous. When the studio offered them more money to write the script, Carpenter took the job so he could earn back what he believes was his owed pay. It became legend since that that at the time, Carpenter had seen little earnings from the original movie, though he admitted that he received a significant back-end salary much later in his career. So Carpenter came back as writer and even also worked with longtime collaborator Alan Howarth to compose the score to the sequel as well. However, during pre-production the script was not forming out as well as he thought or wanted, and he has personally stated that the only thing helping him through the screenplay process was a six-pack of Budweiser every day, which led to what he believes an inferior script and bad choices in the movie's story. He later called Halloween II "an abomination and a horrible movie".

"Nurse, I have a pain in my backside. I
need more morphine."

Without walking throughout the entire plot, Halloween II originally served as a direct sequel to Halloween, until it was retconned by the 2018 film serving as a direct sequel to the 1978 film. The plot picks up directly after the first film, with Michael Myers (now played by Dick Warlock) following survivor Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) to the local hospital, while his psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) continues his pursuit of him. The film proceeds with, as Carpenter described, "much of the same thing" as Halloween, and ends with a solidified, no-sequel-possible finish of Michael and Loomis blowing up inside Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, supposedly killing them both and ending the Myers/Strode/Loomis/Haddonfield storyline.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Well into his 1980s boom, Carpenter had by 1982-83 largely outgrown Halloween. By now, Escape from New York had come out and The Thing was either about to come out or had also already come out. Carpenter and Hill were once again asked to come back and be apart of Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Halloween III surprisingly enough is the only entry in the series that does not feature the series antagonist, Michael Myers, trying its best to stick to its guns on the finished Michael Myers/Haddonfield storyline that was wrapped up at the end of Halloween II. In fact, Halloween III: Season of the Witch treats the prior films in the franchise as fictional films, and the film's tagline is a reference to the one from the original as well.

"Yes... Dominoes? I have been on hold
for thirty minutes now and I would just like
to say your customer service sucks... but your
pizza is to die for."

It also departs from the slasher genre, which the rest of the installments were a part of, and instead features a "witchcraft" theme with science fiction aspects. John Carpenter and Debra Hill believed that the Halloween series had the potential to be an anthology series of films that centered around the night of Halloween, with each sequel containing its own characters, setting, and storyline. Halloween III director Tommy Lee Wallace stated that there were many ideas for Halloween-themed films, some of which could have potentially created any number of their own sequels, and that Season of the Witch was meant to be the first. Carpenter, meanwhile, solely returned to the series with this film to compose the score, once again with collaborator Alan Howarth. The score for Halloween III: Season of the Witch still remains a pretty damn good horror synth score, and one of Carpenter's best.

Halloween 4 Development

Six years would pass after the end of Halloween III: Season of the Witch. In early 1987, John Carpenter was once again asked to come back for revitalizing and rebooting the series with a new sequel revolving around the Michael Myers/Haddonfield storyline. Carpenter pitched a story with screenwriter Dennis Etchison that was very mentally thrilling. Etchison described his and Carpenter's story outline as:

"Halloween was banned in Haddonfield and I think that the basic idea was that if you tried to suppress something, it would only rear its head more strongly. By the very attempt of trying to erase the memory of Michael Myers, the teenagers were going to ironically bring him back into existence."

"WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT HAVING
THE T.V. ON AFTER BEDTIME?"

When the fourth Halloween film hit the fast track, production opted not to use Carpenter's and Etchison's story for being "too cerebral", and decided to go back to the drawing board and simply reuse and exercise much of the same slasher film practices. It was here that Carpenter and Hill would sell their rights and interests in the Halloween franchise and officially backed out for what seemed like for good... while the Halloween series would bastardize itself further and further with "The Thorn Trilogy of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Granted I love 4, but that's besides the point.

Halloween H2O Development

In the mid 90s, after the abomination that was Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, the series was going to be rebooted with a new sequel that would ignore all other sequels and directly follow Halloween II. After spending just over a decade away from the franchise creating all sorts of different and classic movies, John Carpenter once again entered negotiations to be the director of this new Halloween film since Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to reunite the cast and crew of the original. It was believed that Carpenter opted out because he wanted no active part in the sequel; however, this is not the case.

"Ma'am, your Uber has been waiting outside
for twenty minutes. Shit or get off the pot."

He had agreed to direct the movie, but his starting fee as director was a whopping $10 million, and he wanted a three-picture deal with Dimension Films. Carpenter rationalized this by saying the hefty fee was compensation for revenue he never received from the original Halloween, a matter that was still a point of contention between Carpenter and producer Moustapha Akkad even after 20 years had passed. When Akkad and Dimension Film's Weinstein brothers balked at Carpenter's demands, he walked off the from the project, and once again, the film and the franchise he co-created moved on without him.

Halloween (2018)

Don't worry, because we have our happy ending, folks. On the cusp of the 40th anniversary of the franchise, John Carpenter would make his epic return to the masked killer Michael Myers' dominion at long last. As development for a new Halloween reboot progressed, Blumhouse Productions sought to involve John Carpenter more and more, as much as they could. Although Carpenter generally prefers not to be personally involved in sequels and remakes of his works (he usually accepts an 'original screenplay' credit), producer Jason Blum convinced him into taking a more active role in this movie, as a spiritual advisor. Carpenter met director David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride, loved their pitch of the story, and contributed with several script ideas.

"Man, smartphones? Vine? Social media? I can't
be scarier than that. Forty years in the looney bin
as done me dirty."

The original film, we've already reviewed as part of my "Halloween 2K18" special series two years ago, and you can read that either by thumbing through the archives or heck, I'll just supply you the link right here. Read away!

Well, what can you say about Halloween that I haven't said already? Quite honestly it's easily the best slasher movie of all time, despite its nowadays hilarious quirks. Like Lynda being strangled over the phone and squealing like she's having an orgasm instead of dying, which is humorous in retrospect. Annie's acting is butt-awful, but enjoyable on the same wavelength. There are still some creepier elements that ring hard even forty years later. Carpenter once equated the thrills and scares of Halloween by echoing Alfred Hitchcock's "Bomb Theory" of mastering the art of suspense in cinema. In Hitchcock’s theory, there are two scenarios. In the first, two people are having a conversation while a bomb is ticking under the table. The bomb explodes. The viewer is surprised momentarily because there was no indication anything out of the ordinary was going to happen. In the second scenario, the bomb is underneath the table, but the viewer knows it’s there. They also know that in fifteen minutes that bomb is going to explode, which creates nail-biting suspense. According to Hitchcock, the second scenario is more captivating because the audience is actively participating in the scene and they dying to warn the characters.

"Don't turn your back on me, young lady!
Explain how this phone bill wound up over
five hundred dollars?!"

Halloween very much thrived on that. It invented the whole trope of trying to yell at characters and tell them not to go in somewhere the audience is sure to know they're going to die. Halloween in fact probably took the trope and brought into the mainstream, allowing for other slasher films of the 1980s to mimic the formula and become tropes of their own. It was a cornerstone of cinema, and it still is often reviewed in film schools around the world. I know I took a film class in community college and one of the films we had to watch and write a review on was Halloween. Many people balked at the idea that Halloween could become Carpenter's magnum opus like has become today; it was shown on a college campus tour in '78 and many said that the film would never reach theaters nor would it even come close to being hailed as the greatest horror film of all time... now it has done both tenfold. It just goes to show that you never, ever judge a book by its cover and always give credit where credit is due.

Watch Halloween tonight. Set up the Jack O'Lanterns, listen to the leaves fall outside, and I would say listen to the trick-or-treating kids are doing as ambience but Lord knows COVID has ruined that. So make the past of your Halloween 2020, watch a few John Carpenter movies, and enjoy the night. Thanks for joining me in my John Carpenter tribute this October. I'm sure I'll be back in November or December with regular content soon enough.

Happy Halloween...!

HALLOWEEN 2K20: John Carpenter Tribute - A Review of "In the Mouth of Madness"

"Huh... I thought for a second it'd just be the wall. Go figure.'

I know I'm super late. I've done some traveling lately and have had to work later hours for sleeping in. That's what I get for trying to work from home, am I right fellow lazy bums or am I right? Well, I'm trying to crank out the last three posts for Halloween 2K20 as fast yet efficiently as one can, so I'm here today to get the first of the final three out for your reading pleasure!

"Wipe your fucking feet or granny's gonna
mash an axe in your head!"

Today we're here to talk about John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. The film pays tribute to the work of renowned horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, with many references to his stories and various other works he's done. Its title is even a play on Lovecraft's novella, At the Mountains of Madness, and in Carpenter's film insanity plays as great a role in the film just as it does in Lovecraft's fiction. Most of the film is told through a flashback by the main character, which is another trope of H.P. Lovecraft. Clearly this movie owes more to H.P. Lovecraft than it does to John Carpenter. Without further ado, let's dive in and figure out what the literal madness is all about, and why I consider it yet another fine work by John Carpenter. This is In the Mouth of Madness, a movie that teaches us that if works by authors came to life, depending on which author it is... say Stephen King... everyone would shit their pants... but if J.K. Rowling's works came to life, everyone would still shit their pants but for entirely different reasons.

He was probably watching some jukebox musical. Those
things will make anyone go crazy.

In the midst of an unspecified disaster, Dr. Wrenn (David Warner) visits John Trent (Sam Neill), a completely nuts patient in a psychiatric hospital, and Trent recounts his story to the good doctor. Off the bat, two very great actors. I can see we're in for a treat here. Trent, a freelance insurance investigator, has lunch with a colleague (Bernie Casey), the owner of an insurance company, who asks Trent to work on his largest insured: investigating a claim by New York-based Arcane Publishing. During their conversation, Trent is attacked by a man wielding an axe who, after asking him if he reads Sutter Cane, is shot dead by a police officer before he can harm Trent. The man was Cane's agent, who went insane and killed his family after reading one of Cane's books.

Trent meets with Arcane Publishing director, Jackson Harglow (Legendary Actor and Legendary Gun Nut Charlton Heston), who tasks him with investigating the disappearance of popular horror novelist, Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), and recovering the manuscript for Cane's final novel. He assigns Cane's editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), to accompany him. Linda explains that Cane's stories have been known to cause disorientation, memory loss, and paranoia in "less stable readers". Trent is skeptical, convinced the disappearance is a publicity stunt. Trent notices red lines on the covers of Cane's books, which, when aligned properly, form the outline of New Hampshire and mark a location alluded to be Hobb's End, the fictional setting for many of Cane's works. Already the mystery and aura of the movie builds quite well, and the hunt for Sutter Cane is on! They set out to find the town. Linda experiences bizarre phenomena during the late night drive... including passing a rapidly aging bicyclist (in a rather eerie scene) over and over again, eventually running the poor guy over... Following that weirdness, they inexplicably arrive at Hobb's End in daylight thought it was the middle of the night seconds earlier. Trent and Linda search the small town, encountering people and landmarks described as fictional in Cane's novels. Trent believes it all to be staged, but Linda disagrees. She admits to Trent that Arcane Publishing's claim was a stunt to promote Cane's book, but the time distortion and exact replica of Hobb's End were not part of the plan.

This photo screams "girl on Facebook covered in tattoos
that says 'all I want is another tattoo'."

Linda enters a church to confront Cane, who exposes her to his final novel called "In the Mouth of Madness", which drives her insane; she begins embracing and kissing Cane passionately. A man approaches Trent in a bar and warns him to leave, then commits suicide. Outside the bar, a mob of monstrous-looking townspeople descend upon him. Trent drives away from Hobb's End, but is repeatedly teleported back to the center of town. After crashing his car, Trent awakens inside the church with Linda, where Cane explains that the public's belief in his stories freed an ancient race of monstrous beings which will reclaim the Earth... Uh, okay? But that's not all, as Cane reveals that Trent is merely one of his characters, who must follow Cane's plot and return the manuscript of In The Mouth of Madness to Arcane Publishing, furthering the end of humanity. After giving Trent the manuscript, Cane tears a giant photograph of his face open, creating a portal to the dimension of Cane's monstrous masters. Trent sees a long tunnel that Cane said would take him back to his world, and urges Linda to come with him. She tells him she can't, because she has already read the entire book. Trent races down the hall, with Cane's monsters close on his heels. He trips and falls, then suddenly finds himself lying on a country road, apparently back in reality. During his return to New York, Trent destroys the manuscript. Back at Arcane Publishing, Trent relates his experience to Harglow. Harglow claims ignorance of Linda, disbelieving she is real and claiming that Trent was sent alone to find Cane, and the manuscript was delivered months earlier. As it turns out, "In the Mouth of Madness" has been on sale for weeks, with a film adaptation in post production. Trent encounters a reader of the newly released novel, who is bleeding from his altered eyes, and murders him with an axe, being arrested for murder and sent to the asylum.

"Araaaaaabian niiiiiiiiights, like Araaaabian
daaaaaaaaays!"

After Trent finishes telling his story, Dr. Wrenn judges it a meaningless hallucination. Trent wakes the following day to find the asylum abandoned, seemingly after a violent and bloody battle has taken place. He departs as a radio announces that the world has been overrun with monstrous creatures, including mutating humans, and that outbreaks of suicide and mass murder are commonplace. Trent goes to see the "In the Mouth of Madness" film and discovers that he is the main character. As he watches his previous actions play out on screen, including a scene where he insisted to Linda "This is reality!" Trent begins laughing hysterically before breaking down crying; finally realizing he was a character in the book all along...

In the Mouth of Madness is arguably John Carpenter's best work of the 1990s. It's thematic terror and intriguing story points create an jaw-dropping scenario in which the main character of the film was really a fictional character in a book all along. The same sort of happens to The Truman Show and Jim Carrey, although not nearly as grotesque. Trent's expedition to Hobb's End proves that Cane's works are in fact bending reality, and we think that it's because Cane is a mysteriously powerful warlock author whose words can change reality to his desire; as it turns out Cane is instead the author of the book that Trent is the main character in, and In the Mouth of Madness is both the book, and the movie that details this wild ride.

Your dog when he learns that "Let's go to the park" means
"Let's go to the Vet and get you neutered."

I only recently for the first time watched In the Mouth of Madness so I could be ready to review it, and I gotta say, I was quite impressed. That John Carpenter touch was there all along, and I fell in love with its themes, its cinematography, and its score. The main title theme composed by Carpenter and Jim Lang is catchy as hell, and it's been on repeat on my YouTube playlist since I watched it. While the acting is a little cheesy at times, mainly from Julie Carmen and her awkardly clunky deliveries, as usual the dialogue is riveting; this time provided by screenwriter Michael De Luca. If you haven't seen it, as I hadn't, sit down and try out In the Mouth of Madness, a fun and chilling take on the psychosis experienced by the main character being planned out all along twist. Give it a watch!

HALLOWEEN 2K20: John Carpenter Tribute - A Review of "They Live"

"I have come here to get ripped off by Duke Nukem, and look cool... Man if only Vince let me
carry all of these guns down to the ring. I'd never lose!"

Oh boy, now we're getting down to the nitty gritty with one of my all time favorite movies, not just John Carpenter movies, but movies in general. Let's move on after Prince of Darkness and talk about They Live. The film follows an unnamed drifter... who literally doesn't have a name in the entire film and is addressed as "Nada" in the end credits... who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class of the United States and possibly even the rest of the world are aliens, concealing their appearance and manipulating people to spend money, breed, and accept the status quo with subliminal messages in mass media.

Yeah, it's pretty American to take the land away from the
Natives just to turn it into a shopping mall.

The idea for They Live came from a short story called "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in November 1963. John Carpenter described Nelson's story during the making of They Live as "... a D.O.A.-type of story in which a man is put in a trance by a stage hypnotist. When he awakens, he realizes that the entire human race has been hypnotized, and that alien creatures are controlling humanity. He has only until eight o'clock in the morning to solve the problem." So what makes They Live yet another excellent work by John Carpenter? Let's dig right in and find out! This is They Live, a movie that teaches us that be it Republican or Democrat, the politicians and top one-percent own you, own your house, and own your things... and there's nothing you can do about it... oh and maybe they're aliens? Alien heritage up for debate, they definitely own you.

A drifter, credited simply as "Nada" ("Rowdy" Roddy Piper) arrives in Los Angeles. While out on the streets, looking for food and looking for work, he sees a street preacher warning that “they” have recruited the rich and powerful to control humanity. Nada takes a job on a construction site and befriends fellow construction worker Frank (Keith David), who leads him to a shanty town soup kitchen and its leader, Gilbert (Peter Jason). That night, a hacker takes over television broadcasts, claiming that scientists had discovered signals that were enslaving the population and keeping them in a dream-like state, and that the only way to stop it is to shut off the signal at its source. Those watching the broadcast complain of headaches and the apparent "Bullshit" emanating from the hacker's mouth, not believing that the human race could be so easily controlled.

The next day, after another transmission from the hackers, Nada secretly follows Gilbert and the street preacher into a nearby church, and discovers them meeting with a group that includes the hacker that was on the T.V. He sees scientific equipment and cardboard boxes inside, and hears Gilbert worrying that the Hoffman lenses they made won’t be enough without "strong people" to help them. Nada is discovered by the blind preacher and escapes. That night, the homeless people's shantytown and church are destroyed in a police raid, and the hacker and preacher are surrounded and beaten by riot police. The following day, Nada retrieves one of the boxes from the now empty and abandoned church and learns of its contents; sunglasses. He takes a pair of sunglasses from it, hiding the rest in a trash can. Nada discovers that the sunglasses make the world appear black and white, but also reveal subliminal messages in the media to "OBEY", "CONSUME", "REPRODUCE", and "CONFORM". The glasses also reveal that many people are actually aliens with skull-like faces rather than humans, proving the hacker was telling the truth and that the middle and lower classes are being controlled.

"How long have the aliens been here, man?"
"Hold on, Frank. First let's talk about the
ringing in my ears after you slammed my head
on the pavement."

When Nada mocks an alien woman at a supermarket, she alerts other aliens via a mysterious wristwatch. Nada leaves, but is confronted by two alien cops. He kills them and steals their weapons. We continue Grand Theft Nada as Nada enters a bank, where he sees that several of the employees and customers are aliens. After taunting them, revealing it was in fact They Live that came up with the phrase "I have come here to chew bubble gum, and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.", Nada murders several aliens with a shotgun and escapes by taking Cable 54 employee Holly Thompson (Meg Foster) hostage. At Holly’s home, Nada tries to get her to try on the glasses, but she knocks him out of the window and down a hill... a fall that no one besides probably "Rowdy" Roddy himself could survive... and then calls the police. Beaten up, Nada returns to the alley and retrieves the box of sunglasses from a garbage truck. Frank meets Nada to give him his paycheck, but Nada tries to get Frank to put on a pair of the glasses. Frank thinks Nada is a murderer and wants nothing to do with him to protect his family. Frank and Nada get into a nearly six-minute alley brawl, after which Frank is too tired to prevent Nada from putting the sunglasses on him. After seeing the aliens and a flying saucer, Frank agrees to go into hiding with Nada.

Frank and Nada later find Gilbert laying low at the hotel they're hiding in, who leads them to a meeting of the anti-alien movement. At the meeting, they are given contact lenses to replace the sunglasses, and learn that the aliens are using global warming to make Earth more like their own planet, and are depleting the Earth’s resources for their own gain. They also learn that the aliens have been bribing humans to become collaborators, promoting them into positions of power. Hmm... I can't figure out why anyone thought this movie was more of a documentary than a science-fiction film. Holly arrives at the meeting, apologizing to Nada, with information on the source of the signal. However, the meeting is raided by police and the vast majority of those present are killed, with the survivors (including Frank, Nada, and Holly) scattering into the night as the police surround the area. Nada and Frank are cornered by police in an alley, but they accidentally activate an alien wristwatch, opening a portal that they escape through.

This must be how consumers left the Apple Store
the day after the Apple Watch came out.

The portal takes them to the aliens' spaceport, where they discover a meeting of aliens and human collaborators, celebrating the elimination of the "terrorists". They are approached by a former drifter, now a collaborator (George Buck Flower), who gives them a tour of the facility. He leads them to the basement of Cable 54, the source of the signal, which is protected by armed guards. Nada and Frank find Holly and fight their way to the transmitter on the roof, but Holly kills Frank, revealing that she is a collaborator. Nada kills Holly and destroys the transmitter, but is fatally wounded by aliens in a helicopter. Nada gives the aliens the middle finger as he dies. With the transmitter destroyed, humans all over the world discover the aliens hiding among them....

So that's They Live, a jaw-dropping alternative look at how the top one-percent, the politicians and the wealthy, have the middle and lower classes wrapped around their fingers. The political elements seen in the film are apparently staged from John Carpenter's growing distaste with the apparently ever-prominent commercialization of 1980s pop culture and politics, particularly the influence of Reaganomics... thanks Reagan. Carpenter once remarked, "The picture's premise is that the 'Reagan Revolution' is run by aliens from another galaxy. Free enterprisers from outer space have taken over the world, and are exploiting Earth as if it's a third world planet. As soon as they exhaust all our resources, they'll move on to another world" (*cough* American *cough*)... "I began watching TV again. I quickly realized that everything we see is designed to sell us something. It's all about wanting us to buy something. The only thing they want to do is take our money." The politicization of They Live is so rampant, they are actually memes out there of the ghoul aliens from the film relating to COVID-19 and coronavirus quarantine in America. The movie's subtexts and imagery is a launch pad from which to attack an authoritarian figure holding you back.

They Live is a phenomenal entry in 1980s pop culture as well as being a top-notch science-fiction action film, and it's definitely one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. I love it for its premise, its writing, and the idea that the wealthy exploit the poor, something very prominent in my nation that those who are all for it choose to turn a blind eye to. It really speaks to the realness of the situation of the world we live in, and oh yeah, manages to use science-fiction elements like aliens and interstellar travel as a means of conveying it. I love Roddy Piper and Keith David's chemistry, and while it is a pratfall that they're the only characters who have more than one or two pages' worth of dialogue, the dialogue of the other characters is certainly never dull. It's nearly six-minute alley fight between Nada and Frank has been contested but never beaten, and it often ranks as one of the best if not the best movie fight you'll ever see. It was even parodied, shot for shot, move for move, in the South Park episode "Cripple Fight", in case you were curious.

If you haven't watched it already, salute Mr. Carpenter and watch They Live, while proudly giving your hardest, most earnest middle finger up in the sky at "the man".

HALLOWEEN 2K20: John Carpenter Tribute - A Review of "Prince of Darkness"

This is what the Nickelodeon vault looked like in the mid 90s... a swirling vat of luminous green
liquid that many people cowered around and studied.

We are steaming through October 2020, y'all. Quarantine is hitting hard and limiting total "fun" time outside, but it is allowing a lot of time for watching horror movies, especially some good ol' John Carpenter movies. Hopefully my tribute here is just what the doctor ordered for your quarantine movie viewing needs, and today's entry is yet another spooky tale that's high on the rankings.

Some will think this looks less spooky and
more like a Walmart Halloween decoration

Skipping over Starman (which I haven't seen) and Big Trouble in Little China (which I've only seen once, unfortunately), we arrive in 1987. This year, John Carpenter wrote and directed a sinister religious thriller kind of in the same vain as a William Peter Blatty novel: This is Prince of Darkness, a movie that teaches us that while God is cool, there's an Anti-God made of Nickelodeon slime that's chilling in an 16th century Catholic church that nobody knew about ever. Carpenter became inspired for the project while researching theoretical physics and atomic theory. He recalled, "I thought it would be interesting to create some sort of ultimate evil and combine it with the notion of matter and anti-matter." This idea, which would eventually develop into the screenplay for Prince of Darkness, was to be the first of a multi-picture deal with Alive Pictures, where Carpenter was allocated $3 million per picture and complete creative control. Carpenter wrote the screenplay but was credited as "Martin Quatermass", because Carpenter I believe at one point stated he thought it was pretentious for his name to pop up over and over again.

When you catch yourself humming along to
"Mommy Shark"

So what is Prince of Darkness about? Well there's only one way to find out. If it's your first time here, I'm about to walk you through the whole movie. If you want to watch the movie first so as to avoid spoilers, stop reading now and do so. If not? Let's move on!

The movie starts out as a priest (Donald Pleasence) invites quantum physicist Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) and his students to join him in the basement of a monastery belonging to "The Brotherhood of Sleep", an old order who communicate through dreams. The priest requires their assistance in investigating a mysterious cylinder containing a swirling green liquid. Among the thirteen academics present are wise-cracking Walter (Dennis Dun), demure Kelly (Susan Blanchard), and lovers Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount). They decipher text found next to the cylinder which describes the liquid as the corporeal embodiment of Satan. The liquid appears sentient. The academics use a computer to analyze the books surrounding it, and find that they included differential equations. Over a period of two days, small jets of liquid escape from the cylinder. Members of the group exposed to the liquid... much to the same effect the poor souls on Nickelodeon were exposed to their liquid... and become possessed by the entity, attacking the others. Anyone attempting to leave is killed by the growing mass of enthralled schizophrenic homeless people who surround the building, led by a long-black-haired, scruffy creepy looking fellow by the name of Alice Cooper. No really... that Alice Cooper.

"I have a message for your... and you're not going to like it...
Liberty Mutual bundles home and auto insurance plans,
so you only pay for what you need."

Birack and the priest theorize that Satan is actually the offspring of an even more powerful force of evil, the "Anti-God", who is bound to the realm of anti-matter. The survivors find themselves sharing a recurring dream, which they later deduce is a tachyon transmission from the future... the future a demonic voice states is "one-nine-nine-nine"... or the year 1999. HA! "Future". Anyway... showing a shadowy figure emerging from the front of the church. The hazy transmission changes slightly with each occurrence of the dream, revealing progressively more detail. The narration of the transmission each time instructs the dreamer that they are witnessing an actual broadcast from the future, and they must prevent this possible outcome. Walter, trapped in a closet, witnesses the possessed bring the cylinder to a sleeping Kelly. It opens itself and the remaining liquid absorbs into Kelly, transforming her into the physical vessel of Satan: a gruesomely disfigured being, with powers of telekinesis and regeneration. I'm not really sure where the regeneration comes into play, because her skin continues to fall apart as the story goes on and yet no healing in sight. Oh well... maybe she's just a very selfless Prince of Darkness. Kelly attempts to summon the Anti-God through a dimensional portal using a mirror, but the mirror is too small and the effort fails.

"Oh man, if John finds out I spilled a whole box
of Goldfish in there, he is going to be so pissed."

While the rest of the team is occupied fighting the possessed, Kelly finds a larger wall mirror and draws the Anti-God's hand through it. Danforth, the only one free to act, tackles Kelly, causing both of them to fall through the portal. The priest then shatters the mirror with an axe, trapping Kelly, the Anti-God, and Danforth in the other realm. Danforth is seen briefly on the other side of the mirror reaching out to the portal before it closes. Immediately, the possessed die, the street people wander away, and the survivors (Marsh, Walter, Birack, and the priest) are rescued. As soon as the ordeal finishes, Marsh has the recurring dream again, except now Danforth... who is apparently possessed... is the figure emerging from the church, after all this time! Marsh awakens and finds Kelly, gruesomely disfigured, lying in bed with him. This is shown to be another dream... and he awakens screaming. Rising, he approaches his bedroom mirror, hand outstretched, not knowing if he is in our realm or the Anti-realm...

"Wait, did Alice go through wardrobe?"
"Nope."
"Wow, he's good."

So that's Prince of Darkness. A more obscure entry in John Carpenter's filmography, but I actually find it fascinating in that it's a totally original, albeit bizarre, idea. To think there's a father of Satan out there much more powerful than he is, and also to have a grounding in the field of science. I love the deduction behind it all, having to bring a team of students into a church and figuring out what is happening, who the Anti-God is and where He comes from. That's another thing; once again John Carpenter uses a single setting for the majority of his pictures, isolating his characters in one place so that they can't escape. The homeless people outside creating the barrier and keeping our characters cornered in one locale to fight evil; it never gets old, and I love that he kept finding new and creative ways to do it.

This guy was supposed to be in college. Forget
the fact he's clearly thirty-five and stalking
college chicks.

As for the characters, I like the adult characters, but some of the college characters you can tell were written to be pretty forgettable. I get you have to have stock characters or throwaway characters in a slasher movie. If the movie took the time to get you acquainted with every character, regardless of who it was going to kill or not kill, each slasher movie would be like three hours long. If Peter Jackson started directing horror movies, that's what we'd get... but in terms of characters I liked, there's Donald Pleasance as the Priest, because who wouldn't? Though, he is very Sam Loomis'y in the role of the Priest. It feels like the part was written with him mind, and he'd be more fit to run around in a beige trench coat with a nickel-plated revolver screaming "HE'S PURE EVIL EVERYBODY!! PUUUURE EVIL!!" I also like Victor Wong as Professor Birack, he's inquisitive and demanding. Victor Wong also played Walter, a shop owner in Tremors, one of my all time favorite black-comedy/sci-fi movies.

As usual, the cinematography is brilliant, and it comes from that Panavision feel John Carpenter gives all of his movies. The setting outside of the church has kind of a sepia look to it, if you ask me, giving us a very dusty, western like setting. The inside of the church meanwhile is very clean, but gothic and eerie. You get two conflicting looks to the film that way, and it juxtaposes itself quite nicely. If you haven't watched Prince of Darkness, add it to your list. It's another slasher masterpiece... a "Slash-terpiece", if you will... by the man himself. It's a more obscure entry, but runtime for the film certainly isn't an issue at only an hour and forty-one minutes. Give it a try! It's a twisted take on mixing religion and science-fiction into the ultimate terror!

HALLOWEEN 2K20: John Carpenter Tribute - A Review of "Christine"

*THIS JUST IN*: 1958 Plymouth Furies have been recalled for spontaneously running down
teenagers against the driver's control. Please see your nearest Plymouth dealer for details.

Welcome back. I know I'm a couple days late! I am currently patching servers where I work late nights so there hasn't been quite a lot of time to for me to keep up with my blog posts for this October. With that shameless apology out of the way, let's continue on with our Halloween 2K20 tribute to John Carpenter, the man, the master, the maestro of mayhem; right here... on Spoiler Alert!

"Arnie, what's wrong?" "I'm just wondering who
the hell shot J.R."

So, we know for a fact that The Thing is arguably John Carpenter's magnum opus. You know... aside from that one movie that he made that definitely became the defining film on which all future horror movies would be compared to, fairly or unfairly. The following year after The Thing, 1983, John Carpenter would get another film in, and this one is actually based off of a Stephen King novel released the same year. In fact, at the time, Stephen King was so popular that the movie rights to this novel were sold before the novel was even published. This is Christine, a movie that teaches us you should never ever fall in love with your first car because it could try to self-drive and murder everyone who ever wronged you... and stood by your side... in your entire life. Similarly with the book, Christine tells the story of the changes in the lives of Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon), his friends, his family, and his teenage enemies after Arnie buys a classic Red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury named "Christine", license number CQB 241, a car that seems to have a jealous, possessive personality – and a mind of its own. Does the movie hold up as well as the book? Let's dig in through the plot and figure out what works and what doesn't!

"Christine, babe! Open up so I can pull my
fucking hand out! LIKE THIS!! LIKE THIS!!"

The movie opens in September 1957, at a Chrysler Corporation assembly plant in Detroit. During a routine inspection a line of brand new 1958 Plymouth Furies, the hood of a newly assembled, red-and-white model slams down without warning and crushes the hand of a line worker. Another worker climbs in to sit behind the wheel, letting the ash from his cigar fall on the front seat. At the end of the shift, the line supervisor notices the car's radio is playing music; when he opens the door to shut it off, the worker's corpse falls out onto the floor to the dulcet tones of Buddy Holly "Not Fade Away".

Twenty-one years later, in September 1978, Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell) picks up his best friend Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham (artistically to the tune of Tanya Tucker's cover of "Not Fade Away" (Nice detail), who is an awkward and unpopular teenager in Rockbridge, California. Arnie's life begins to change when he buys the used, dilapidated Fury from George LeBay (Roberts Blossom... the "South Bend Shovel Slayer" from Home Alone), whose late brother Roland had originally owned it. George tells Arnie several details about the car, including its name: "Christine". Since his parents will not let him keep the car at their house, Arnie begins to restore it at a do-it-yourself garage and junkyard owned by Will Darnell (Robert Prosky). As Arnie spends more of his time working on the car, he discards his glasses, dresses more like a 1950s greaser, and develops an arrogant, paranoid personality. Unbeknownst to Arnie, Dennis learned from Arnie's mother Regina (Ironically Christine Belford) that Roland actually committed suicide in the car. Confronted by Dennis, George admits that Roland's daughter had choked to death in the car and that his wife also committed suicide in it. George forced Roland to get rid of Christine after Roland's wife's death, but the car returned to him after three weeks. All by itself! *Eerie ghost noises*

"Boy, this car's seen better days." "Yeah, I
wonder if there's an Extreme Makeover: Car
Edition?"

During a football game, Dennis becomes distracted by the sight of Arnie kissing his new girlfriend, Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Cabot), in front of a now-perfect Christine and is tackled, suffering a career-ending injury. One night, while Arnie and Leigh are on a date at the drive-in, one of Christine's windshield wipers stops working. When Arnie gets out to fix it, Leigh begins to choke on a hamburger. The doors lock themselves, leaving Arnie unable to help her, but she frees herself and is saved when a man in a nearby car administers the Heimlich maneuver. Soon afterward, school bully Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander) - angry with Arnie over being expelled after a confrontation in shop class - vandalizes Christine with the help of his gang. Arnie is devastated and determined to repair Christine but is surprised to see her quickly restore herself... all spooky like. *Eerie ghost noises*

Christine then seeks out the vandals, crushing Moochie Welch (Malcolm Danare) in an alley, triggering a gas station explosion that kills Don Vandenberg (Stuart Charno) and Richie Trelawny (Steven Tash) and sets the car on fire, and finally running down Buddy himself. After the badly burned Christine returns to Darnell's garage, Darnell sits in the driver's seat and is crushed to death against the steering wheel when Christine pushes the seat forward. The next morning, Christine is back in its slot and fully repaired again. Creepily... all by herself without any intervention at all! *Eerie ghost noises*! State police detective Rudolph Junkins (Harry Dean Stanton) becomes suspicious of Arnie, having discovered paint from Christine at the scenes of two gang members' deaths. However, he has no direct evidence to implicate Arnie, who has an alibi.

"Arnie, we found paint matching Christine's at
the crime scene." "Detective, there are millions
of red cars in America." "Touché."

Junkins either does not know or cannot believe that Christine can drive herself. Following the choking incident and Christine's initial vandalization, Leigh breaks up with Arnie. Dennis and Leigh conclude the only way to save Arnie is to destroy Christine. They set a trap for it at Darnell's garage: Dennis waits at the controls of a bulldozer, while Leigh stands ready to close the garage doors and cut off Christine's retreat once it enters. However, Christine has been lying in wait under a pile of debris in the garage the entire time, and it strikes when Leigh takes up her position at the door controls. Christine crashes through Darnell's office in an attempt to get at Leigh. Arnie – who has been driving the car himself – is thrown through the windshield and impaled on a shard of glass, which kills him. Dennis and Leigh attack Christine with the bulldozer, but it continually repairs itself and strikes back. The battle continues until they repeatedly drive back and forth over the car, damaging Christine so much that it is unable to immediately regenerate... to the tune of "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay" by Danny & The Juniors. The next day, Dennis, Leigh and Junkins watch as Christine's remains are compacted by a car crusher in a junkyard and dropped on the ground as a solid block. Junkins praises Dennis and Leigh for defeating the demonic vehicle, despite them mourning the loss of Arnie and their inability to save him. As the camera zooms in slowly on the remains, a portion of the front grill begins to twitch... signaling that Christine may not be fully destroyed after all, and she may soon regenerate and hunt down more innocent victims! *Eerie ghost noises*

"Arnie, why is your car choking me?" "Relax!
I'll do the Heimlich!" "Pretty sure your car
called me a 'cheap alleyway slut' too!" "Oh... that
might be something else entirely."

Christine is a pretty great slasher movie, and unique that the killer in the film is a car. There's a similar car-related slasher film I haven't seen but it's been on Netflix called The Car. If you've seen The Car, leave a comment on this blog post and tell me how it is. Maybe I'll take a look at it as background noise one day during work. Despite that the film involved car related murders, there's surprisingly very little gore in the film. According to the film's writer Bill Phillips on the DVD/Blu-ray documentary, the movie technically didn't have enough violence to justify an "R" rating, but they were afraid that if the movie went out with a PG rating (PG-13 didn't exist yet) nobody would go to see it. So while writing the script he purposely inserted the words "fuck" and "cunt" and their derivatives in order to get the "R" rating. He then recalls that they were then criticized at the time for their use of the words. That's the downside of being a car related slasher movie, but the upside are the special effects. To simulate the car regenerating itself, hydraulic pumps were installed on the inside of some of the film's numerous Plymouth Fury "stunt doubles", a mock-up in plastic that looked more like metal on camera than actual metal as it bent and deformed. These pumps were attached to cables, which were in turn attached to the cars' bodywork and when they compressed, they would "suck" the paneling inwards. Footage of the inward crumpling body was then reversed, giving the appearance of the car spontaneously retaking form.

This is literally what my back does every
morning when I get out of bed.

As for me, I love Christine. It isn't exactly an accurate depiction of the events that take place in the novel. Of course, what movie made to this scale depicts everything exactly as in tune with the novel. The movie would be like four hours if it had to include everything in the novel. There are several differences because of this. Still, I think Christine is the perfect runtime for what it is, and includes many, many references to the novel. At least most of the key ones. I love the characters, though Keith Gordon's acting when Arnie turns evil is a little wonky. The car scene where he talks about love's never-ending appetite is actually masterful in my opinion, but elsewhere he just seems to mumble a lot and the scene where he dies and pulls a shard of glass out of his abdomen, the grunts he makes are outright hilarious. Kind of sucks the emotion out of the scene when he grunts like he's got something caught in his bum.

Sit down and watch Christine this October. You will enjoy it for its devout quirkiness, its automotive showcase of the classic '58 Fury, it's hilariously filthy dialogue, its clunky acting with some actually quite entertaining dialogue. It's not too short, not too long, and while it does seem a little tame considering horror movies that are made now, it's still got that John Carpenter touch on it. Give it a watch and let me know how you like it.

HALLOWEEN 2K20: John Carpenter Tribute - A Review of "The Thing"

"With this wire, and this flamethrower, I will be able to conjure a bomb to kill the Thing!"
"Uh, last time I checked, your name was MacReady, not MacGyver."

Welcome back, and happy Monday. I know the two of the last three posts in this John Carpenter Tribute of mine weren't necessarily horror films, but seeing as how this month is a tribute to the Master of Horror, I couldn't do the month without also including some of his less-spooky, more shooty style films as well. Never fear, lads and lasses, because the next few items for discussion are horror classics, starting with arguably his biggest horror classic many consider to be his crowning achievement... after that other film about the guy in the mask, but I am GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF.

You and your drunk friends showing up at a
Denny's at 3 AM like "We need a table for five"

We're here today to talk about The Thing. Based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There?, The Thing tells the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica who encounter the so-named and vaguely-referred-to "Thing", a parasitic alien life-form that assimilates, then imitates other organisms. The group is overcome by paranoia and conflict as they learn that they can no longer trust each other and that any one of them could be the Thing. Production began in the mid-1970s as a faithful adaptation of the novella, following 1951's The Thing from Another World, which was produced and co-written by one of John Carpenter's all-time filmmaking heroes, Howard Hawkes. Carpenter himself was reluctant to take on the project, as he felt the original film couldn't be topped. However, while the film was not a success in theaters and received mainly negative reviews, it would find new life as a video rental and developed a strong following, with many considering it one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It has become so notable that in fact, many don't know it's technically a loose remake of the 1951 Hawkes film, it is often considered a standalone horror film. So let's take a look at The Thing, a movie that teaches us you can always trust your best friend... until they're assimilated by an alien organism that then wants to kill you.

"You guys, I went into the freezer to get the last
Jack's Pizza and I think I found Narnia."

In Antarctica, a Norwegian helicopter pursues a sled dog to an American research station. The Americans witness the Norwegian passenger accidentally blow up the helicopter and himself, like a real goof of an idiot. Seriously, not the best light to portray the Norwegians. The Norwegian pilot fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, but they cannot understand him and he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander Garry (Donald Moffat). He shoots him like a marksman with a fucking revolver, by the way. The Norwegian has an assault rifle, Garry has a revolver. Who would really win in this situation? The American helicopter pilot, R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell), and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) leave to investigate the Norwegian base. Among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burned remains of a malformed humanoid which they recover to the American station. Their biologist, Blair (Wilford "Diabeetus" Brimley), performs autopsies on the remains and finds a normal set of human organs.

"How many times I gotta tell you guys, being
tied up triggers Garry's bondage fetish now CUT
ME LOOSE!"

Clark (Richard Masur) kennels the sled dog, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs the station dogs. This disturbance alerts the team and Childs (Keith David) uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature. Blair autopsies the new creature and learns that it can perfectly imitate other organisms. Recovered Norwegian data leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried alien spacecraft, and a smaller, human-sized dig site. Norris (Charles Hallahan) estimates that the alien ship has been buried for at least a hundred thousand years. Blair grows paranoid that the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years. The station implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation. The malformed humanoid creature assimilates an isolated Bennings (Peter Maloney), but Windows (Thomas Waites) interrupts the process and MacReady burns the Bennings-Thing. Blair sabotages all the vehicles, kills the remaining sled dogs, and destroys the radio to prevent escape. The team imprisons him in a tool shed. Copper suggests a test to compare each member's blood against uncontaminated blood held in storage, but after learning that the blood stores have been destroyed, the men lose faith in Garry, and MacReady takes command.

"Either that thing's a spaceship, or we're not in
Kansas anymore." "Both those things are true,
you idiot!"

MacReady, Windows and Nauls (T.K. Carter) find Fuchs's (Joel Polis) burnt corpse and surmise he committed suicide to avoid assimilation. Windows returns to base while MacReady and Nauls investigate MacReady's shack. On their return, Nauls abandons MacReady in a snowstorm, believing he has been assimilated after finding his torn clothes in the shack. The team debate whether to allow MacReady inside, but he breaks in and holds the group at bay with dynamite. During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms, killing him. MacReady incinerates the Norris-Thing, but its head detaches and attempts to escape before also being burnt. MacReady is forced to kill Clark in self-defense when the latter lunges at him from behind with a knife. He hypothesizes that the Norris-Thing's head demonstrated that every part of the Thing is an individual life form with its own survival instinct. He sequentially tests blood samples with a heated piece of wire. Everyone passes the test except Palmer (David Clennon), whose blood jumps from the heat. Exposed, Palmer transforms and infects Windows, forcing MacReady to burn them both.

The face you make when you sit on something
and it slides up inside.

Childs is left on guard while the others go to test Blair. They find that Blair has escaped, and has been using vehicle components to assemble a small spacecraft. On their return, Childs is missing and the power generator is destroyed. MacReady speculates that the Thing intends to return to hibernation until a rescue team arrives. MacReady, Garry, and Nauls decide to detonate the entire station to destroy the Thing. As they set explosives, Blair kills Garry and Nauls disappears. Blair transforms into an enormous creature and destroys the detonator. MacReady triggers the explosives using a stick of dynamite, destroying the base. MacReady sits nearby as the station burns. Childs returns, saying he became lost in the storm while pursuing Blair. Exhausted and slowly freezing to death, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust and share a bottle of scotch...

With good reason, The Thing is yet another triumph by Carpenter, and the reason for its success is spread all over the place. First, the creature effects. The film's considered a benchmark in special make-up effects. The effects were created by Rob Bottin, who was only 22 when he started the project. In the film you see a mannequin of Norris have it's stomach open up into a giant mouth and devour another man's hands. You see Norris's head spider Thing creature crawl away. It's all frighteningly good, and has been "complimented" so to speak as a good "barf bag movie". Many of the effects are so believable, they cause viewers to retch at the sight of them. However, much to Carpenter's dismay, original 1951 The Thing from Another World director Christian Nyby publicly denounced Carpenter's version, saying, "If you want blood, go to the slaughterhouse. All in all, it's a terrific commercial for J&B Scotch."

No jokes at all. Top-notching practical Hollywood
special and visual effects right here.

Another reason for how much I love the The Thing, in my view, is the bleak tone. Not many people got along with the bleak tone, but I loved it. Remember in my Assault on Precinct 13 review when I mentioned Carpenter movies as setting up good horror elements by forcing our characters into a situation not only of being stalked but by being stalked in a single setting, isolated from the rest of the world? I love The Thing for exercising this story element. It all takes place in one outpost in Antarctica, and aside from the brief visit to the Norwegian base, it's the only setting you see. While the setting, story, and horror elements are all stellar and deviate mildly in quality, the characters to me are hit or miss. I like Brimley until he goes nuts, but I guess the alien would have an affect like that. Russell as MacReady goes without saying that he leads and, in some places, carries the film on his back like a champion. I'll also love any film that has Keith David involved in some extent, and Childs is a welcome tough-guy inclusion to the movie as well. The rest of the guys? Pretty forgettable. Windows tried to be the comedic relief but wasn't very funny and he himself ended up going nuts. Palmer too. Still, I suppose that adds to the bleak tone of the film so I can't really complain.

Karen when your manager isn't on duty.

Regardless, I love The Thing. I only recently in the past couple of years discovered it and have already watched it a few times. Each time I watch it gets better, and creepier. The isolating tone, the snowy apocalyptic setting, the freezing temps mixed with the terror of knowing the man you once called your friend could at anytime turn on you after being assimilated by an alien organism. It's the perfect, no pun-intended chilling tone for a film, and has become an archetype for the similar kinds of films that would follow. It even inspired a whole episode of The X-Files, you've heard me mention in my review of season one, called "Ice". So much so that the episode even used archive footage pictures of the same compound from The Thing, and mimicked the narrative with compelling characters that grew to distrust each other following infections from an alien body. Talk about the world's biggest ripoff artist, eh?

If you haven't already, sit down and watch John Carpenter's The Thing. It's got suspense, thrills, chills (scares, not because it's cold), and tense moments. The hunt for the imposter is on! Give The Thing a try. The cinematography is brilliant, and while the dialogue may be wonky at times, the acting is at least compelling, and as I've said before, the setting and story are top-notch, top o'the line. You'll love it... another classic.