Posts Tagged ‘John Carpenter’

It sounds crazy, but the remedy for a so-so prequel just might in fact be a sequel

Dear Universal Pictures,

Just an idea, but maybe you should dare to follow your prequel of The Thing with a sequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, and make it a follow-up reminiscent of James Cameron’s Aliens.

In my review of Heijningen Jr.’s recently released prequel I note how transparent it is that what he really made was actually more of a remake. And although there is still a rather large cultural resistance to horror remakes (I’m going by fan forums here, not box office numbers), such a fact should not really be held against Heijningen Jr. himself. More appropriately, any hostility towards this truth should be directed at you because it was you who insisted on making a “prequel” that in this particular case couldn’t have been anything else but a remake. One way you could redeem yourself of this misguided decision, though, is by seriously entertaining the above suggestion.

It sounds almost paradoxical for me to suggest that the way to make up for a poorly conceived remake is to base another related story on a film that so many – including myself – consider a classic of such status that to even joke about “tampering” with it might be tantamount to heresy, but hear me out.

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Short Take: Not without intrigue, but flawed in its invention

Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

Screenwriter: Eric Heisserer; John W. Campbell Jr. (Who Goes There? novella)

Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Eric Christian Olseen, Ulrich Thomsen

Length: 1h 43m

Synopsis: The following story takes place shortly before the events of John Carpenter’s 1982 film of the same title. A great scientific discovery has just been made in the wastelands of Antarctica, and top experts of various kinds are being assembled to research and document it. Paleontologists Kate (Winstead) and Adam (Olseen) are recruited by the venture’s director Dr. Halvorson (Thomsen), but exactly what their tasks will be remains a mystery to them until they’re shown what their dealing with. What the inexplicably curious discovery turns out to be is the remains of a giant alien spacecraft and a frozen specimen suspended in ancient ice. That specimen, they regret to find, is not as inanimate as one would assume. Incredibly, there is still cellular activity, and each cell is capable of imitating any foreign cell it comes into contact with. Before long the abstraction is able to, after killing them, perfectly impersonate whole people. Kate, Adam, and the rest must determine which of their fellow researchers are things, and fight to make sure they don’t reach civilization to infect the rest of the world. With so dangerous and cunning a species, this is far easier said than done.

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Dan O'Bannon in a 2003 interview for the Special Edition "Alien" DVD

Famed screenwriter Dan O’Bannon passed away this week at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica Ca. after a 30 year battle with Crohn’s disease.

His most famous work includes the writing for Alien and Total Recall, as well as writing and directing the cult favorite The Return of the Living Dead. O’Bannon began his career as a sci-fi icon by working together with director John Carpenter on writing for their student-film-turned-low-budget-feature Dark Star.  And like Carpenter, he is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s film program.

O’Bannon was 63, and is survived by his wife and son.

Source: Variety

On Halloween everyone's entitled to one good scare

Happy All Hallows Eve everyone. In celebration of this most frightening of holidays, we here at Movie-Thoughts invite you to take a look at our essay on a film that was inspired by this night of the year – John Carpenter’s Halloween.

They say the more you know your fears the less powerful they become. Our essay, “Halloween: Destroying Normality One Home and Family at a Time,” will help you kick the frights that scare you while watching Halloween by allowing you to know better what exactly it is that makes you so scared of it. So save yourself, and don’t be afraid.

Hello fellow moviegoers! It’s that time of year when we all relish the simple pleasures that come with the Halloween season. Whether it’s eating candy till you’re sick, drinking until you’re sick, scaring the neighbors’ children, or taking a date to a scary movie, the Halloween season is unlike any other. The holiday, like movies themselves, allows us to briefly live in a world of fantasy, giving us an excuse to dress up as whatever we want to be and, if we choose, frighten the crap out of each other.

One of the most popular Halloween costumes of all time (and one which I’ve worn on several occasions myself) is that of the killer “shape” from John Carpenter’s Halloween, Michael Myers. Walk around long enough on any given year, anywhere, and you’re bound to see at least one or two Michaels roaming the streets of your figurative Haddonfield. The classic horror movie has become inexorably bound with its associated holiday, which is of course only too appropriate. But its popularity goes far beyond just being titled “Halloween”. It is widely regarded as a milestone in American horror, and is still to this day reflected upon and studied by film scholars and critics, along with the general public (naturally). But aside from its impressive critical commendation, it’s simply flat out one of the scariest movies of all time. The jaded might be unimpressed, but those who are able to let down their guard and take off their armor of masculinity will attest to the film’s standing power. One of, if not the best test of a film is the test of time, and after 30 years Halloween is still as popular as it ever was.

As a form of celebration and to help commemorate the Halloween season, we offer all of you to read the authentic shooting script for Carpenter’s Halloween in its entirety. There are small and subtle differences that fans of the film will likely pick up on, and hardcore fans will no doubt have fun noting the comparisons (that is, if they haven’t read the script on their own already).

Michael gave new meaning to the words "trick or treat"

The script is a really fun read even if you’re not that big into horror. It goes by fast (as there’s lots of dialogue) and can be deceptively engaging. Horror scripts are typically tedious reads because they’re very predictable and borrow considerably from older films. Halloween, though, is the film that began the “slasher” craze, and is the one that all those formulaic knock-offs sponge from (more or less). In many ways, the script is an artifact of cinematic history. I fail to think of a higher honor for a screenwriter, and so I highly recommend that all of you reserve some time to be interactive witnesses to this history. And what better time to do so than now?

You can download the entire script here halloween script.pdf

Halloween‘s definition of normality - that is, how normality is represented in the film - is depicted as being relatively care-free with only minor day-to-day inconveniences and annoyances to battle with (a friend speaking to your crush for you, a boyfriend getting grounded on a date night, getting harassed by bullies, etc.). It is an enclosed suburban world where evil does not reside, and the time of when it once did is considered a distant memory; a history that is acknowledged but not really known or given much, if any, attention. The horror inherent in this film is that this normality comes under threat by something completely unexpected that they could not have prepared for. Michael Myers is a threat that seeks to change the definition of normality in his world – that is, the world as seen through his eyes - and ends up also changing it for others. Read the rest of this entry »