The Thing (1982)

 "I'm trying to get some sleep. I was shot today."

Yes, it's absurd that I'm seeing The Thing for the first time in 2022. I suppose I have half an excuse that I saw thiis asa kind of remake of The Thing from Another World, and had to see that first, but even so.

This film is superb, basically. Not because it reinvents the wheel; it doesn't. It's a very straightforward base under siege story, where the entire cast spends the film paranoid, ascanyone could be the unnamed alien creature. The creature looks amazing; Alien has had a definite influence. There's a character called Fuchs. Titter.

But, essentially, this film is as good as it is pretty much entirely because of John Carpenter's first class direction. That's pretty much it. The way he shoots the snow; the way he shoots the shadows. The sheer bloody tension that anybody could be this shape-shifting alien. This gloriously slimy, '80s alien aesthetic that never stops being awesome, and is splendidly pre-CGI.

The film is entirely set, barring a brief expedition to some dead Norwegians and a millennia-old flying saucer, in and around one compound in Antarctica, full of central heating, booze, weed and a computer version of chess that I swear I once played on the Acorn Electron. The ensemble cast makes the film almost as much as the direction, but obviously Kurt Russel deserves special praise. Yes, it's a sausage fest, with no oestrogen to be seen and the Bechdel Test failed spectacularly.

This film doesn't do anything radical. It just does jump scare sci-fi horror really, really, really well.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

 "I'm a reasonable guy. But I've just experienced some very unreasonable things."

I've only seen two of John Carpenter's films before- Halloween and Christine. Both, to some extent, are genre films. This is a massively mainstream Hollywood blockbuster. And it's awesome. I don't care if it flopped. You can't trust the judgement of the general public. You, dear reader, have impeccable taste. But people in general are rubbish and like rubbish things. I'm sure you agree.

Anyway, this is bloody good. It seems to give quite a positive depiction of Chinese culture to my ignorant eyes, but this was 1986. There's plenty of scope for cultural insensitivity to have happened which will have sailed right over the head of this Leicestershire lad. Yet it seems to me that, whatever flaws I cannot see, the film shows a lot of affection to Hong kong kung fu movies, and with bloody good direction to boot.

Kurt Russell is an idiosyncratic, mildly humorous, action hero- the working class man as decent bloke rather than as the bigoted wanker that modern expectations may demand. It's quite refreshing to see a leading man from a time where politics wasn't composed of this culture war nonsense and Donald Trump, if rather more compos mentis in 1986 than he was in his rather confused presidency, was rightly dismissed by the Jack Burtons of this world as a rich wanker.

This is a wonderful, very '80s film, with an equally '80s soundtrack and splendid performances from all involved, not only the wonderful Kim Cattrall but a load of Chinese-American actors who seem to have few other credits. It's as good an '80s blockbuster as any of its many competitors.

Halloween II (1981)

 "I've been trick or treated to death tonight!"

This, despite its fairly high wattage cast and its script credit for John Carpenter, may be an above average horror film but it can't hold a pumpkin to the original. Yes, Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence (despite his accent slipping a bit) are very good. Yes, the killings are effectively done in a way which places this above your average slasher. But the first film was superb, and shot with aplomb by Carpenter himself. This is a bit of a let down in comparison. Such is, I suppose, the fate of most sequels.

There's some interesting stuff here, not least of which is the intriguing twist at the end. It's leaned into, but not made explicit, that Michael Myers may be a bit supernatural. After all, Loomis does shoot him six times, and he may have mentioned it once or twice.

There's also some nice use of Night of the Living Dead being shown on the telly in one of the killings, a nice echo of the parallel use of The Thing from Another World in the first film. The acting and dialogue are decent, and there's a reasonable amount of character stuff for this sort of film.

Still, there's not an awful lot here that's fresh, and a lot of that is down to the decision to make this the story of the few hours immediately after the first film. These events feel like an extended postscript, and they are exactly that. A fairly decent slasher but, disappointingly given its predecessor, no more than that.

Halloween (1978)

 “You can't kill the Boogeyman!"

At last I find a subtitled version. Hooray. It's about time.

This is, as I kept saying about the early Friday the 13th fims, an absolutely textbook slasher movie, and one of those films which played a big part in setting up the tropes we all know- sex, saying "I'll be right back" and smoking weed (while driving, tut tut) are all hazardous for one's life expectancy although, if you're over twenty, you'll probably be all right.

What separates Halloween from these films is, quite simply, it's much better directed by the splendid John Carpenter and, indeed, much better made. What's different here, as shown in the superb camerawork, music and use of the pumpkin motif, is that this is the first slasher since Psycho that isn't a B movie.It may be a straight-down-the-line slasher, but it's done really well, with the dialogue and acting a cut above what we's expect from the genre. It's slow, and the killing doesn't start until fairly late on, but there's excellent use of suspense, with Michael Myers being glimpsed everywhere.

A very young Jamie Lee Curtis heads a very young cast, while Donald Pleasance is a rather astute piece of casting for Dr Loomis. It's rather jolting seeing him play an American, though, and his accent lapses on occasion. It's interesting, too, to see the use, and meta-commentart, of the 1951 version of The Thing from Another World (must see that at some point) on the telly, given what Carpenter would proceed to shoot a couple of films down the line.

It's a textbook slasher, but it's the textbook slasher, impressing even someone so jaded with the genre as myself.

Christine (1983)

“No shitter ever came between me and Christine.”

The first thing I have to say is that this is a mind-blowingly sweary movie. Of all the hundred plus films I’ve reviewed, this one drops the most ‘c’ bombs by far. That sets a benchmark. Oddly enough, this feels appropriate for the first John Carpenter film to appear in this blog. Any other films helmed by him which fail to reach acceptable levels of swearyness will not impress me. That’s just the way it is.

This is a delightfully mischievous film about an evil car, origin unknown (the unknown is much scarier), which ensnares the initially geeky Arnie Cunningham like a femme fatale on wheels and turns him into a right bastard. Lots of people die on the way and there is lots of fun with the concept. Sometimes the best way to have fun with a silly concept is to play it straight.

The special effects (let’s remember this is 1983) are simply unbelievable. The camera lingers on the many scenes of Christine spontaneously repairing herself in an almost sexual manner, but why not? The largely unknown cast, HarryDean Stanton aside, carry the film well while not distracting to much from the film’s true star.

This film was perhaps rather more effective for me than it would have been for most people, delightfully silly film that it is. As a young child, I suffered recurring nightmares of a red motor-cycle with no rider that was always chasing me for some reason! Best not to analyse the plots of childhood nightmares too much, methinks.

I think the scenes of Christine relentlessly pursuing people to their deaths are chilling, though. The massive set piece at the petrol (gas, for any passing Americans) station is incredible.

The deaths are the most delightfully entertaining bits of the film, with the tragedy deliberately downplayed. After all, we wouldn’t want things to get too heavy. The film ends with Christine just refusing to bloody die. Let’s face it; we’re all on her side.

I loved this film. It is at the same time wonderfully silly and extremely well directed. I must watch more films by the esteemed Mr Carpenter, perhaps even ones you may have heard of. If you haven’t seen this film, seek it out.