ESCAPE FROM L.A. **** USA 1996 Dir: John Carpenter. 99 mins Paramount gave Carpenter his biggest budget to date to make his only sequel as director : the result, co-written with Debra Hill and Kurt Russell, was one of the most bleakest “fun” movies of the 1990’s. It follows other…
Browsing: John Carpenter
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED *** USA 1995 Dir: John Carpenter. 97 mins Carpenter’s modern interpretation of the John Wyndham novel (and its much admired 1960 film adaptation) relocates the story to small town USA and opens on a suitably uncanny note. Whispering voices and ominous music on the soundtrack accompany…
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS ***** USA 1994 Dir: John Carpenter. 95 mins Carpenter’s return to horror after an eight-year hiatus is, like the same year’s WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE a scary, witty commentary on the genre itself in which the “unreal” accepted as a kind of religion by some…
BODY BAGS **** USA 1993 Dir: John Carpenter / Tobe Hooper / Larry Sulkis. 91 mins Showtime’s attempt to cash in on the success of HBO’s TALES FROM THE CRYPT resulted in this one-off horror anthology, framed by amusingly bad taste scenes of a coroner (the appropriately cadaverous John Carpenter,…
MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN **** USA 1992 Dir: John Carpenter. 99 mins A financial flop at the time, this adaptation of H.F. Saint’s novel about the loneliness of invisibility was a pet project for Chevy Chase who, wanting more serious roles, agreed to do NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION for…