---[ BESTEST JC ]---

Music is integral in this film. And to be honest there really aren't that many quality "bestest" moments here. But this is what I like in the film.

It's the scene when one of the school bullies abusing Tommy Wallace runs into Michael Myers full on. There's a screeching synthesizer score that comes to life as he collides with the homicidal maniac. The kid stares up at a face we (the viewer) cannot see, takes one frantic look, and then bolts for the hills like a jackrabbit in heat. What follows is a suitably creepy tracking shot of Michael Myers following Tommy Wallace as he leaves the schoolyard. Myers' hands finger the fence that separates the two.

Another "bestest" moment from Halloween was recently replayed in the Kevin Williamson penned film I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. In Halloween, when Laurie Strode is attacked for the first time by Myers in her neighbors house, she barely manages to escape back to the Wallace house. Her frantic screaming for Tommy to let her in is scary because as we watch her pound on the door we see Michael Myers making his way steadily across the street. And just when we think he's got her, she pops into the house, slamming the door behind her. Whew!

This is my favorite Carpenter film and it has three "bestest" moments worth looking out for. One is where Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) is calmly smoking a cigarette while standing on the wall surrounding the penal colony inside Manhattan Island. As he looks across the mist covered water he can see helicopters flying in and around the New York prison, looking for the president. Hauk can also hear the choppers staticy and dismal progress reports. All the while a slow, techno heavy EFNY theme is playing in the background. This is a cool, mellow moment in the movie that takes place just before Snake Plisskens gladiator fight in the ring. If I was a smoker I'd probably take a smoke right about that part of the movie too, just to copy Hauk's excellent Marlboro Man impression, hehehe..:)

The other "bestest" moment in EFNY is towards the end. Right after Maggie is killed by the Duke of NY, there is a sequence showing Snake and the president running across the bridge towards the penetentiary wall. The music at this point of the film is VERY cool. As the two reach the wall they use a harness to be pulled up over the wall by the United States Police Force to escape. The Duke is closing in on the pair though. So far only the President has made it across the wall and as Snake tries to escape the Duke starts firing. There's a two-note techno monstrosity that is so utterly COOL that at this point in the movie it is not enuff to describe it. Watching EFNY is the only way to appreciate JC's mastery over the synthesizer. Snake leaps away from the wall and into the piles of automobile wreckage lining the base of the wall. He hides and the second the Duke is unawares, leaps off the hood of a rusting car onto the Duke, dragging him to the ground. The two grapple on the ground with Snake first elbowing the Duke in the stomach before cold-cocking him in the face with a hard lefthook. This immobilizes the Duke for several seconds, enuff time for Snake to reach the wall and grasp onto the harness waiting for him. Time is running down fast for Snake and if he doesn't make it across the wall soon, he's dead. The harness starts to drag him up the wall and towards safety. The moment he reaches the mid-point of the wall, the Duke comes to and leaps up, guns cocked and ready to start blasting away at Snake, killing him before the capsules in his neck do. What makes the scene even more tense is that the winch pulling the harness suddenly stops mid-way and Snake is left jerking on the rope, hoping someone starts pulling him up again before its too late. The music is at such a fever pitch, reaching its zenith that the viewer's nerves are almost fried by suspense, it is so killing. This is a great and wonderful tense sequence in the film.

The third and final "bestest" part in EFNY is the last tracking shot. Slowly the theme song to the film starts to hum to life as we see a limping Snake walking away from the Liberty Island Control. American Bandstand is fading in the distance as the EFNY theme gains momentum and overpowers it. Snake reveals a cassette tape. He yanks out its magnetic strip and rips it away, making the tape useless. Then he flings the cassette away and the last shot we see of him before he disappears from our view is of him taking a drag off his cigarette. The telescopic closure of the shot reveals light sources in the distance as burning circles that "burn out" of the screen as the movie ends and the credits begin to play to a fully strong and pumping Escape From New York theme. Excellent, simply excellent. Possibly the greatest, "bestest" JC moment, EVER.

Ok, so this is JC's first full blown horror film since HALLOWEEN and it is a flawed beauty. It has all the trappings of being a masterpiece of horror, and in a small sense, it is. But, seriously folks, that damn fog is not fear instilling at all. The leper zombies are the scarier aspects of the film and they are pretty cool. But the "bestest" moments in the film don't out and out have them in the scene. Instead the beginning of THE FOG is the first "bestest" moment, where we see old Mr. Machen relating the story within the story, of the Elizabeth Dane and her doomed crew of lepers. It is creepy the way Mr. Machen holds the kids attention as JC's simple, but chillingly effective score plays. As the tale concludes, there is a shot of a dark, deserted beach upon which the opening credits begin. Then there are random shots of weird goings on around town like gas pumps pumping on their own, and bottles in coolers rattling as if being shaken. This is all suitably creepy and disconcerting to the viewer.

The "bestest" of the bestest moments in this film though, is when Stevie (Adrienne Barbeau) is in her studio and the DRY piece of driftwood her son found STARTS TO DRIP water onto her tape deck, yielding a hideously disfigured voice saying something unintelligible and horrific nonetheless. As the voice stops, her eyes scan the driftwood, which previously had the word DANE on it, but that now tells her 6 MUST DIE. And then the tape deck explodes in a flurry of sparks and fire. Very scary moment in the film that catches any jaded viewer off guard.

This film is JC's masterpiece and for that reason alone the entire film is really one long "bestest" Carpenter moment. But to be honest there is a sequence towards the end that defines the movie and is the most powerful of the entire film imho. It's near the end of the film when Nauls, MacReady, and Garry find out the "transformed" Blair-thing has made it back into the camp and has shut down the power generator, determined to kill the men. What happens next is the "bestest" moment of the film. MacReady tells the men how it has gotten back inside, and that in 6 hours it'll be a hundred below. Mac's flair eerily burns and JC's trademark light-thingie (where a light source manages to stretch across the entire length of the screen) is put to superb effect. Mac tells the men how they'll have to die trying to destroy the thing. He knows they're all going to die, so does Garry, by his knowing glance towards MacReady. It helps the scene immeasurably that Ennio Morricone's haunting and horrific score is playing during the entire scene. The following shot of a bundle of dynamite rolling down into the creatures hidden lair followed by the subsequent disintegration of the shack is quite good too and ends the sequence admirably.