John Carpenter

Born in Carthage, New York on January 16th 1948, John Carpenter spent his formative years in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The young Carpenter had a fascination for the B-picture Sci-fi movies released In the 1950's with such descriptive titles as CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and FORBIDDEN PLANET. "As a kid, I knew a lot of the movies I saw were hideous but I didn't care, I loved them anyway", Carpenter recalled. These inspired him to make some Fun short films which included GORGAN THE SPACE MONSTER! He received more formal film education at Western Kentucky University [whom his father was music professor] and at the University of Southern California.

Acclaim for the young film-maker soon followed when in 1970 his short film THE RESURRECTION OF BRONCO BILL, made while he was still a student, won an Academy Award for "Best Short Live Action Film". Hard on the heels of this success was DARK STAR, a very low-budget film made with fellow university classmate Dan O'Bannon. It started as a college project and was then expanded after Carpenter graduated. Made on a shoestring $60,000 the film gathered a healthy cult following.

However DARK STAR did not bring instant directing offers from the Hollywood establishment, so he honed his writing talents with scripts like THE EYES OF LAURA MARS, ZUMA BEACH and EL DIABLO.

In 1976 Carpenter wrote and directed ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, his own affectionate tribute to RIO BRANO made by one of his favorite directors, Howard Hawks. It barely made an impression in the American marketplace but was the surprise success of the London film festival. It was subsequently released by British Film distributor Miracle films, ran by Michael Rivers, and gained a moderate box-office victory. Moustapha Akkad, producer and director of THE MESSAGE and LION OF THE DESERT, also championed the work of Carpenter and signed him to direct a film about the scariest night of the year. HALLOWEEN. [As thanks for his belief in ASSAULT Carpenter named his lead character in HALLOWEEN after Michael Myers]. HALLOWEEN proved to be one of the box-office hits of 1978 and announced Carpenters arrival as a mainstream films maker. As with any successful franchise a sequel had to follow, and then another, and another....with HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION surfacing in 2002.

Music was an important factor in the success of both ASSAULT and HALLOWEEN.

Carpenter composed the scores himself, relying on simple bass and percussion driven motifs, repeated with very little variation which helped instill and build-up tension and terror. Since then he has (with the exception of THE THING and STARMAN) scored all his own movies giving each specialist area - directing, photography, writing, and music - his own personal and indelible stamp.

The early '80's were a busy period for Carpenter who cemented his reputation for stylish, scary and intellectually satisfying movies with THE FOG (ghosts in a New England coastal town], ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (action thriller with Kurt Russell), THE THING (re-make of Howard Hawks' THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD] and CHRISTINE (Stephen King's tale about a possessed Plymouth Fury car). Romance entered the Carpenter oeuvre for tire first time with STARMAN. Karen Allen gave an inspired and touching performance as the recently widowed Jenny Hayden whose husband's likeness is taken-over by an alien (Jeff Bridges) Bridges won an Oscar for his earnest and humorous portrayal of the alien. Jack Nitzsche's score was performed by a synthesizer ensemble for the soundtrack but it had a form and structure that lends itself to the more traditional orchestral forces, so an additional version for symphony orchestra has been added at the end of this collection.

Wishing to expand his repertoire still further, Carpenter's next assignment was the big-budget, boisterous, knock-about romp BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. A Chinese ghost story with wondrous special effects and likeable leads in Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall, it failed at the box office but is nonetheless great fun. The score for BIG TROUBLE called for a Rock group, so Carpenter resurrected his college days band The Coupe De Villes featuring film-makers Tommy Wallace and Nick Caste.

After the relative failure of the major studio films, Carpenter reverted to making films with more modest budgets over which he would have total control. He also reverted to the Horror genre with PRINCE OF DARKNESS and THEY LIVE, two offerings which showed a welcome return to form from Carpenter. Unfortunately another attempt at a big-budget movie failed with his undistinguished comedy/thriller MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN starring Chevy Chase.

For the rest of the '90's Carpenter once more played on his strengths by making a succession of Horror and Sci-Fi genre movies: VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (another remake of a favorite Carpenter film, this time the classic British film of 1960). ESCAPE FROM LA (Kurt Russell's return as action man Snake Plissken) and VAMPIRES (one of Carpenter's more financially successful films of late). His most recent outing was with GHOSTS OF MARS which proved to be one of Carpenters least successful films.

By and large, success has far outweighed failure in Carpenter's canon of work. One might argue that his greatest achievements have been with lower budget films, the type of film he so admired in his youth, movies over which he could retain total control; particularly important if you have also written the script and composed the score. Yet THE THING and STARMAN were both made for major studios (Universal and Columbia) and are among his finest achievements and although neither had scores credited to Carpenter, they still bear his musical hand, style and signature. His style might not be particularly musically complex but it is mightily effective in fulfilling its twin role as both supportive film score and direct, sensorial music. Carpenter as director, writer end composer has shown, through his body of work, that he is a master of each in equal amounts.

Notes by Rudolph Jenkins