The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 29, 1984

I think John Carpenter's Executive Producer credit on this is an honorary one, as he spent some time developing the project before throwing up his hands and walking away. He just could not come up with third act that satisfied him.

This was one of the films I missed out on seeing on the big screen because I was living overseas at that time. Still have yet to catch up with it. So it goes.

The Fog (1980) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - January 27, 1980

The Fog was the first John Carpenter movie I would be hyper-focused on and obsessed with seeing after getting the top of my head blown off by Halloween. I believed there was no way this would not be another classic from the man (i.e. creative team) responsible for Halloween.

While fog banks might not be as iconic as, say, the holiday of Halloween. They do serve as a vital backdrop, or set dressing, in the creation of an ominous, threatening, or mysterious mood. What could go wrong with letting a ghost-laden fog take center stage?

Although the end result was just a "tad" unfocused, underdeveloped, and uneven, thanks in very large part to Carpenter's eleventh hour reshoots to ramp the film's scare factor way, way up, I still loved it.

The days of my thinking The Fog to be another flawless classic are long past, but The Fog remains one of my personal favorite Carpenter films.

Christine (1983) - Soundtrack

With no liner notes to crib some kind of commentary from, I am left with an observation fueled by an anecdote.

Way back in the late 80's or very early 90's, a friend shared that he had struck up a conversation with a fellow film student that was studying film composition. The usual suspects were discussed, of course. Some were singled out for praise by this nameless student (Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, etc.), while others were dismissed as being unexceptional hacks (Pino Donaggio and Richard Band).

When my friend brought up the film scores of John Carpenter, this student's response leaned toward dismissal. While some of Carpenter's work might be iconic, overall his compositions were hampered by what he called a lack of musicality. Whatever that meant (or means)...

Which is just my longwinded introduction to help explain why, as much as I adore John Carpenter's iconic themes and soundscapes, I think his score for Christine is one of his most formless and, truth be told, unmemorable works.

Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, and Escape from New York were all blessed with themes that, in their own idiosyncratic way, were every bit as memorable as what John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith had been composing during that same period of time. I will even go so far as to put Chariots of Pumpkins from Halloween III Season of the Witch on that list, because it is as identifiable as those other aforementioned themes.

Yet this Carpenter/Howarth joint for Christine lacks a memorable central theme, at least on the original score front. Christine's defining and iconic theme is Bad to the Bone, by George Thorogood & The Destroyers, which fits the feel, tone, and style of the film like a glove. 

So does Carpenter/Howarth's compositions Arnie's Love Theme, Obsessed with the Car, The Rape, and Christine Attacks (Plymouth Fury). Yet, while they are easy enough to recognize as the work of John Carpenter, when in association with Alan Howarth, they also lack a certain creative zest. They sound good, but there is nothing about them that ever stuck in my heart or my memory.

Perhaps this was the result of Carpenter's dour post-Thing temperament, as Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, and They Live all had memorable themes. Even if they did lack that pesky element of "musicality" the unknown (to me) film student pointed out, so many years ago...

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - November 24, 1976

I did not see Assault on Precinct 13 until it was broadcast, complete and uncut, on KBHK Channel 44 (Cable Channel 12) on Saturday, January 30, 1982. By that point in time, I knew (and idolized) who and what John Carpenter was. The audio cassette recording I made of that broadcast got played every bit as much as the audio cassette recordings I had made of the network television premiere of Jaws and a pay television broadcast of The Fog.

But when Assault on Precinct 13 opened in a minuscule number of theaters in November of 1976, nobody knew who John Carpenter was or what he was capable of. I do envy the people lucky enough to see this movie on the big screen. Before John Carpenter was John Carpenter.

At the Coliseum Drive-In, Assault was coupled with the action-thriller Killer Force (1976), which starred Telly Savalas and Peter Fonda and was directed by Val Guest (who had helmed The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass 2, The Abominable Snowman, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and many, many more).

The Hayward Automotive and Eastmont Four had it paired with Switchblade Sisters (1975). While the Lux in Oakland had it as part of a triple feature, alongside Take A Hard Ride (1975) and something called Kung Fu Master. That latter film might be a Shaw Brothers offering better known as The Master of Kung Fu [Huang Fei Hong (1973)]. Who knows.

Halloween (1978) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - November 10, 1978

The holiday may have come and gone, but the first ever theatrical release of John Carpenter's Halloween was just around the corner in the San Francisco Bay Area. Here we have a handful of sneak preview screenings hoping to generate some positive word of mouth for the film's opening on Wednesday, November 15th.

Halloween II (1981) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - October 29, 1981

I believe I saw Halloween II on Saturday, October 31st, at the Hayward Festival Cinemas. Two things stand out in my memory. When we arrived at the multiplex there was a line around the theatre, but no line at the ticket window. Turns out the line was for Halloween II ticket holders. I was both shocked and delighted.

My second memory is of the moment Carpenter's 'chase music' started pounding and the packed house erupted with enthusiastic cheers.

While this first sequel to Halloween does not warrant a spot on my exalted Favorite Movies of All-Time List, I cannot say that I dislike all that much. While it does suffer from a certain lack of imagination and energy, I do not think it is the abomination John Carpenter himself has dismissed it as. So it goes.

Halloween III Season of the Witch (1982) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - October 21, 1982

Met with critical and audience derision, Halloween III Season of the Witch failed to launch the planned anthology format producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill hoped to follow their commercial success of Halloween II (1981) with. So it goes.

Although a modest money maker in its own right, Halloween III did nowhere near the business of the previous films and, for a few years, was perceived as something of a franchise killer. Which is too bad, as the movie is undeserving of that reputation.

Being a John Carpenter fanatic at that time, I saw Halloween III on the big screen and, during the end credits, my father, who was sitting beside me, muttered, "No wonder this was no good, Dino De Laurentiis had something to do with it." Ouch.

I liked it, though... Still do. It has become one of my perennial Halloween season viewings.

The Fog (1980) / Phantasm (1979) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - September 12, 1980

The listing box in the lower right hand corner, next to the See Theatre Guide for Policy, is where I saw this re-release double-bill of The Fog (1980) and Phantasm (1979). The Century, at that particular time, was a two-screen dome theater. It was where I first saw The Swarm (1978), Orca (1977), The Thing (1982), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), The Enforcer (1976), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and many, many more.

It was also where I would first see Phantasm. We had already seen The Fog, which had been released earlier that same year, at the Coliseum Drive-In. There it had been paired with a reissue of House By the Lake (1976). A movie that my father refused to sit through.

My dad did sit through Phantasm and, because he would jerk and jump in his seat, I legit thought it was because he was scared. Turns out he had been writhing in utter agony at having to be forced to sit through what he considered to be a rancid and godawful hunk of cinematic junk. At least he held back his raging contempt for the film until it was over, so my brother and I could enjoy it in peace.

The Fog had been well underway when we had arrived, so dad let us stay and watch the film until it reached the scene we had entered at. That is when he snapped, "We are not sitting through the rest of this thing for a second time, let's go." Which we did.

I also remember the TV spots for this re-release:

Spot 1 -

Spot 2 -

These spots may have gotten a generous amount play during the commercial breaks for the Captain Cosmic show, as well as those for Chiller Diller and/or Creature Features, on KTVU. Which is probably why I remember them with such clarity and fondness.

Escape from New York (1981) - Newspaper Ad [Oakland Tribune - July 9, 1981]

I was so stoked to see this. Sure, it was not a horror movie, but it was a new John Carpenter movie and Debra Hill Production. The dynamic duo responsible for Halloween and The Fog. Adrienne Barbeau was in it, too! And Lee Van Cleef! And Ernest Borgnine! And Harry Dean Stanton!

Man, what a cast. What a concept. What a fun movie it turned out to be. I loved it then and still do today.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986) - Newspaper Ad [Oakland Tribune - July 1, 1986]

Having recovered from the stinging rebuke of 1982's The Thing, John Carpenter suffered yet another stinging rebuke with the disastrous under performance of Big Trouble in Little China.

As much as I was looking forward to seeing this on the big screen, I was unable to. I believe I might have been overseas at the time, in Hong Kong, visiting family when it opened. By the time I returned to the United States, Big Trouble in Little China, having sunk like a stone at the box office, had vanished from theaters. So it goes.

The Thing (1982) - Newspaper Ad [San Francisco Examiner - June 20, 1982]

I would not be able to see The Thing until Saturday, June 26. But, if I had been in San Francisco at the time, I totally would have tried to attend this preview screening at the Royal Theater. 

Village of the Damned (1995) - Newspaper Ad [Oakland Tribune - April 28, 1995]

It seems that Universal Studios 'owed' John Carpenter a movie, which is how and why this remake of Village of the Damned got made. Carpenter had been hoping/trying to remake Creature from the Black Lagoon, but that fell through, or was delayed, and Universal offered Carpenter this instead.

Body Bags (1993) - Soundtrack

When John Carpenter performed live at the Fox Theater in Oakland, way back in 2016, a playlist of recordings from his various soundtracks was broadcast over the sound system while the crowd filed in and took their seats.

One of those selections just so happened to be The Coroner's Theme, from the Body Bags soundtrack. Although Carpenter and company did not play it live, I did appreciate that it got acknowledged before the band walked onto the stage. 

Body Bags was the first of two score that John Carpenter would compose with Jim Lang. The other would be for In the Mouth of Madness, which is a subject for another post.

The music created to underplay the segments The Gas Station and Eye are solid, albeit unremarkable, offerings. The highlights, for me, are The Coroner's Theme, of course, and the tracks Brain Trouble and Long Beautiful Hair. The latter two being lighthearted jazz adjacent tunes that underplayed my favorite segment of the anthology, Hair.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986) - Soundtrack

I was every bit as happy as Jack Burton was overly confident when La-La Land Records released this expanded upgrade of John Carpenter and Alan Howarth's score for Big Trouble in Little China. No more would I have make do with the truncated and paltry 45 minutes of music that had been released by Enigma Records, way back in 1986.

Now I have the complete score and what a score it is...

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) - Soundtrack

I first time saw Assault on Precinct 13 was when it was broadcast, complete and uncut, on one of our local UHF stations. By this time I was a rabid John Carpenter fan and, since we did not have a VCR at the time, I gathered together some audio tapes and recorded the broadcast that way.

Oakland Tribune - Saturday, January 30, 1982

The reason for my knowing and remembering this fact is due to my best friend (at the time) and I seeing a matinee of Evilspeak and Demonoid at the South Shore Twin Cinema that very afternoon and discussing our excitement at being able to see the movie John Carpenter made before Halloween.

I fell in love with the movie, of course, and listening to the recording I made, over and over, helped commit its score to memory. For years and years, which added up to decades, I wondered why a soundtrack album for the film had never been released.

Turns out it was due to the movie having, at most, only some twenty-six or so minutes of music. Its memorable theme, Carpenter shares in an interview for the album liner notes, was "a simplification of a Lalo Schifrin line in Dirty Harry, which in turn was a kind of rip of The Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin."

Having had that inspiration through-line pointed out, I can now hear the connection as clear as day. Incredible.

Halloween (1978) - Newspaper Ad [Oakland Tribune - November 15, 1978]

On October 25th my Facebook feed was peppered with posts celebrating the fact that John Carpenter's Halloween opened in theaters and drive-ins for the very first time on October 25, 1978. Because, more than likely, that is the earliest date that is listed on its IMDB page.

While this might be true, the number of theaters it played in was quite small. I was surprised to learn that Halloween never had a wide theatrical release. That it never played in more than 200 theaters at any given time. It would open in a market, play for a week or two, then move on to the next.

Which explains how and why Halloween first opened at a theater or drive-in near me on November 15, 1978. NOVEMBER!?! The celebration of Halloween would already have been a distant memory to 11-year-old me. My heart would be focused on Thanksgiving and, even better, Christmas.

So it should come as no surprise that I have no memory of this release, at all.

Halloween would first ping my blossoming horror geek radar when this issue of Newsweek arrived in the family mail.

Newsweek - June 18, 1979

This is where, buried amongst the coverage of the looming releases of Alien, Prophecy, and Dawn of the Dead, that I learned that a movie called Halloween existed. I am pretty sure that Phantasm, The Brood, and maybe even The Dark were also mentioned in the cover article.

Although the positive word of mouth of audiences, and the acclaim of critics, was beginning to grow around Halloween, the article's coverage was pretty basic. It stated that Halloween, a scary sleeper hit, would be getting another release in the fall and offered a single image from the film. That of a sheeted figure standing in a doorway. But it was enough to get me interested and excited about seeing this movie called Halloween.