A few closing remarks before we get to the numbers:
Over the past four months, we've had the pleasure (and, sometimes, the pain) of taking the journey through my third favorite living director's entire filmography—along with some essential detours here and there, into his career as a writer and producer, too. If we're missing some of the more ephemeral things that have his name on them, I think the world will keep turning. (Or has it stopped spinning 'round, just waiting for my reviews of Zuma Beach, Better Late Than Never, Blood River, El Diablo, and Silent Predators? The last one's about snakes that bite people!) No: I think we've done what we set out to do. Carpenter, we've noted previously, will in all likelihood never make another film. And you know what? That's okay too—the man has earned his golden years.
Of course, Jason Blum deserves to be hissed for passing on the horror project Carpenter brought to him in 2014. And who knows? Maybe one day we'll even get to see Dead Space: The Motion Picture, a gossamer non-production to which Carpenter has been "attached" mainly in the sense that he helped out with some of F.E.A.R. 3's cutscenes, so we know he has some vague connections in the gaming industry, and that he gave an interview once where he said doing it would be cool. But hell: stranger things than that have happened in Hollywood, and God knows that the adaptation of the Alien-inspired shooter would be just about the perfect ending to a career that began forty years ago with Dark Star, the Alien before there even was Alien.
Meanwhile, Carpenter is still making music, even if he has quit making pictures. Check out Lost Themes, if you haven't already. It's fucking fantastic. (And Lost Themes II is right around the corner.)
Above all, JC's left us with his legacy: the 21 films he directed, and a few more worth looking at that he scripted. Without Carpenter, we don't have the slasher genre. Without Carpenter, metafictional horror would be defined solely by Wes Craven, and while I know there's folks out there who'd be okay with that, I sure as heck ain't one of them. Without Carpenter, we don't have quite as many old-fashioned ghost stories, punched up with new-fashioned gore and hints of social commentary. Without Carpenter, we wouldn't know just how awesome the end of the world could really be. Without Carpenter, we're missing some of cinema's signal triumphs. Without Carpenter, the 80s just wouldn't be as cool. And without Carpenter, the medium would be noticeably poorer. We salute his merger of the classic and the modern: his inimitable style, forever unpretentious, almost always easy on the eyes (and, of course, the ears!). God bless you, John.
So, without further ado, this is the list:
THE FILMS OF JOHN CARPENTER, RANKED FROM WORST TO BEST
Films marked with one asterisk (*) indicate projects which Carpenter helped write, but did not direct; films marked with two asterisks (**) indicate TV episodes. And yes, in case you didn't figure it out before, I'm obviously not the biggest fan of the original Halloween. Indeed, I might well be the smallest fan, given the outsized enthusiasm with which its other fans tend to embrace it.
But, like it or lump it, that's my list. However, if you've got the time, you can find a few more goodies, after the jump.
