Tag Archives: john carpenter

Writing

Kageoween: The Thing, 1982, movie review.

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INTRODUCTION: As I stated in my previous review, 2023 seems to be the year of John Carpenter. Sadly, the same could not be said, 41 years earlier, when Mr. Carpenter released The Thing to cinemas. So how good is this movie?

PLOT: A group of scientists fight a Ailen. No, you’re it wrong, that is the plot to Ailen (1979) as well.

CHARACTERS: Not bad. I mean, the star studded cast makes up for weak character development. These dudes are basically hibernating alcoholics, that already seem depressed as fuck, making the “threat” seem like a mercy killing. A tad bit more, upbeat characters and some banter between them, that suggests they’re at least friendly would of been nice. Not in this film though.

ACTING: Excellent! They all do a great job here. Granted it isn’t award winning, but given the material they have to work with, the fact they did their job seriously and not typical b movie, phone it in, is excellent.

STYLE: John Carpenter at his best. The visuals are stunning and a nice tidbit, the blue lights, which unbeknownst to scientists back then, for preventing suicidal tendencies, adds an accidental layer of depth to these men’s plights and isolation they’ve going through, making this choice very ahead of the curve.

DIALOGUE: Good

PACING: Typical slow moving pacing, which is nice, but doesn’t give us enough to make use of it, as it tries to be face paced with the sequences we’re seeing, making it awkward as to if it’s supposed to be an action or a horror movie that adds tension.

FX: Excellent, especially given how old the movie is. They hold up exceptionally well. Minus the early moments of the movie showing the space craft.

CONCLUSION: This movie bombed at the box office and is one of John’s biggest laments. It’s not a bad movie though, I think it suffers due to coming too soon on the heels of Ailen. It’s basically the same movie, but starring Kurt Russell. It some ways, that makes it better, in other ways it suffers for it. Had this movie been made in the 90s, 20 years after Ailen, I think it would of been a smash hit, especially post Ailen Reserection, given that movie sucked by most people standards, except me, who liked it. Sadly for John, it came 3 years after the 70s classic and didn’t add much new to the genre. This movie could beat be summarized as Evil Dead /Ailen hybrid, so much in fact, that I’m shocked they never showed the necronimicon. Despite its flaws, like needing more details about the Ailen and its purpose for possession of humans and it’s weak ending, it is still a very good movie and one I prefer over Ailen.

3.5 out of 5

Writing

Kageoween: John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams, 2023, review

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INTRODUCTION: So JC at one point said something to the effect of “I put my hand out and there’s a pay check in it, I’m happy” well, who can blame him? I love having money in my hand as well, but this isn’t a pay day for an old movie getting a remake based on his characters, rather it’s a sale of his name to another true crime series, the world doesn’t need.

PLOT: Maybe real crime stories re-enacted by actors that even porn would reject for their horrible acting.

CHARACTERS: What characters? I think they’re supposed to be based on real people, but the episode never mentions the crime that this is covering.

ACTING: This makes pornography actors seem like Kate Winslet.

VISUALS: Dated, retro and not in a very good way.

FX: Mid card as fuck!

CONCLUSION: This show is one more in a genre that’s done to death, no pun intended. JC doesn’t have much to do with this show, except in name only. It’s fine if he wants to milk his name for all its worth, but a little bit of editorial discretion as to what your name is on, would be a nice touch. Much like John Carpenter, I too placed my hand out, only I didn’t get a pay check, I just got a headache.

1 out of 5 stars

Horror, Movies, Reviews

Halloween: A movie review of Blumhouse’s H40

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Introduction

I don’t want to start off with the typical cliché of the fact that the Halloween movies are 40 years old at this point and go through all the old bullshit about how so many movies have been made, including the remake and all that other fun stuff. I’m going straight to the point and talk about the fact that this is the movie people have a wanting for a long time.

Synopsis / Plot

Michael Myers breaks out of sanitarium, terrorizing Haddonfield, 40 years to the day of the original babysitter murders.

Characters

The characters are only kind developed but once we get into the bottom below where I praise the acting you can find yourself being like well, the acting makes up for only so-so character development.

Acting

I think it’s spot-on even from the most bit characters, which is a new trend in Hollywood that has been happening the last couple years, which I find to be an extremely interesting and very much a pleasurable thing. Backround characters are treated as something of note. The annoying aspect of background characters being bad actors always make for a weak movie and this is definitely moving in the right direction from all those old sequels.

Kills

I highly enjoyed all of the kills. Now, none of them are particularly interesting, you’ve seen things like this before but I enjoyed that because lately, especially with the Saw movies, Hollywood has been getting very over-the-top with their kills in horror movies and it’s ultimately destroying the entire horror industry. None of it is scary, and it’s absurd as I pointed out. This movie got it right! it had some up front and personal kills mixed with the Quentin Tarantino aspect of shying away from showing everything but letting you build it up in your mind. This is the right way to do a movie! Afterthought on this: a lot of people complained about the infant crying after his mom was killed was a missed opportunity. I disagree, it was more brutal than a kill would of been. A newborn left to fend for itself is 10x more evil than stabbing it.

Subtext

None of note but we don’t need that in this movie.

Conclusion

Most of her critics were completely wrong about this movie. I find the gripes to be unfounded. A lot of people came away from this with a version of the Mandela effect because they aren’t remembering it correctly. They still entitled to their opinion but they really should have bothered to have paid more attention in my mind. The acting was superb, the Kills were nothing new but still decent, the characters were okay but the acting more than made up for it, the tension was there, which lately is a new trend, is actually great. My only real gripe is super nitpicky, with one exception, most of the actors in this movie are hot but just kind of mediocre looking. Not a single one is overly photogenic, which is weird for Hollywood, but I don’t see anything wrong with hiring Hot or ugly people, even in horror movies, provided they can act. it works because all these people can act even if they’re not all Brad Pitt and I’m okay with this trend overall. Ultimately Halloween hits on all the right notes and is really done a great fan service 40 years later. In my mind Laurie Strode was done well, so much better than H2O or Halloween resurrection. This is the movie that I’ve been waiting to see since I was a kid.

Over all this movie gets 4 out of 5 stars and I hope it gets a sequel ASAP.

Non-fiction, Opinion

Top 10 Ambient Songs for your Haunted House

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So I wrote this article about 10 years ago when I first started to make it as a writer, professionally. View wise, it was my most successful article in my early 20’s,drawing in 10,000 or so views per year. Truth be told, though, it felt like abject failure, because in my mind, I wanted to be a serious writer, not the dude who wrote the fluff filler pieces you saw flashy graphics on the cover of People or Teen Beat. I mean, how artistically bankrupt did I have to be to do a top ten? Even for one of my favorite topics, like Halloween? I could do an entire book on Halloween and have been happier. Within the last decade since I wrote it, I’ve come to appreciate the brevity and insight a top ten list could allow for. So presented here, is a new and undated edition of my “classic”.

– click to finish article>