Podcast: Monster Movie Podcast – Eps 46

Welcome to the Monster Movie Podcast. This week Doc Rotten and Thomas Mariani cover the films an career of John Carpenter, one of the most influential horror directors of the modern era. From Halloween to Escape from New York to The Thing, John Carpenter shaped the future of horror, setting trends and creating sub-genres. He’s responsible for such horror icons as Michael Myers, Snake Plissken and Jack Burton. He’s even directed a film about Elvis. He’s worked with such movie greats as Jamie Lee Curtis, Kurt Russell, Donald Pleasence and Jeff Bridges, who received an academy award nomination for Best Actor.

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Walking through John Carpenter’s career, Doc and Thomas start with his films from the Seventies including Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13 and Elvis which features his first collaboration with Kurt Russell. Of course, they spend a considerable amount of time with his first big hit, Halloween launching a franchise and a number of careers including Jamie Lee Curtis and firmly establishing the slasher sub-genre.

The Eighties provides Doc and Thomas plenty of favorite Carpenter films to discuss. Doc favors Big Trouble in Little China, while Thomas has trouble deciding which other Carpenter/Russell feature is his top pic, Escape from New York or John Carpenter’s The Thing. The Fog and Prince of Darkness get some love while the two also discuss Christine, Starman and They Live.

The Nineties brings another favorite for Thomas, the much overlooked In the Mouth of Madness while the other films start to leave less and less an impact, films like Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Village of the Damned and Escape from L.A. which is yet another Carpenter film to feature Kurt Russel in the lead role.

The later films start to bring the tone of the podcast down a bit as Doc and Thomas talk about Vampires, Ghosts of Mars and The Ward. Still the duo hang on to hope that John Carpenter can return to glory with another cinematic masterpiece that his early career provided.

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