John Carpenter

John Carpenter’s feature debut. A tough film to review. A low-budget sci-fi picture that includes a beach ball alien pet, sentient bombs, and satirical allusions to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

John Carpenter’s second feature. A terrific action thriller set in a desolate police precinct pitting Howard Hawks archetypes against a gangland siege.

Once upon a time, Goldilocks wanted to watch Halloween. First, she reached for the 2007 Anchor Bay Blu-ray, but found the colors too saturated, too warm. The daylight scenes looked artificial. So she reached for the 2013 Blu-ray, but found the picture too dark, the blue hue too pronounced. Characters disappeared into the shadows. It was too cold. Finally, she found the 2021 Shout Factory 4k. It’s still dark, but not too dark. The outdoor scenes looked natural, and the dark scenes still held detail. It was just right.

Residents of a northern California coastal town find themselves under siege from a mysterious fog and the angry ghosts within.

Carpenter re-imagines the spaghetti western as a science-fiction adventure set in a dystopian near-future where soaring crime leads to Manhattan being converted into a giant maximum security prison.

At a remote Antarctic research station, a group of scientists and their helicopter pilot (Kurt Russell) discover they’ve been infiltrated by a parasitic alien organism that assimilates other life forms and subsequently imitates them.

A trucker (Kurt Russell) finds himself caught in the middle of a centuries-old battle under San Francisco’s Chinatown.

After putting on a special pair of sunglasses, an out of work drifter (Roddy Piper) discovers an alien conspiracy.

An insurance investigator tracking a missing horror novelist discovers the author’s fiction is bleeding into reality.

In an aging house with peeling paint and broken shutters, in the part of town where rusted cars on cinder blocks occupy driveways and chain link fences replace white pickets, a monster has grown. Young Michael Myers, aged ten, has developed a taste for violence. Starting with rats, progressing to dogs, and today, Halloween, he will graduate to people.