Happy Birthday John Carpenter! He worked on The Resurrection of Bronco Billy (1970) as co-writer, editor, and composter. Then, Carpenter directed and co-wrote the sci fi film Dark Star (1974). What became iconic was Halloween (1978) which he directed, co-wrote with producer Debra Hill, and scored. The film made Michael Myers a horror icon with seven sequels with different directors and two remakes. It also made Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis into another icon, a female hero able to stand against the horror. Carpenter worked again with Curtis on The Fog (1980) that also starred Adrienne Barbeau who has to encounter a ghostly ship. It was remade in 2005. Carpenter followed it up with the sci fi action film, Escape from New York (1981) with Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken who has to enter Manhattan which is now a dystopian prison. He teamed up with Russell again in the remake of the sci fi The Thing (1982) with effects by Rob Bottin. It was the first film in what Carpenter calls his Apocalypse Trilogy. Carpenter cast Jeff Bridges as the alien taking the form of a departed husband in Starman (1984), a charming, sci fi romance that led to a 1986 television series.
One of the most fun Carpenter directed films is Big Trouble in Little China (1986) with Kurt Russell as Jack Burton! The second movie in the Apocalypse Trilogy is Prince of Darkness (1987). Carpenter brought his sensibility to the sci fi horror movie, They Live (1988) starring Roddy Piper, a fun movie. He wears sunglasses to discover skull-like aliens controlling everything. In 1992, John Carpenter directed Memoirs of an Invisible Man inspired by the H.F. Saint novel. Carpenter worked with Tobe Hooper on the 1993 horror anthology series Body Bags. The last movie of the Apocalypse Trilogy was In the Mouth of Madness (1994) with a script by Michael De Luca. The film captures the atmosphere of H.P. Lovecraft's work. He returned to the adventures of Snake Plissken with Escape from L.A. (1996). Then, he directed Vampires (1998) and then the sci fi horror movie Ghosts of Mars (2001). Next, Carpenter directed episodes of the horror anthology Masters of Horror. In 2014, photographer Kim Gottlieb-Walker released her book, On Set with John Carpenter. Carpenter created the comic book series John Carpenter’s Asylum along with his wife Sandy King and Thomas Ian Griffith. He released his first album, Lost Themes in 2015, then Lost Themes II (2016), and then Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998. Carpenter was executive producer, helped compose the score, and was creative consultant on 2018’s Halloween which ignored the sequels. Happy Birthday John Carpenter!
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