Escape From New York first published by Little White Lies, as the 70th instalment of my Cinema Psychotronicum column In the mid-1970s, when John Carpenter wrote Escape From New York in response to the Watergate scandal, 1997 was a distant – but not too distant – future in which all manner of contemporary concerns could…
Black Site first published by SciFiNow “You know my girlfriend left me last week because she said I was too safe. Now look at me: I’m running around an underground facility, fighting wannabe ninjas, with a cracked rib, so as I could deport a god.” The speaker is Sam Levi (Mike Buckingham), delivering one of…
The Thing first published by Little White Lies, as the 44th entry in my Cinema Psychotronicum column John Carpenter’s eighth feature – and his first for a major studio (Universal) – The Thing is an adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There?, and a loose remake of Chris Nyby’s adaptation The Thing From…
Assault on Precinct 13 first published by Movie Gazette Only the second feature film (after 1974’s hilarious 2001: A Space Odyssey-parody Dark Star) of B-grade king John Carpenter, who went on to make such genre classics as Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Assault on Precinct 13…
The Guest first published by Film4 Descriptive synopsis: In this darkly funny psychothriller, a returned soldier runs amok through the problems of a smalltown American family. Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way To Die, You’re Next) directs. Review: “I guess we don’t need a living, breathing reminder of him,” says 20-year-old Anna Peterson (Maika Monroe). Her brother…