Tag Archives: John Carpenter

Alan Smithee Podcast 80: Halloween, the extended TV cut (1978, John Carpenter) / The Day After Halloween aka Snapshot (1979, Simon Wincer)

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It’s time, it’s time. Put on your masks and watch…watch. Two days after Halloween, Halloween, the last thing you’d want to do is watch Halloween. An ubiquitous classic, but your reserves have run out for critical analyses of John Carpenter’s horror classic because Rob Zombie so thoroughly sullied the original idea with modern vulgarity and took all the magic away by making Myers a troubled, bullied youth.

You may think those scare us, you’re probably right. Remakes and Zombie on Halloween night? Nah, An Alan Smithee Podcast has waited until the day after Halloween to watch Halloween and an unrelated film (unrelated except by sheer force of a duped viewer’s internal justifications): The Day After Halloween, which was not filmed under that title and has gone by several others. The video distributors knew this Australian turkey (both the Aussie and Golden Turkey sense) called Snapshot wouldn’t sell rentals unless the invisible hand of the market picked you up off a shelf of virtually indistinguishable Halloween ripoffs. Being Australian, they gambled that they’d get away with sticking Halloween in the title and 30 years later, it’s the only reason anyone’s talking about it. So who’s really laughing last?

IMDB being IMDB, they’ve listed the film by its least well known alternate title, One More Minute, just as they’ve reduced the incredibly good Deliverance imitation Rituals to its most exploitative namesake, The Creeper.

To mix things up, the version of Halloween that we’re viewing has a few extra scenes added for television, gently playing with the rhythm of the acts without adding any blatant connections to Halloween II, thankfully. The only element in the mix of Snapshot of interest is the presence of Vincent Gil, the ill-fated Nightrider from Mad Max – the screechy rocker, roller and out-of-controller who gets blow’d up real good in the opening chase scene. Here, he plays a gay fashion photographer who doesn’t raise his voice even once. What a disappointment. There’s another connection the film has to Mad Max (small country, huh?) but you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out.

The larger problem with The Day After Halloween is that Snapshot is only remotely a suspense or a “thriller” film, let alone a slasher flick.

Enjoy this episode of An Alan Smithee Podcast as we squeeze out the last few precious drops of Halloween cheer from an already rotting pumpkin.

NEXT EPISODE: FLETCH (1985, MICHAEL RITCHIE) & FLETCH LIVES (1989, MICHAEL RITCHIE)

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Alan Smithee Podcast 59: Escape from New York (1981, John Carpenter) / 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983, Sergio Martino)

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In the 20th Century people were big into the idea of the post-apocalypse created by nuclear war, instead of by realistic causes like zombies. The apocalypse, it was presumed, would happen after the Soviet Union and the United States laid waste to the world and civilization was wrecked. A few films were made along this premise in the 1970s, like A Boy and His Dog and Damnation Alley, yet none of these fantasies struck a chord in the public imagination until 1981 when George Miller directed his masterpiece The Road Warrior and rising auteur John Carpenter made Escape From New York. Carpenter’s conceptual masterstroke was combining what the new subgenre was getting at – that the future would be looking more like Lord of the Flies than The Jetsons or even Zardoz – with the assumption that New York City was so far gone to crime it may as well drop dead. Aside from Walter Hill’s The Warriors, no sci-fi / action / adventure films had explored the fantasy of New York as a lawless playground for gangs and Carpenter’s conception of Manhattan island as an inescapable prison colony captured the imagination of genre fans everywhere.

He also gave Kurt Russell a second career after years of Disney boy Bobby Driscoll roles, as Snake Plissken, a truly self centered and cynical antihero who perfectly matched the grim, bleak tone of his dystopic future adventure. Further rounding out the cast is possibly the best array of character actors ever assembled: Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Ernest Borgnine, Issac Hayes and Lee Van Cleef invest a sense of reality to the low budget landscape like no other cast ever has. As we discuss, this film truly shows off Carpenter’s auteurist skills at their peak from the synthesizer score to impeccable cinematography by his best collaborator Dean Cundey. Escape From New York is one of Carpenter’s greatest films and for the first time since our first episode we do our best to summarize its brilliance.

2019: After The Fall Of New York is by its title alone something of an admitted ripoff. What’s delightful and oft-stupefying is how many other science fiction genre ideas Ernesto Gastaldi, Sergio Martino and Gabriel Rossini decide to borrow when the premise of a Kurt Russell lookalike going into an abandoned Manhattan island to get someone out isn’t enough to sustain an entire movie without copying every single plot beat from Carpenter. Amongst these ideas are escape from Earth via spaceship, de-evolution of humans into ape-like creatures, infiltration of humanity by cybors, and a global infertility crisis threatening to wipe out humanity. This last idea may sound familiar to viewers and readers of Children of Men. 2019: After The Fall Of New York is a textbook case of Italian knockoff cinema complete with a totally overdubbed soundtrack and an exhilarating absence of narrative logic. Highly recommended to fans of Escape From New York and The Road Warrior who are also fans of every other sci-fi adventure ever made.

NEXT EPISODE: BREATHLESS SPECIAL! BREATHLESS (1960, JEAN-LUC GODARD) & BREATHLESS (1983, JIM MCBRIDE)

Episode 22: Halloween II (1981, Rick Rosenthal) Commentary Track

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In celebration (or acknowledgment) of Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 (or H2), the sequel to his remake of Halloween …or remake of the sequel to Halloween, it’s a Very Special Alan Smithee Podcast.

at iTunes

in MP3

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Don’t forget to check out the Q&A with Rick Rosenthal, Gloria Gifford and Alan Howarth at a recent screening

and if you don’t have a copy of this fine film … there’s always Amazon

Episode 17: Elvis (1979, John Carpenter) / The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970, James R. Rokos)

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This week in An Alan Smithee Podcast, Andrew and Matt indulge in John Carpenter’s lost treasures – the 1970 Academy Award winning short film he edited, wrote and composed. Future Escape From New York co-writer and erstwhile Coup De Villes band member Nick Castle, seen here playing keyboards while Carpenter pretends to be a wizard, lensed the short’s black and white photography and co-wrote.

“Broncho Billy” is the tale of a young man in Southern California circa 1970 who wants to be a cowboy. There is lots to read into, knowing what we know now: fans are quick to note the similarity of many Carpenter films like Assault On Precinct 13, Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China and Ghosts Of Mars to Westerns. There’s also some good ol’ film school follies, like having Billy wake up from bed in the very first scene!

Check out the whole thing here!

Also on the roster is the epic two-anna-half hour 1979 TV movie event ELVIS, in which Kurt Russell does a pretty darn good imitation of The King. While Carpenter does not write or produce, his compositions and chemistry with cast make this a fascinating oddity. Airing only two years after Elvis’ death there’s a considerable amount of whitewashing, eschewing the fat years and pills, and instead framing his life in the context of the two most important women in his life: “mommhuh an’ Priscillhuh.” The latter is played by Season Hubley, soon to be real life wife of Kurt, although the dissolution of their marriage (art predicts life) is not shown to be the cause of Elvis’ downfall…

There’s also a ton of songs for padding. Check out this excerpt of “Suspicious Minds,” lip-synched by Russell AND performed by someone other than Elvis:

Come to think of it, they don’t even acknowledge Elvis died in this! A truly reverential tribute, and intermittently very entertaining.

Discover all the hidden details and trivia of these two John Carpenter rarities from two guys who know way too much about the legendary John!

NEXT WEEK: TANGO & CASH (1989, ANDREI KONCHALOVSKY) / CALIFORNIA SPLIT (1974, ROBERT ALTMAN)

Show Notes: Episode 2: Carpenter was a Jesus, Part 2 of 2

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Continuing their conversation on Carpenter, Matthew and Andrew pick up with his Christine adaptation. Following a discussion of all his theatrical releases, they touch on his recent television episodes and become wistful at thoughts of his future endeavors.

Films discussed:
Christine (1983), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Maximum Overdrive (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), They Live (1988), Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Body Bags (1993), In the Mouth of Madness (1995), Village of the Damned (1995), Escape from L.A. (1996), Vampires (1998), Halloween H2o (1998), Ghosts of Mars (2001), Cigarette Burns (2005), and Pro-Life (2006).

Show Notes: Episode 1: Carpenter was a Jesus, Part 1 of 2

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On the premiere episode, Matthew and Andrew discuss the first part of John Carpenter’s career–from The Resurrection of Broncho Billy to The Thing.

Films discussed:
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), Dark Star (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Halloween (1978), Someone’s Watching Me! (1978), Elvis (1979), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), Halloween II (1982), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) and The Thing (1982).