Although he doesn’t have a 100% hit rate, churning out such stinkers as Ghosts of Mars and Escape from L.A., John Carpenter has enough masterpieces under his belt to be praised as one of the finest filmmakers ever to grace the horror genre with his visionary style. He’s also one of horror cinema’s most influential directors, as almost everyone who’s contributed to the genre counts at least one of his movies among their favorites.
Carpenter made a lot of great scary movies, but arguably his two best are The Thing, an Arctic-set chiller in which a group of scientists don’t know who to trust as they fend off a shapeshifting alien, and Halloween, an early slasher about Laurie Strode’s struggle against the murderous Michael Myers.
10 The Thing Is The Best: The Shapeshifting Alien Plays On Real Human Fears
The titular force of antagonism in The Thing is a shapeshifting alien that infiltrates an isolated Arctic outpost and begins taking some truly horrifying forms. It can even perfectly impersonate any one of the scientists populating the facility.
This plays on very real, universal human fears. There’s nothing more scary than being trapped with a bunch of people and not knowing if any of them can be trusted.
9 Halloween Is A Close Second: Laurie Strode Is The Perfect Horror Movie Protagonist
Like most slashers, Halloween has a “final girl” for a protagonist. Played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who hails from a dynasty of horror movie royalty, Laurie Strode is the quintessential horror movie protagonist.
She doesn’t survive the movie on sheer luck alone, or by being rescued by an outside force. She survives on her own quick wits and fierce determination in the face of very real terror.
8 The Thing Is The Best: The Special Effects Are Beautifully Gruesome
In the pre-CGI era in which The Thing was made, all of the titular alien villain’s shapeshifting was done practically. Special effects wiz Rob Bottin was just 22 years old when John Carpenter hired him to create the beautifully gruesome effects for the movie.
The legendary Stan Winston was also brought on board to help out with the iconic effect of the Thing integrating dogs into its disturbing form.
7 Halloween Is A Close Second: Michael Myers Is The Perfect Horror Movie Villain
Setting the stage for such horror icons as Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and the Ghostface killer, Michael Myers is the perfect horror movie villain. A deranged killer since childhood, he’s characterized as the faceless embodiment of evil.
He’s credited as “The Shape,” because he’s inhuman. He’s a practically invincible killing machine clad in a boilersuit and a William Shatner mask, murdering his way through Haddonfield’s youth.
6 The Thing Is The Best: The Isolated Arctic Setting Is Terrifying
An essential component of any great horror movie is the setting, from the Bates Motel run by a psychotic mama’s boy to the Nostromo where no one can hear you scream.
In The Thing, the isolated Arctic outpost where the characters are the only humans for miles of snowy wasteland is used to terrifying effect.
5 Halloween Is A Close Second: The Pacing Is Pitch-Perfect
Much like Ridley Scott’s Alien, another masterpiece of horror cinema that was released a year later, Halloween is perfectly paced. John Carpenter was in no rush to start killing off babysitters. The first major murder doesn’t take place until the midpoint of the movie.
After that, the rate of the subsequent killings gets slower rather than faster, as is the case with lesser horror films. This creates more tension and build-up for each murder.
4 The Thing Is The Best: It Nails Lovecraftian Themes
The idea of an ancient, intergalactic, indefinably otherworldly entity that has no regard for humanity coming to Earth and eviscerating a bunch of people without remorse is pure H.P. Lovecraft.
The Thing is Carpenter’s attempt at a Lovecraftian tale of cosmic horror, and he nails the theme of paranoia. The Red Scare allusions from the original tale translated beautifully to the Reagan era in which Carpenter remade it.
3 Halloween Is A Close Second: The Gore Is Effective, Because It’s Not Excessive
Most modern horror movies use excessive blood and gore in place of tension and suspense. Just last year, It: Chapter Two set a new record for the most fake blood ever used in a horror movie, and it didn’t make it any scarier.
By contrast, Halloween and fellow ‘70s horror masterpieces like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are relatively bloodless. But it’s their sparing use of violence that gives the violence much more impact.
2 The Thing Is The Best: The Characters Gradually Lose Their Sanity
Throughout The Thing, the characters gradually lose their sanity. They don’t know who they can trust and they’re being killed one by one, so they have to come to terms with their seemingly inevitable fate.
This mentality calls back to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Everyone’s a suspect and survival seems increasingly unlikely.
1 Halloween Is A Close Second: It Pioneered The Modern Slasher
While Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is widely regarded to be the first slasher movie, the modern slasher genre wasn’t solidified until John Carpenter came along and made Halloween on a slim budget with young stars and a masked killer picking them off one by one.
From Friday the 13th to A Nightmare on Elm Street, every subsequent slasher owes a creative debt to Halloween. Carpenter’s low-budget masterpiece pioneered the genre and perfected it at the same time.
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