In a recent interview for The New Yorker, the great American genre filmmaker John Carpenter admitted, “I was afraid of everything when I was little. Everything terrified me.” Like an acrophobe drawn inexorably to the brink, this timorous child of the 1950s made a career of casting himself into the flame of fear. For the director no less than the infant, terror lodges in everything, taking over a new host from one film to the next. So often, his monstrous entities have no finite dimension, or tunnel so deep into the fabric of his films that they cannot be hauled into view, much less vanquished. Even backed into a corner, they won’t hang around to be dredged or dissected, their secrets spilled on the dock. Whether a shape-shifting alien of ancient pedigree, or a devouring fog from the sea, the evils of the Carpenter sci-fi imaginary remain mysterious to the end, threatening to regenerate, envelop, and mutate.
These grotesqueries still have a vice-like hold on the cinematic imagination half a century since they first made audiences cower in their seats. Carpenter breathed life into their manifold, fugitive forms, using all the resources he could lay his hands on, and some sorcery besides. Magicking alien viscera from bubblegum and paint thinner, or conjuring a vaporous shroud for long-drowned seamen, Carpenter was in his element leading a team of practical-effects engineers to realize and animate his nightmarish inventions. From the cyberpunk to the frozen solid, the crafted worlds of Carpenter’s films vibrate with paranoiac anticipation. Maritime parochialism, urban jungle, or a Lovecraftian New Hampshire with hints of the Byzantine, these creations set the stage for rampages, resurrections, and vortical descents into madness.
Today, Carpenter is regarded as a nonpareil master of genre filmmaking, the mind behind three decades of maximally imaginative work. At his peak in the 1980s, it was a different story: unanimous praise one year, critical disfavor the next. From retirement, Carpenter surveys his films’ reception with a shrug, backing himself to the bitter end with signature stubbornness: “I love all the movies I made!” And so do we: His work calls out to all who share his moth-like sensibility, his morbid fascinations. Feel the fear, it seems to say, and watch it anyway.

In a recent interview for The New Yorker, the great American genre filmmaker John Carpenter admitted, &#8220;I was afraid of everything when I was little. Everything terrified me.&#8221; Like an acrophobe drawn inexorably to the brink, this timorous child of the 1950s made a career of casting himself into the flame of fear. For the director no less than the infant, terror lodges in everything, taking over a new host from one film to the next. So often, his monstrous entities have no finite dimension, or tunnel so deep into the fabric of his films that they cannot be hauled into view, much less vanquished. Even backed into a corner, they won&#8217;t hang around to be dredged or dissected, their secrets spilled on the dock. Whether a shape-shifting alien of ancient pedigree, or a devouring fog from the sea, the evils of the Carpenter sci-fi imaginary remain mysterious to the end, threatening to regenerate, envelop, and mutate.
These grotesqueries still have a vice-like hold on the cinematic imagination half a century since they first made audiences cower in their seats. Carpenter breathed life into their manifold, fugitive forms, using all the resources he could lay his hands on, and some sorcery besides. Magicking alien viscera from bubblegum and paint thinner, or conjuring a vaporous shroud for long-drowned seamen, Carpenter was in his element leading a team of practical-effects engineers to realize and animate his nightmarish inventions. From the cyberpunk to the frozen solid, the crafted worlds of Carpenter&#8217;s films vibrate with paranoiac anticipation. Maritime parochialism, urban jungle, or a Lovecraftian New Hampshire with hints of the Byzantine, these creations set the stage for rampages, resurrections, and vortical descents into madness.
Today, Carpenter is regarded as a nonpareil master of genre filmmaking, the mind behind three decades of maximally imaginative work. At his peak in the 1980s, it was a different story: unanimous praise one year, critical disfavor the next. From retirement, Carpenter surveys his films&#8217; reception with a shrug, backing himself to the bitter end with signature stubbornness: &#8220;I love all the movies I made!&#8221; And so do we: His work calls out to all who share his moth-like sensibility, his morbid fascinations. Feel the fear, it seems to say, and watch it anyway.

In the Mouth of Madness:  The World of John Carpenter

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS:  THE WORLD OF JOHN CARPENTER

A self-declared scaredy cat, the beloved genre filmmaker John Carpenter channeled his fear into creating cinematic nightmare fuel for the rest of us. Maximally imaginative and lively with sci-fi grotesqueries, his iconic work spans three decades. Feel the fear, it seems to say, and watch it anyway.

A self-declared scaredy cat, the beloved genre filmmaker John Carpenter channeled his fear into creating cinematic nightmare fuel for the rest of us. Maximally imaginative and lively with sci-fi grotesqueries, his iconic work spans three decades. Feel the fear, it seems to say, and watch it anyway.