Precinct 13: The Movies and Music of John Carpenter

We're back from a brief late-summer hiatus with lots of new music in the John Carpenter universe to talk about! Our "feature presentation" of this episode, so to speak, is a track-by-track breakdown of the recently released tribute album The Way of Darkness, out now on Italian label Rustblade Records. This album features ten tracks of familiar Carpenter tracks from his movie scores and non-film albums, re-imagined and re-recorded by a selection of artists in the electronic music genre -- including two contributions from Claudio Simonetti, keyboardist for the legendary Goblin. It's an under-the-radar release that Chris and Nick have really come to love, and, chances are, if you're a Carpenter fan, you're going to dig it, too! We also discuss the recent remix collaborations between Carpenter and the well-respected synth-rock band Chvrches and, maybe best of all, the brand-new cut "Unkillable" from the original score of the long-awaited Halloween Kills!

What the hell is El Diablo, you ask? Why, it's a made-for-HBO film from 1990 co-written by none other than John Carpenter and Tommy Lee Wallace (as well as Christine screenwriter Bill Phillips). And, at least according to us, it's awesome! This week, Chris and Nick check out a largely forgotten chapter in the history of Carpenter's filmmaking career, a hilarious and surprisingly dark comedy/western featuring Anthony Edwards and Louis Gossett, Jr. -- alongside an impressive supporting cast of familiar faces like Joe Pantoliano, Miguel Sandoval, and John "Gremlins 2" Glover. Carpenter might have passed up the chance to direct this one, but it's not hard to catch a glimpse of the humor, energy, and grit of films like Dark Star and Escape from New York in El Diablo's ACE award-winning script. The film is currently streaming on HBO Max, and we think it's well worth a look! Plus, Chris has an amazing experience with the legendary Bruce Campbell, and Nick salutes a YouTube channel that's dedicated to the most obnoxious actor in action movie history.

Yep, we did it again! After tackling the limp Carpenter retread that was 2005's The Fog, we simply couldn't leave that same year's version of our show's namesake on the table. So, Chris, Nick, and special guest Alexandra Wiles checked out director Jean-Francois Richet's Assault on Precinct 13, and, it turns out, we had a lot to discuss about it! Unlike some remakes, this one at least has the guts to try something different from Carpenter's original, swapping out its L.A. setting for a cold New Year's Eve in the industrial sprawl of Detroit and replacing its iconic cop/criminal duo with a strung-out Ethan Hawke and an ice-cold (and, perhaps, a little too Morpheus-like) Laurence Fishburne. And, this time, it isn't a faceless street gang that lays siege to the derelict police station, and (thankfully?) nobody dies while eating ice cream. But, at any rate, this movie -- which is notably lacking in Carpenter's involvement -- has left us with a lot of questions. Like, is a steady stream of automatic gunfire a good substitute for character development? (Spoiler: it's not). Would this movie be improved by the addition of some familiar faces from other beloved franchises? (Spoiler: it would). And, just how did that remote, moonlit forest suddenly appear in the middle of the Motor City? (Spoiler: we have no f*cking clue). So, join us for an unexpectedly in-depth analysis of this not-quite-classic, plus: Nick throws some shade at the Purge franchise, Alex and Chris celebrate a recent horror sequel that definitely did not suck, and we consider just how many close-range Molotov cocktails constitute overkill.

We're back, and we've got a real barnburner (cigarette burner?) for you this time! Chris, Nick, and returning guest co-host Josh Mosley have A LOT to unpack about John Carpenter's first of two episodes of the sadly defunct Showtime anthology series Masters of Horror. With its In the Mouth of Madness-style plot, its graphic bloodletting, and its unique ideas on the medium of film, Cigarette Burns certainly stands out in the Carpenter filmography -- this is definitely not a case of late-career check-cashing. But, there's often a big difference between "interesting" and "good," and while one of your hosts thinks Cigarette Burns is a masterpiece, there's definitely a strong case that can be (and, over the course of this epic-length episode, is) made that this might not be among the director's strongest work. Hate it or love it, though, this hour-long film leaves us with all kinds of things to talk about, and we appreciate Josh being in for the long haul!

This week, we're headed back to good old Antonio Bay... But, this time around, it's not quite the same place that John Carpenter introduced us to in his classic 1980 chiller. No, against our better judgment (seriously, this thing has a 4% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes!), we've decided to take a look at director Rupert Wainwright's 2005 remake of The Fog to see if there's anything in it that's worth seeing for die-hard Carpenter fans like ourselves. You'll have to listen to find out, but, much like the movie itself, you're not likely to be shocked. Still, Chris and Nick put their usual level of over-thought into this one, and if nothing else, it's a chance to discuss remakes and reboots of beloved genre films -- some of which really did some interesting things to justify their existence. We also ponder the question of what the most truly original John Carpenter film might be, celebrate the return of moviegoing in the post-COVID world, and discuss the recent Guardian piece about why Ghosts of Mars might not be so bad, after all.

On our latest episode, it's finally time to take a look at John Carpenter's post-millennial moviemaking career, beginning with his 2001 effort Ghosts of Mars. This sci-fi/action/horror romp marks Carpenter's last foray into directing (relatively) big-budget studio movies to date, and while the film didn't set the world on fire critically or commercially, it did receive a memorable thumbs-up review from Roger Ebert. The film stars Ice Cube and Natasha Henstridge alongside a stacked cast of B-movie favorites -- from Pam Grier to Carpenter regular Peter Jason -- and it puts a high-concept sci-fi spin on a lot of familiar Carpenter ideas: outlaw antiheroes, western movie tropes, Alamo-esque siege situations, and more! At first glance, Ghosts of Mars looks a lot like classic Carpenter -- but, is the final product an unheralded late-career masterpiece, a misfire of epic proportions, a hyper-violent Scooby Doo episode set in space, or something else entirely? Chris and Nick attempt to tackle those questions, and many, many others that this film leaves unanswered, in a discussion that, love the film or hate it, we at least hope gives it its due!

Last episode, we sank our fangs into John Carpenter's late 90s horror/western Vampires, a modest box-office hit that paid tribute to some of the director's biggest cinematic inspirations. In keeping with Carpenter's tradition of not caring all that much about making sequels to his own movies, he handed the reins down to his longtime friend and collaborator Tommy Lee Wallace (director of Halloween III: Season of the Witch) for a direct-to-DVD sequel in 2002. Vampires: Los Muertos takes place in the same blood-soaked, vamp-ridden universe as the first film, but, with none of the original cast returning, this time around it's none other than Jon Bon Jovi in the protagonist role, with a whole new bunch of slayers to back him up. So, does this lower-budget, south of the border-set sequel have anything to offer to fans of the original? Or does it totally, ahem, suck? Chris and Nick tackle those questions, and attempt to figure out the film's not-so-coherent plot, in a discussion that takes a slight detour from the Carpenter filmography into the wild (or, at least, wildly inconsistent) world of DVD-era studio sequel-ization.

It's back to the movies and back to 1998 on the latest Precinct 13, as Chris and Nick sink their fangs into John Carpenter's action/horror/western hybrid, Vampires. Starring James Woods as the leader of a wild bunch of slayers hired by the Catholic church to exterminate the unholy undead, this film was a rare commercial success for Carpenter in the 90s. But, with last-minute studio-imposed budget cuts, a tangle with the MPAA over its bloody mayhem, and the blockbuster Blade breathing down its neck, could this movie live up to the Carpenter classics -- or, at least, to the earlier From Dusk Till Dawn, which covers a lot of the same territory? We've got lots to say about this one -- not all of it positive -- and, along the way, we get into everything from the influence of classic westerns to the crazy "could've beens" on of the casting to the film's uniquely explosive way of dispatching its villainous bloodsuckers. Plus, a few off-the-beaten-path recommendations of genre films that the Carpenter crowd might enjoy, whatever their feelings on this attempted return to form.

This week, it's a first here on Precinct 13: a look at one of John Carpenter's forays into writing for the comics world. The Joker: Year of the Villain #1 is a one-shot entry into the DC Comics canon that Carpenter co-wrote with Borderlands writer Anthony Burch in 2019; it was released right around the same time that movie audiences were turning out en masse to see Joaquin Phoenix's interpretation of the infamous Batman villain. Our discussion of this unique Carpenter work also gets into the larger world of Carpenter comics, the very un-Joker-like portrayals of villainy in his films, and even a member of Batman's "Rogues Gallery" that you may(o) have never heard of! All that, plus a few more of our musings on non-Carpenter horror, from a solid recent sequel to a long-running, low-key franchise to a movie that shows us what The Thing prequel probably should have looked like.

Among the many things we'd been looking forward to in the year of 2021 was the release of Lost Themes III: Alive After Death, the third collection of John Carpenter's original, non-soundtrack musical compositions. And, now that it's here, we can safely say -- and Chris DOES say so, more than once -- that this album is an absolute banger! We got to hear a lot of these tracks when they were released as singles last year, but your humble hosts and Carpenter aficionados think this album is best enjoyed in its entirety. Nick and Chris do another track-by-track review and commentary of this Sacred Bones Records release, and along the way, we imagine the cinematic visions this music might inspire, consider the locked-in groove that Carpenter and his band (son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies) have established over several albums, and even figure out the correct pronunciation of Moog! Plus, Chris braves the brutal world of Australian horror filmmaker Greg McLean, Nick has a bloody good time with an Italian slasher-movie classic, and we celebrate another one of our favorite cinematic composers, Trent Reznor.