Color, 1995, 95 mins.

Directed by John Carpenter

Starring Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jurgen Prochnow, Charlton Heston, Frances Bay / Music by John Carpenter, Dave Davies & Jim Lang / Written by Michael De Luca / Produced by Sandy King / Cinematography by Gary B. Kibbe

Format: DVD - New Line (MSRP $24.95)

Letterboxed (2.35:1 - 16x9 enhanced) / Dolby Digital 5.1

Apparently inspired by the growing cult following for his neglected, masterful Prince of Darkness, John Carpenter decided to explore similar waters again in the Lovecraftian In the Mouth of Madness, a jittery study of reality going straight to hell. Though this material proved to be a little too heady for the multiplex crowd, Carpenter's film has, not surprisingly, enjoyed a solid reputation in the horror crowd thanks to home video and cable.

Though equipped with the usual number of Carpenter cheap shocks (including a reprise of the Prince of Darkness double whammy dream sequence), In the Mouth of Madness works best as a creepy, subversive "what if?" scenario in which the viewer's perspective is constantly called into question. The first half in particular delivers some skin-crawling chills that rank with the director's most accomplished cinematic tricks, such as the nocturnal drive to Hobbs' End (love the boy on the bicycle) and Styles' initial realization that the town may be just as dangerous and supernaturally afflicted as its fictional counterpart.  The underrated Neill makes for an engaging Doubting Thomas protagonist, though one can only wonder how the fervently left wing Carpenter managed to talk NRA spokesman Charlton Heston into making an appearance as Carmen's boss.

New Line's DVD edition looks better than their good but flawed widescreen laserdisc, and viewers now have the option of also checking the fullscreen version for comparison.  Though visually butchered, the pan and scan option allows for further appreciation of the quirky, creepy details in the production design and a few crafty subliminal background touches along the way.  Colors and shadow depth are quite strong, but the real showcase of this disc is the 5.1 soundtrack, guaranteed to have the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end from the very beginning.  The disc also includes the theatrical trailer (but no TV spots or featurette from the laserdisc -- not much of a loss, though), a hidden trailer for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and the now infamous commentary track by Carpenter and cinematographer Gary M. Kibbe. While the advent of DVD has provided some even more tedious and pointless rambling feature discussions, this one is still pretty tough going, with the technical details of lighting and camera focus filling up virtually all of the 90 minute running time.  Fortunately, Carpenter's other commentary tracks are much better.

Starring Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky, Harry Dean Stanton, Christina Belford, Roberts Blossom, Kelly Preston / Music by John Carpenter & Alan Howarth / Written by Bill Phillips / Produced by Richard Kobritz / Cinematography by Donald M. Morgan

Format: DVD - Columbia (MSRP $29.95)

Letterboxed (2.35:1 - 16x9 enhanced) / Dolby Digital Surround

A rock solid improvement over Stephen King's interesting but fatally overlong novel, Christine may not be the scariest John Carpenter film by a long shot but is certainly among his sleekest. While the trend has been to dismiss most of the King adaptations in the '80s as trash, critics are fortunately beginning to now reassess most of these neglected titles (The Dead Zone, Creepshow, Cat's Eye, etc.), and Christine is perhaps the most overdue for some respect.

While the device of a killer car had already become hoary by this point, Carpenter injects the concept with a dose of simple but extremely effective special effects which are far more effective than the avalanche of CGI the story would probably receive today. All of Carpenter's scope films rely heavily on each inch of the frame for maximum effectiveness, and Christine is not exception. The careful arrangements of characters on the screen (usually with the dominant personality for the scene in the foreground) makes the pan and scan version included here quite useless; fortunately, the splendid new widescreen transfer is close to perfect and a tremendous improvement over the sick, chalky-looking letterboxed laserdisc a few years ago. The surround soundtrack doesn't rip forth like more recent mixes but does get the job done; frankly, it's nice to see this film in such good shape after years of bad video transfers and subpar TV screenings. Sleaze fans should get a kick out of seeing Roberts Blossom from Deranged in a fantastic cameo as Christine's prior owner, and look for Kelly Preston, a.k.a. Mrs. John Travolta, as Dennis' girlfriend. Only debits: no trailer, and an awfully cheap-looking, ugly cover design that looks like a bad imitation of the poster for 1958's Diabolique. 

Starring James Woods, Sheryl Lee, Daniel Baldwin, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximillian Schell / Cinematography by Gary M. Kibbe / Music by John Carpenter

Format: DVD - Columbia (MSRP $27.95)

Letterboxed (2.35:1) (16x9 enhanced) / Dolby Digital 5.1

As far as vampire-western hybrids go, John Carpenter's Vampires must rank far below Near Dark and even Sundown. The concept of one of horror's few remaining living legends finally tackling a no holds barred vampire saga seemed promising, and while a few moments live up to the director's promise, the overall result is a crushing disappointment.

The film's first 20 minutes are gangbusters, with a squad of vampire hunters led by Jack Crow (James Woods) infiltrating a vampire hideout and laying waste to the bloodsuckers by cinching them to the back of a truck and hauling them out into daylight. When the fearless vampire killers (accompanied by their resident priest for hire) retire to a motel for some boozing and cheap sex, the "head vampire" (imposingly played by Thomas Ian Griffith) bursts in and causes more gory carnage than you've ever seen in an R-rated film. Unfortunately, things go off the rails - to the say the least - when Woods and his surviving sidekick, Daniel Baldwin, drag along the only surviving hooker, Twin Peaks' Sheryl Lee, who has been bitten and thus established a telepathic link with Griffith. Also, the Catholic Church (represented by a sleepwalking Maximillian Schell) assigns a new priest (Strange World's Tim Guinee) to accompany them, so Woods responds by repeatedly beating up the priest. While Carpenter's anti-Catholic ruminations can be fun (Prince of Darkness is a prime example), here it's just a lame excuse for baiting controversy that just doesn't work. Furthermore, tying Lee naked to a bed for no good reason and having characters constantly call her a "no good half dead whore" leaves a pretty nasty aftertaste; while Carpenter may have been intending to simply convey the characters' misogyny, this attitude rubs off on the entire film as a whole. Even at 108 minutes, this is very sluggish stuff; endless scenes unfold in dimly lit motel rooms and desert landscapes in some half-baked homage to Sam Peckinpah. However, even Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia had more zip than Vampires, which tosses blood left and right in an attempt to wake up viewers but winds up flailing around in its own desperation. On the positive side, Gary Kibbe delivers some gorgeous widescreen anamorphic photography (no Super 35 bullstuff here, folks), even utilizing some Ladyhawke-style color filters in some scenes to nice effect. Woods supplies a nicely twisted anti-hero performance, a welcome return to the genre after his memorable turn in Videodrome, and Guinee does a good job, relatively speaking, with a ridiculous part.

However flawed the film may be, Columbia has made an absolutely first rate DVD. The breathtaking transfer glows with pure, undistorted waves of crimson and orange, while the throbbing Dolby Digital 5.1 mix delivers each gunshot and Carpenter's moody electronic score with great panache. The audio commentary by Carpenter is miles ahead of his soporific comments for In the Mouth of Madness, though as usual he often resorts to simply play-by-play descriptions of the onscreen action. Though he missed the mark, at least he's still out there swinging in a genre being threatened to be consumed by inane teens-in-peril postmodern ripoffs; hopefully Vampires' successful turn at the box office will result in a Carpenter film more worthy of his name.

John Carpenter's The Thing belongs to that strange group of early '80's films that were critically reviled and financially ignored on their original release but have now become revered on both fronts in our own darker decade. Just take a look at Blade Runner, The Hunger, Videodrome, The King of Comedy, or Legend, just to name a few, to see how dramatically tastes can change in a decade.

At the time, The Thing was snubbed for daring to take Howard Hawks' rapid fire sci-fi classic and present it as a dark, deadly serious, and horrifically gory vision of mankind stripped down to its most primal elements in the Antarctic. Dispensing with the carrot monster, the female love interest, and the wisecracking newsman of the original, Carpenter instead returned to the original short story, John W. Campbell, Jr.'s "Who Goes There?," to fashion an alien story in which the shapeless menace can inhabit any living form. Thus, the male protagonists, trapped in a remote Army station, must fend off each other in an attempt to determine who is human... and who isn't. Kurt Russell makes a solid, stoic leading man, a far cry from his other collaborations with Carptenter, and Rob Bottin's eye-popping special effects have become the stuff of legend.

Universal now treats their fledgling cult favorite to the deluxe treatment with what is easily one of the best special editions on DVD to date, starting off with a lustrous new THX-approved transfer. Believe it or not, they also finally shelled out the bucks to restore Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" back into an early scene, too! As per their new welcome practice, Universal has included a fascinating 84-minute documentary, Terror Takes Shape, which includes interviews with many of the principal players and some behind-the-scenes footage. It's not as lively or dramatic as their similar documentaries for Psycho or To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, but this is a good example of how to treat a film on DVD. And the extras just keep on coming, including full feature commentary by Carpenter and Russell, an isolated music track for Ennio Morricone's score (access it by going to the documentary's language features button), Bottin's developmental effects footage and drawings, countless photos, drawings, and storyboards, and, most surprisingly, the extra snippets of unused footage which were stuck into the film's airings on CBS and the Sci-Fi Channel. The only complaint is that the alternate happy ending for the film, discussed at length in the documentary, isn't included. Buy this one now!

After God knows how many fan requests, Universal has finally made available widescreen releases of two highly underrated John Carpenter films from the late '80's, They Live and Prince of Darkness. The previous Japanese laserdisc version of They Live was incompletely letterboxed (about 1.90:1) and had a colorless, washed-out appearance that failed to do much justice to this satiric sci-fi political actioner. No director takes advantage of the full scope widescreen image more than Carpenter; just try comparing the pan and scan and letterboxed editions of Halloween for a textbook example. At last, this DVD presents the full 2.35 image and features incredibly rich, vibrant color and deep shadows, along with a fabulous Dolby Digital surround remix. Though it has no extras (the Japanese laser did have a pretty nifty behind-the-scenes featurette, so don't chuck it if you have it), this one was definitely worth the wait.

Roddy Piper (yes, the wrestler) stars as Nada (as in "nothing," get it?), a homeless drifter who goes from job to job and winds up in a construction position in an unnamed large city. A group of radicals keep breaking in on the TV signals and warning of an evil conspiracy that's been brainwashing the general public, but everyone tends to ignore it. After a series of government attacks on one faction holing out in a local church, Nada uncovers a pair of sunglasses which reveal that the world is not quite as he thought. All advertising and written material contains subliminal messages, such as "Marry and Reproduce," "No Individual Thought," and "This Is Your God" (printed on money). Even worse, it appears all the wealthy people are - surprise! - ugly skeletal-faced aliens in disguise. Pretty soon Nada is suiting up for battle, and the fun begins.

Generally dismissed as one of Carpenter's goofier films (along with Big Trouble in Little China), They Live has some serious things to say about right-wing suppression and the growing apathy near the end of the millennium. Piper's role seems tailor-made for Carpenter buddy in crime Kurt Russell (including such lines as the immortal "I've come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubble gum"), but Piper fills the action hero shoes pretty well. He got a lot of bad press at the time, but after we've endured such action wannabes as Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme, he looks like Laurence Olivier in comparison. In fact, it's surprising how well this film has aged over the past decade, though it does suffer from a few flaws. Piper's idiotic fight scene with Keith David seems thrown in for no good reason at all and drags on way past the breaking point; it seems including solely for the purpose of pleasing wrestling fans. Also, the final sequence is a serious let-down, a knee-jerk jokey finish that wraps the film up on an abrupt, unfinished note. Interestingly, They Live now feels like a dry run for Carpenter's subsequent In the Mouth of Madness, an even more extreme look at the world's seemingly normal sheen being slowly removed to expose a completely different, malicious force lurking underneath (and which also features an unsatisfying ending). As Carpenter has explained, all of his films in one way or another revolve around normal people who become heroes when thrust into situations beyond their control; here, the hero deals with corruption in the aliens and the human beings around him who have sold out for wealth from the invaders. It's one of the most interesting sci-fi conceits of the past few years, and while the execution doesn't always do it justice, there's plenty of food for thought here for the open-minded viewer.

Even today, people can't seem to agree on Prince of Darkness: is it a neglected masterpiece or glorified B-movie trash? I definitely fall into the former category, and for those of you who love this film, I'm happy to say that it's finally come to home video looking the way it did in the theaters.

A group of theology, physics, and mathematics doctoral students are shut in for the weekend in a dilapedated inner city church to study a newly discovered lava lamp-style structure containing what appears to be the essence of Satan. Sound weird? Well, yeah, and the acting is a little stilted here and there, but Carpenter's astonishing visual sense and uncanny knack for maintaining separate, suspenseful storylines is enough to make this serious nightmare material. The script by "Martin Quatermass" (a cutesy pen name for Carpenter himself, as Hammer Film fans will recognize) has gotten flack for being alternately too cerebral and too pandering, but I couldn't disagree more. The ambitious and lofty notions contained in the seemingly basic premise are quite provocative, especially after repeated viewings, and make this one of those rare films that actually becomes scarier the more you think about it.

The throbbing synthesizer score and eerie wide-angle scope compositions have never been presented remotely as well as they are here. As with They Live, Image has done a spectacular job of presenting the film as its fans have longed to see it. Previous editions included a watchable but distracting pan and scan transfer in the U.S. and a widescreen Japanese laserdisc that only presented the image at a compromised 1.90:1 aspect ratio and drained most of the color out of the picture (not to mention those pesky subtitles). Here the film is presented in its exact anamorphic ratio and once again glows with the eerie shades of ochre, brown, and green that give the images an uneasy, quasi-baroque atmosphere. In short, no horror fan should pass this one up. While the lack of any bonus materials is a little disappointing (the original trailer was quite effective, and the TV version contained a small amount of alternate and additional material), the presentation of the film itself easily justifies the price tag. "I live... I live..."

The film itself still holds up well, with Jeff Bridges shining in his Oscar-nominated performance as an alien who takes on the guise of a dead housepainter and takes the man's widow (Karen Allen) on a cross-country odyssey. Characterization and romance take precedence over the effects (which are still good), and Jack Nitzsche's eerie, touching score sounds better than ever in Dolby Digital. Bonuses include the original trailer as well as, oddly enough, the trailer for Jeff Bridges' The Mirror Has Two Faces.