They Live (1988) | dir. John Carpenter

Top 15 Directors (as voted by my followers)

4. John Carpenter

I don’t want to be in the mainstream. I don’t want to be a part of the demographics. I want to be an individual. I wear each of my films as a badge of pride. That’s why I cherish all my bad reviews. If the critics start liking my movies, then I’m in deep trouble.

Captain Voyeur (1969) was the first short film by director John Carpenter while a student at USC Cinema. The 8-minute film is about a bored computer worker who becomes fixated on a woman at work and follows her back to her home. The film remained in the USC’s Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive until 2011, when it was rediscovered by archivist Dino Everett. The film is notable because it includes several elements that would appear in Carpenter’s later horror film, Halloween. Everett says that the similarities include a striking resemblance between the lead actresses.

Captain Voyeur (1969) dir. John Carpenter

You people sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn… call the president.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986) dir. John Carpenter

Pull it. Don’t distribute it. Even if everything I’ve said is totally Looney Tunes… I know this book will drive people crazy. 

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994) dir. John Carpenter

Escape from New York (1981) dir. John Carpenter

“My contemporaries were all doing slasher-horror movies. John Carpenter was the guy I idolized the most. He made Halloween for $30,000 or something. That was everyone’s break-in dream, to do a stylish horror movie. It was a very slasher film type image. And it really was the launching pad for the story.”
- James Cameron on the making of The Terminator (1984)

THE FOG (1980) dir. John Carpenter

John Carpenter directs Roddy Piper in They Live (1988)