Seen that!

By far the most political thing he's done, but its ambition is bigger than its budget allowed. Made at the end of actor Ronald Reagan's presidency, it grew in reputation during puppet George W Bush's.

Concept: 'I hate Ronald Reagan's policies'.

Roddy Piper walks into town looking for a construction job, but there's not much going. He passes a blind preacher telling it like it is – 'Why do we worship greed?' – and TVs with their promotion of greed. With no money until pay day, fellow worker Keith David points him to a squatter camp. Even there, there's a TV… which starts broadcasting a message from TV hackers saying that 'we are cattle, we are being bred for slavery', but the reaction of viewers is to complain of headaches. It turns out the signal is being sent from the church near the camp and before long the church is being raided by the police while the camp is bulldozed. Piper escapes, passing the police beating up the blind preacher. Returning to pick up anything that's left of his possessions, he looks into the church and collects a box, hoping it will be important or valuable. It turns out to just contain sunglasses, so throws all but one away… and discovers that they show the world as it really is. Ads cover words like 'obey', 'marry and reproduce' and 'no independent thought', while money has 'this is your god' on it. Oh, and some smartly dressed people look like aliens when seen through the glasses.

Before long, the aliens are talking into their wristwatches, 'I've got one who can see'. The police – two aliens – turn up, corner him in an alley and want to know where he got the glasses from. He kills them both – 'You bastards die just like we do' – and takes their weapons. More police arrive, so he ducks into a building.. which turns out to be a bank. It's time for the film's signature lines: 'I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.' He shoots the aliens there, but one is able to disappear. He kidnaps TV assistant Meg Foster to escape, but for some strange reason, she doesn't believe that he's fighting the forces of evil that can only be seen with sunglasses. Odd that. Before long, she's twacked him over the head and he's flying through a window.

His sunglasses were left in her house, and so he goes looking for the rest. Just after he's got them, David turns up to offer him some money. Obviously, Piper wants him to try the sunglasses. Thinking he's talking to a killer and not wanting to get further involved, David declines. There's a fight, with Piper trying to force them on him. Eventually, the glasses are on, and then there are two. They're contacted by the resistance who escaped from the church, and go along to a meeting. Foster is there too, but just as she apologises for not believing him, the wall is blown in and the police come in shooting at anything that moves. Piper and David get away, thanks to an alien device, and discover there's a network of tunnels underneath the streets. They walk into a banquet meeting for the rich ('income up 36% this year') and the aliens. Oh, look who's there: one of the homeless, now rather richer and in a tuxedo. Assuming that they have sold out too, he gives them a tour of the operation, from starport to the TV station which is beaming the signal controlling everyone. Time to destroy the transmitter, but there's one twist first. Eventually, the signal is stopped and everyone can see the truth.

What’s good: For a wrestler, Roddy Piper is a pretty good actor and in this is better than subsequent 'wrestler turned actors'. The highly scripted and faked world of professional wrestling probably helped, but he's clearly bringing personal experience to some of the role. Keith David, previously in The Thing, is as good as ever.

The fight. It lasts just over five minutes. As you can imagine just from the length, it's over the top in several ways. What makes it a bit special is the context – two friends getting progressively dirtier but realising that they are not, in fact, out to kill each other. At one point, Piper apologises for getting too nasty, but continues to go at him anyway. Apparently, it was rehearsed between the two for over a month.

The politics. Lines like 'We gave the steel companies a break. They gave themselves pay rises' ring just as true today as they did then, especially if you change it to the banks. So too the treatment of globalisation ('There ain't no countries any more') and corporate disregard for the environment (greenhouse gases are being used to change the planet to be more to the aliens' liking). We also see Los Angeles from a very different angle than usual – this is a city with a very large underclass, not just the angels.

The respect for the audience's intelligence. The sunglasses reveal section is almost wordless. Typical for a Carpenter script – Frank Armitage is a pseudonym – the difficult bits are skipped over in a simple way. 'I'm not too familiar with it myself' says their guide, and we accept that better than a minute's pseudo-scientific explanation or mystical crap (yes, The Matrix, I'm thinking of you!)

What’s not so good: The low budget really shows, particularly in the aliens who just have a zombie / bare flesh mask. The long-time Carpenter stunt co-ordinator played most of them himself, because he fit the main mask.

There are times when the intelligence is abandoned for an action scene.

Music: As with almost all of his 1980s films, it's composed and played with Alan Howarth. This one's a solid working class blues score.

Miscellany: Most of the homeless people in the film were really homeless – feeding and paying them was part of the political statement.

'We all sell out every day' was apparently a line from a studio exec who didn't see what the threat the heroes were fighting against was.

Unsurprisingly, getting permission to use any real ads or media in the film was almost impossible. Kudos to Control Data for being the exception.

Overall: Another one with more intelligence than in most Hollywood films. What it would really love to be is the 1980s equivalent of the 1950's Invasion of the Body Snatchers which used SF to show McCathy's America, or the 1970's The Parallax View which fit into the 'conspiracy at the heart of the US government' mould. Sadly, it's not quite there and the 1980's film which nailed the rich better was Society while RoboCop did the corporations. Even so, you'll never watch TV in the same way again. Especially the aspirational crap.

This was the last one with Larry Franco as producer as well as the last time the soundtrack was done with Alan Howarth. (Future wife and producer Sandy King was associate producer.) There's an argument that this is the last classic Carpenter and it's another one which IMDB users rate higher than the ones in my next batch. Apparently it's being remade, but flawed as this one is, I can't imagine a new one being better.

TL;DR As the situation it was talking about in the real world has got worse, this film gets better

Film: 3.5/5
DVD: 4/5

An informative and chatty commentary with Roddy Piper and a 'making of'.

DVD, the 'coming soon' Blu-ray, and soundtrack:

Back to the 90s, but this is the last (best? least worst?) of them.

Concept: The Wild Bunch meet Vlad the Impaler.

A team of armed men lead by master slayer James Woods arrive at an old farmhouse in New Mexico. It turns out that they're hunting wabbit vampires and have a priest in tow. Several vampires are indeed inside and, after a fight, are exposed to sunlight, catching fire. That night, the team are at a motel, celebrating with drinks and hookers, when the master vampire they have been looking for turns up. He slaughters all but two of them. You can guess one of them, and the other is Daniel Baldwin. They have Sheryl Lee with them, but she's been bitten (on the thigh) by master vampire Thomas Ian Griffith and will soon have a psychic link with him, so she's taken along as bait. After cutting heads off and staking the bodies of the team, they head off for a meeting with Catholic cardinal Maximilian Schell (Woods) or a hotel (the other two). It turns out, as it so often does, that the church knows a bit more than it is saying and that, having created the master vampire with a botched execution for heresy in the Middle Ages, they've spent the past few hundred years trying to wipe out vampires. Except that if you no longer believe in the church's teachings, the prospect of eternal life another way would be awfully tempting, wouldn't it? So it becomes a race between Woods trying to find and kill the master vampire and its search for the cross to perform the ceremony that will enable it to survive sunlight. Who will win? Who do you think?

What’s good: The opening sequence is possibly his best work in the 90s and all the action sequences are handled well.

None of the good guys are nice. Woods is potty mouthed (as we now know Natasha Henstridge would say) and as dangerous as the vampires he's after. Baldwin is quite capable of hitting Lee, but also ends up falling for her, despite the consequences. About the only good thing the two of them have going for them is their relationship and you could read it as homoerotic quite easily. Woods will keep talking about other men's penises after all…

Most of the effects are good, particularly the fire and the splatter ones.

What’s not so good: The plot's got the huge problem of trying to explain why the oh-so-valuable cross is known to some, but not protected even half way decently by anyone. It doesn't bother.

The rest of the plot.

Music: It's not his best, but it's good enough to be one of the things that makes me rate this one above Ghosts. It's a collection of blues and Mexican themes, with guitar played by Carpenter successfully trying not to disgrace himself in a band featuring, amongst others, Steve Cropper and Donald 'Duck' Dunn, the legendary session players featured as part of the backing band in The Blues Brothers. Some of it is written by Cody Carpenter, John's son.

Miscellany: The DVD back cover says 'In the blood-chilling tradition of HALLOWEEN and VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED'. The first I can obviously understand wanting to reference, but I'd want people to forget the latter personally.

People who have read the book about a group of vampire-hunting mercenaries, Vampire$, that this was based on tend to like the film a lot less. There's a quote from its author, John Steakley, saying that they kept much of his dialogue and lost his plot, which may explain why. I haven't read it, but I wouldn't be amazed if its plot was better than the one we're given here.

Overall: Like Ghosts, a lot depends on your expectations on coming to this one. It's a low budget action picture rather than horror and if you treat it as such, it's ok.

If you're going to watch a John Carpenter vampire film, this is your only choice. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not. There are certainly a lot better Carpenter films and a lot better vampire films out there. But there are also a lot worse, including the first three films in the countdown and the two sequels to this one.

TL;DR Yet another disguised Western from Carpenter, with a reasonably interesting twist

Film: 3/5
DVD: 3.5/5

Solo commentary, quite a thoughtful one, plus trailer and 'making of' promo.

DVD, the trilogy, the better option of this plus Ghosts, and the soundtrack:

We're out of the 1990s for a film that is certainly watchable but which could and should have been better. It would be his last feature and his last film to get a theatrical release for nine years – and The Ward was straight to video in the US.

Concept: 'Let's remake Assault on Precinct 13 – not that we'll admit it – and set it on Mars.'

It's 2176 and Mars is being terra-formed. Something has been uncovered in South Valley and is moving towards the main city, 'leaving behind only silence and death'. A train on autopilot from the valley arrives at the main city, with just Natasha Henstridge, handcuffed and asleep, on board. It turns out that she's a police officer, part of the team sent to bring in Ice Cube as notorious criminal Napoleon Wilson Desolation Williams, and the story is told via flashback as she gives evidence to the inquiry. When they got there, the place was a mess, with lots of bits of dead bodies, and only Cube and a few other people in the jail are alive. There are a few others, but they're now possessed by something and before long Grier's head is on a spike and a couple of hundred LA gang members possessed miners are attacking the jail. Cops and criminals are forced to work together to survive against a foe you can't negotiate with. It turns out that a nearby mine uncovered remains of an ancient Martian civilization. When investigated, the ghosts came out, possessing the humans. When their host is killed, they look for a new host. At one point Henstridge is one, but it turns out that her altered states drug of choice drives the ghosts out. But it's soon back to the shooting as they escape, go back to explode a nearby nuclear reaction, escape, and meet up again when the ghosts reach the main city on Mars…

What’s good: The cast. Amazingly, Natasha Henstridge was brought in a week before shooting started and we should all be grateful that the original choice, Courtney Love, couldn't do it. Ice Cube is good, Jason Statham gets to do macho prick once more, and I can't think of a bad casting choice.

The cinematography is very good, the effects are fine, and I also like the script's sense of humour. In particular, Cube's sidekicks ('Uno, Dos and Tres') aren't that clever and get treated with the lack of respect they deserve by everyone.

There's an interesting approach to drugs – Henstridge uses 'clear', a mix of LSD and ecstasy, and this saves her.

What’s not so good: I'm almost tempted to restore the 'bad' section for the first problem, the music. It opens with a very typical Carpenter theme over the main titles – it could easily make the 'John Carpenter's Greatest' compilation. The music for most of the first fifty minutes (the build up) is fine, but whenever we see the possessed (much of the rest) it's some awful heavy metal played by Anthrax. I can almost get it, artistically: the ghost possessed are noisy and nasty.. so let's make the music noisy and… But it's a distraction, not an enhancement.

The nature of the threat could have been better. The ghosts are insubstantial on their own, and we see that they can be exorcised by recreational chemistry. Is that built on? No. Is the description of the place somewhere where everyone goes to do drugs? Yes… so why didn't more of them escape infection? There's no negotiating with the possessed and they're a dangerous foe, but they're not actually frightening in the way that they could have been. It's usually a bad idea to show too much of the monster, and here, we see the lead possessed, 'Big Daddy Mars', but he doesn't get to do much except scream and point the rest of the possessed the right way. It'd have been a lot more interesting to show armed Americans and Brits in uniforms trying to police a desert state and being assaulted by oh, the rational Mars Liberation Front fanatics, with the 'It's their planet… we are the invaders aliens' tagline and realisation that the stars come to.

Some of the ideas in the script, like the matriarchal society are thrown away – it's almost as if it's only an excuse for Grier to make a pass at Henstridge, because everyone is expected to think that women in charge = lesbianism.

The physics aren't great either. There's a mention of the issues around breathing a not-yet-Earth standard atmosphere, and that a Martian year is about twice an Earth one, but you'd never know the gravity on Mars is less than 40% of that on Earth. You don't make a nuclear reactor into a bomb that easily either (the core would melt, creating a highly radioactive mess and cloud, rather than have a two mile blast radius), and the explosion is waaay too big on the orbital view.

Music: Credited to him alone. Arrggghhhh. See above. For some reason, the soundtrack album just has the main title, one ok track (from her tripping), and the crap. It'd be interesting to hear some of the build up music separately. I'd also love to have had a 'music only' audio option on the DVD, so you could use that to subtract most of it out of the film and replace it with something better.

Miscellany: Originally, this was going to be told as a linear story, starting with uncovering the ancients. It works better the way it was made.

This film apparently has Stratham's first screen kiss. No, I wouldn't either.

I cannot find Carpenter admitting this is a remade Assault anywhere. Is he really the only person on this planet who doesn't think that's what this is a remake of, or is this a contractual issue – having been paid for the remake rights, he can't say he remade it too?

Overall: According to IMDB.com's rating system, this is the worst Carpenter film by far with a shockingly low rating of 4.8 – half a point lower than the incredibly dire Village and awful Escape from LA, and a full point lower than the meh Memoirs. It's much better than that. It's far from his best, but it's a fun 'Western on Mars' action picture.

As I said, this section took a lot of shuffling about to get them in order. I am almost tempted to promote this one a slot or two – having watched it again for the first time in ages with commentary, I immediately watched it again again with the proper audio (and even the music didn't sound that bad!) It gets better over time. So thinking about it, one reason it's down here is that throughout the nadir of his nighties, I said that what someone should do is give him a little money and have him remake Assault, because it'd have to be good. Someone did, he did and it's not as good as Assault despite looking better. It felt like a personal insult when I first saw it.

TL;DR It's considerably better than the official remake, but argh, the music.

Film: 3/5
DVD: 4/5

A very good commentary with him and Natasha Henstridge being very chatty – even if you don't usually do commentaries, this one's worth listening to (and you get to escape the music!) At no point does either mention Assault although she does challenge him on the music. Features on the music, effects, and the desert night shoots in a gypsum mine with lots of red dye.

DVD, Blu-ray and soundtrack CD:

Well, we're out of the three really bad ones and into the four that have their flaws, but which are watchable without wincing throughout. The order of these has been shuffled round more than any other section, because there's stuff to like about each of them.

Concept: An HP Lovecraftian 'Elder Gods' story of someone being driven insane by seeing the world as it really is.

Sam Neill is brought into an insane asylum. It turns out that he's not quite recovered from being in Memoirs a cynical insurance investigator who was asked to find a missing horror author, Jürgen Prochnow's Sutter Cane. Cane's books are extremely disturbing, and many of their readers go insane – one example attacks Neill with an axe in a restaurant. But the books are also extremely successful and business is business, so the publisher Charlton Heston wants to find him because he's after the rest of the manuscript for the next, In the Mouth of Madness. Only two people have seen any of it, editor Julie Carmen and Cane's agent – the man who attacked him with an axe… So as the world around him begins to go wrong, Neill starts reading the novels and realises that they reveal their fictional setting, Hobb's End, to be somewhere in New Hampshire. Carmen and Neill set off, get lost, and mysteriously find it. Everything is as in the novels, right down to a loose floorboard in a hotel, and of course, everyone in it is being turned into monsters. They meet Cane who declares that he's just writing what the Elder Gods tell him so that more people believe in them and they can end the world. Hobb's End is impossible to escape from, but having been given the manuscript, Neill is sent back into the 'real' world where he destroys it, only to be told that Carmen never existed and that he gave the manuscript in months ago. The world goes mad, Neill escapes the asylum and ends up laughing while watching the film of the book… the film we have just been watching.

What’s good: The 'something's not quite right' sections are very good, such as the group of children chasing a dog… later seen with only three legs and with the children having bloody, deformed mouths. The samples of other Hobb's End storylines – the lovely old owner of the hotel who's got her husband chained up naked and who is growing tentacles, the Thing in the Greenhouse, the child taken for sacrifice in the church – are all good stuff.

There's more intelligence here than the vast majority of horror films. The issue of what's reality and what's in Neill's head is left nicely open: 'Reality isn't what it used to be!'

What’s bad: Nothing really, which is why we're out of the dire group.

What’s not so good: The reveal isn't as good as the build up. Other films have this problem too, of course. By far the best bits of the Kubrick version of The Shining are the shots of the boy cycling around the hotel: you know something horrible is going to happen, but not what or when. In contrast, Jack Nicholson finally going wild with an axe is amusing rather than frightening. Here, we're treated to some not terribly convincing wobbly tentacled beings which are supposed to send you insane just by looking at them. They don't.

The structure doesn't quite work. There's a fanedit that recomposes the film into a linear story, losing the occasional flashes of the other bits of the story, and it works much better that way.

The casting isn't quite right either. Neill does cynical investigator much better than madman, while Carmen is better asleep (or as a model head on an acrobat's body!) than awake. In contrast, Prochnow doesn't really get a chance to show his talent.

Music: Co-composed with Jim Lang. It's one of the better later ones, with an interesting mix of 'rock', 'blues' and moody 'synth' tracks.

Miscellany: Carpenter reckons this is the third of a trilogy of unconnected 'apocalypse' films (the others being The Thing and Prince of Darkness). While all have 'end of civilization as we know it' themes, the others are better.

Hobb's End was the name of the fictional London Underground station in Quatermass and the Pit.

Overall: This has more ambition than the previous three films (and the next) added together. It's just a pity that it doesn't quite work. The 'it can't be true… but it is!' genre has produced some better films than this and similarly the 'you are just a character in my book' twist has been done better too.

This has a surprisingly high 7.0 rating on IMDB.com, higher than all of the films in my next section, so clearly there are people who appreciate it more than I do. It is certainly striking and memorable, but I'd just like it to be better.

Part of the problem is that no-one's done a good commercial 'Elder Gods' type film. The best effort is from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, who were behind the 2005 b/w(!) silent(!!) Call of Cthulhu, and no-one's going to spend $20m on making that.

TL;DR A good effort at filming the unfilmable.

Film: 2/5
DVD: 3/5

For some reason, this isn't available on DVD in the UK. There's a R1 (USA / Canada / etc) release which has the most technical commentary he's ever done – it's with the lighting cameraman director of photography, and at times goes into details like which gels were used in front of which size of what sort of lights from what direction. Director's commentaries are sometimes called free film school lessons, and this one certainly qualifies for anyone thinking of making a film themselves.

The imported DVD and the soundtrack CD:

Another one from Carpenter's dire 1990s.

Concept: Surely a sequel to Escape from New York can't go wrong?

Much of Los Angeles is destroyed in an earthquake in 2000 and it becomes an island. The right-wing religious presidential candidate who predicted the earthquake is elected, made President for life, and turns LA Island into a dumping ground for immoral ex-citizens. Once again, once you go in, you don't come back. It's now 2013 and once again Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken is about to be deported, this time having been convicted of 27 moral crimes, when once again it turns out that US Police Commissioner Lee Van Cleef Stacey Keach needs someone to do a rescue operation. This time, it's the President's rebellious daughter along with a doomsday device. Once more, if he doesn't come back within 24 9 1/2 hours, he's automatically dead, but this time the authorities are only interested in the device… Does he succeed? Of course.

What’s good: The setup's fine, up to the point of the submarine journey to the island. The basketball scene is good, especially if you know Kurt Russell did all of the basketball shots himself. It's nice to see Snake again.

The politics are interesting and they must have known that being explicitly rude about right wing Christians (the President is happy to kill his own daughter because she won't obey him and spends some time time hiding under a table during a minor quake while everyone else gets on with it, before going off to pray) wouldn't help at the box office. On the other side the Duke of LA Che Guevara lookalike 'Cuervo Jones' looks attractive, but likes to kill people for fun. Given freedom from the rules of the US theocracy, all the inhabitants of the island want to do is kill each other, while Snake is prepared to send the whole planet back into the Dark Ages. Hmm.

What’s bad: The budget is clearly bigger, but the imagination isn't. 'If in doubt, have a shoot-out' seems to have been the guiding principle.

Despite Carpenter's claims before it was released about it having more ambition, ambition is one of the big failures: it's really an attempt to re-do the original rather than be better. So there's a Brains equivalent (Steve Buscemi's Map to the Stars Eddie), an 'in the ring' equivalent (the basketball court at the noticeably underpopulated LA Memorial Coliseum), a Girl in Chock Full O'Nuts equivalent (Girl in the bushes), a 'I thought you were dead' equivalent ('I thought you'd be taller'), etc etc etc.

Plus some of it is just plain silly (I'm thinking of the surfing in particular, but the submarine journey isn't far off) and when an interesting idea is there, usually nothing is done with it (Bruce Campbell's Surgeon General of Beverly Hills, seeking to do live cosmetic surgery transplants, is the main example).

Technically, there are problems too. The wide effects shots are especially poor – when other reviewers wonder if this is a deliberate tribute to the 1980s, you know you have problems. The cinematography and lighting could also be a lot better (it's noticeable that Dean Cundey wasn't on board).

Music: Co-composed with Shirley Walker. I have the soundtrack CD for this one (it was 10p second-hand somewhere, and that's about the right price) and it helpfully says who composed which bit. The tracks he did are better, mostly because they're closer to the simpler music from the original rather than full orchestrations. For some reason, the opening title music (a reworking of the Escape theme) has whooshes over it. They're not on the soundtrack CD and it's much better as a result.

Miscellany: If it's true that Kurt Russell did the basketball shots live, why on earth didn't they take a leaf out of Jackie Chan's book, and show the outtakes for this (and other stunts) over the end credits?

Where's the electricity coming from? There's way too much light around.

Overall: The original John Carpenter / Debra Hill script is available online and there's more interest in comparing it with what was filmed (where the script was credited to Kurt Russell as well) than watching the result. At one point, a remake of Escape From New York was on the cards, staring Gerard Butler. Obviously it would have been very bad, but I am not sure it would have been worse than this.

TL;DR They had more fun making it than anyone had watching it.

Film: 1/5
DVD: 1/5

You get the film and trailer.

The DVD, Blu-ray, score CD and 'soundtrack' (i.e. assorted tracks by other people featured or 'inspiring' the music in the film) CD

One of Carpenter's idols is director Howard Hawks, and one of the things he admires about him was his ability to do any sort of film competently within the studio system. Whether it was seeking to emulate that or just needing a project that would get made that made – if we include 'made for TV' work, the longest gap in his career was the four years between this and his previous film, They Live – which meant he signed on for this one, I don't know. Presumably it was his experience with an effects-heavy film that put him on the studio's short-list when Ivan Reitman pulled out over arguments with Chevy Chase about how serious it should be.

Concept: 'We have the technology to do the Invisible Man properly'.

A man hunt is on one night in San Francisco. Men with weird eye gear are looking for someone. It turns out to be – amazingly – the invisible man. We get a quick demo of the 'no wires!' effects and it's onto the story in flashback. Chevy Chase is a lazy, bull-shitting analyst who is introduced to producer Darryl Hannah by best friend Michael McKean. Before long, they're kissing in the ladies loos, but she leaves him with the promise of a lunch date later in the week. The voice over tells us he got drunk and was hungover when he arrives at the offices of a technology firm for a presentation the next morning. Zzzz. Someone knocks over a cup of coffee and causes a major systems failure. Everyone else runs from the building, which promptly becomes partly invisible. CIA killer Sam Neill is called in and manages to get from Washington to California before Chase wakes up and discovers he's become invisible too. So, once he's caught, it's off to the lab with him… except that, quite reasonably, he doesn't want to go to have things stuck up his ass. He manages to escape when the whole building becomes invisible. It's manhunt time, pausing only to get back with Hannah. No-one is surprised when they end up getting away and nasty Neill dies.

What’s good: The effects were ground-breaking for their time, even if they would soon be overtaken and look a bit primitive now.

Sam Neill does his evil act. He'd later star in In the Mouth of Madness. Michael McKean (most famous for being David St. Hubbins in This is Spinal Tap) does a competent 'best friend'.

What’s bad: What they didn't have is the right acting talent as the lead couple.

Chevy Chase may well have wanted to get away from the broad comedy roles that had made his name, but sometimes it's better to stick to what you're good at. "You're a natural you know, cool, imaginative, elegant", he's told at one point, but who does that remind you of? Yep, Cary Grant could do thrills and comedy in the same film, but Chase is no Cary Grant.

You also don't hire Darryl Hannah for her acting skills. It's one reason she's so good in Blade Runner – playing a replicant is what she always does. When they meet, he asks her what sort of documentary she produces. "Anthropological stuff, traditional cultures.." is the reply but it's striking that the editing conceals her saying the first word. Could it be that she couldn't say it on set? Does anyone believe for a second that she's also a qualified lawyer? (And is anything whatsoever used of that?)

Music: Not by him, but Shirley Walker. It's ok and this was apparently the first time a female composer earnt a solo score credit on a major Hollywood motion picture. The two would later co-score Escape from LA.

Miscellany: One of very few of his films not to have the official title prefix 'John Carpenter's..'

Like Village of the Damned, it also features a quick cameo by Carpenter under the name of Rip Haight, again in the opening minutes.

Overall: It wants to be a thriller, a comedy and a love story at the same time. By trying for all three, it fails to be good at any of them. The basic script is ok (it originates with William Goldman, so of course it is) but apparently it was Chevy Chase's pet project and he knew what he wanted. I'm not sure anyone could have managed to pull it off from that point. Although the direction is competent, it wasn't worth the wait and it's turned out to be Carpenter's last work for a major studio.

TL;DR For completists and those interested in the history of special effects only.

Film: 1/5

DVD: Again, it'd need to be free for me to have a copy. No noticeable extras included.

With one possible exception, which we'll come to later, every one of the remakes of John Carpenter's films has been dire. Despite doing one of the best remakes of someone else's film himself, he proved himself capable of being the master of the totally unnecessary bad remake here. The scariest thing about this one is that it got made.

Concept: remake Village of the Damned (1960), the adaptation of John Wyndham's novel, The Midwich Cuckoos

One day, everyone in a small town falls asleep for six hours. When they awake, several of the women are pregnant, including the wife of Dr Christopher Reeve (SuperDoc). Federal agents turn up, including Dr Kirstie Alley (Dr Evil, so evil, she smokes in the local health clinic and around the children). She promises the pregnant women prenatal expenses plus $3,000 a month if they continue the pregnancies and she can test the children. When they are born, the children turn out to look very similar to each other, are very clever and also able to read and control peoples' minds. One of them, David, is unique amongst them in developing emotions. The local people, priest Mark Hamill (Rev Skywalker), and the state attempt to kill the children, but fail. What works is the hero taking a bomb to them as they are preparing to disperse around the country, whilst thinking of a brick wall to stop the children realising what he's doing. David (who has escaped the bombing) is driven off by his mother for the sequel which, thankfully, never happened.

What's good: Some of the landscape establishing shots are lovely. The cinematography generally is fine. The characters are introduced competently. Bits that are straight lifts from the original film. Erm, that's about it.

What's bad: Looking at this as film in its own right, the main problem is the subplot about David having, uniquely amongst the cuckoos, emotions. This is seen as a good thing by the adults: "Without compassion, you're a doomed species!" SuperDoc tells the others, but they rightly don't like it: "Your development of emotions is disturbing" they tell David. It's the absolutely classic Hollywood 'let's make them nicer' mistake. Why does he have emotions? Because he's not paired up (one of the births was stillborn and carried off by Dr Evil). Is the message 'all you need to fit in is a partner'?

The drama of the final confrontation doesn't work because we've already seen that SuperDoc can block the childrens' mind reading by thinking of an ocean wave. He tells David's mother what he's going to do too. For no other reason than it was in the original he uses an old-fashioned alarm clock as timer for the bomb and manages to accurately synchronise it with the clock in the barn. It explodes when expected, to the second!?

As a remake, it fails totally. It could have survived being relocated from village in rural England to coastal California. It can't survive losing the intelligence.

Original: an explicit discussion within the British government about what to do with the children, including imprisoning them or killing them, after talking about other places killing their cuckoos in a 'As Brits, we're much better than them' way. Clearly, in the event of a Russian-style 'wipe out the whole place' decision, telling local people what's about to happen isn't on.

This one: Dr Evil tells SuperDoc to get out quick just before he's off to talk to the kids and it's clear to everyone in the area that she and her team are in the process of bugging out.

Original: "Troops are not the answer. The children would only make them shoot one another."

This one: the great plan is to send two state police to the barn where the kids are, some time ahead of a convoy of other police and military. Yeah, there's no way that nine (eight, because nice David doesn't join in) children known to be able to control people's minds could stop two policemen and then get everyone shooting everyone else…

Original: The children are asked if they're aware of life on other planets and, for once, look away.

This one: Dr Evil has the stillborn baby, looking very alien down to the classic slanted eyes, in a basement. Seeing that it's been cut open, two of the children, with nice David watching horrified, get her to cut herself open. She's clearly a good technical surgeon – there's no blood be to be seen, even though it kills her.

Original David has politeness but not emotions – it's because he's almost the stereotypical ideal officer class Englishman that he's so creepy! – and is the leader of the group. When he tells the hero, "If you didn't suffer from emotions, from feelings, you could be as powerful as we are," the reaction is not a Californian speech about how important letting your feelings out is, but to say "Yes". Coming in a film directed by a German fifteen years after World War II, this is morally edgy stuff.

Worst of all, even with no gore, the original is much more disturbing. For example, the gunman who attempts to shot them is a) talked out of it by the hero and b) killed by the children anyway in front of the main adult characters!

These questionable morals work both ways: "I think I've found a way of getting through to them," the hero says as he sends his wife away before going off with the bomb to kill the children…

Music: Co-composed with Dave Davies, but the nicest thing to say about the score is that you don't notice it much. There's one good sequence, 'March of the Children' (used for the confrontation between the eight nasty children getting the police etc to shoot each other and also used over the start of the end credits) but it's a bit late and I was never tempted to get the soundtrack album. However looking at the Amazon listing, clearly I am not the only one who thinks this is by far the best: it's the opening track on the album.

Miscellany: As well as wondering why he ever agreed to do this, I was left wondering why are only some of the women pregnant? We see a sign saying the population of Midwich is 2,000, and we know the area covered by the zone was large (it started not long after road sign said seven miles to Midwich). So let's say at least 500 women of child-bearing age but only ten pregnancies? In both book and probably the original film (although it's not clear) all the women who could become pregnant did so, with twelve births in the small village.

In Christopher Reeve, we have an actor best known for playing an alien with special powers who is deposited on Earth. Are there any knowing winks to the audience about this? No.

Overall: It's lost many of the things that made the original so interesting as well as the suspense. In return, it's gained bigger explosions, enough flashes of gore to get an 'R' in the US, and a sub-plot that weakens the story. That it was not going to work should have been blindingly obvious at the script stage.

I was going to give this a rating of one out of five, but then I watched the original again. Wolf Rilla, its director, never did anything else as good, before or afterwards. Carpenter has yet to do anything worse than this.

TL;DR See the original.

Film: 0/5

DVD: it'd have to be free before I had it. It doesn't apparently include any worthwhile extras, including not having a commentary. It'd be interesting to hear one, even if it should consist of him saying 'Sorry' a lot.

This one, the infinitely better original (skip its bad sequel, although it's better than this), and if you insist on owning this one, the one to get because at least you get The Thing as well:

Inspired by yendi@livejournal's countdowns – listing various films from worst to best – for various series (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday 13th etc) which I've found very useful, there're going to be a couple of countdowns here.

First off, the films of John Carpenter. I've been a fan since seeing his first feature, Dark Star, on TV back in the late 1970s. The most expensive DVD I can remember buying (the shocking price of £9.99, second-hand!) was his (The Thing), as was the only film I paid West End first run prices to see (Christine), and I have most of his films on disc.

So, eighteen films – the made for TV ones will come later – which one will be where…?

A gangster has a car crash, and just before (literally) kicking the bucket, tells people in the four vehicles that stopped to help where a large sum of money is. Do they co-operate? Ha! Before long, it's everyone for themselves as they hunt out the 'big W' it is buried beneath. More and more people get involved in the race, which is being monitored by the police throughout.

What makes this film is its cast, which includes half of the middle-aged and older comedians in the US at the time. If they were breathing, and available for a day's shooting, they're probably in it somewhere. There are people who love this film, but they're a dying breed because many of them saw it when it was released in 1963, usually just after President Kennedy was assassinated and the country needed both a laugh and a sense of its (comedic) history. They recognise even the minor cameos.

The problem is that the cast size contributes to the length – here, it's 160 minutes, but as originally released, it ran for 192. The difference was edited out by the studio after they realised they had a hit on their hands and wanted to be able to fit in an extra showing per day to maximise their revenue – the version most people will have seen was cut down to 154 minutes! Much of the cut footage is believed to be irretrievably lost.

Its fans will hate me for saying this, but it could do with a bit more trimming. To a modern UK audience, many of the faces will not be recognisable, and without that knowledge significant bits are not funny. So at the airport, there's a lingering take of three firemen, waiting for the plane to land. If you don't know it's the Three Stooges, it's a 'huh?' moment – they just stand there. If you do, then you can go 'ho ho, anyone relying on them is doomed'. I did know, and I know who Jack Benny was (I've even heard some of his radio shows) but I had to go back to view his short appearance – he's the one who stops his car and offers to help before being told to go away by Ethel Murman as the mother-in-law – after looking up where it was. (If you know his character, the humour is in the way that he would be too mean to offer to help anyone. If you don't, it's just Ethel Murman being rude to yet another person.) So the best bits are with those people who are still recognisable: Phil Silvers could be his Sgt Bilko character out of uniform, for example. We know what's going to happen when one of the original helpers tells him what's happening, and it's all the better when indeed it does.

Perhaps the best comparison is with The Blues Brothers. The humour is similar – in both cases, the makers took the view that if crashing one car can be funny, crashing more must be funnier, right? – and both feature extended chase sequences. But while it adds something if you recognise the musicians who have roles in BB, it works perfectly well if you don't.

TL;DR It could do with a trim, but it's pleasant enough and the more 1950s American comedians you recognise, the better.

Film: 3/5
DVD: 3/5

You get the film and sound and vision are ok. That's about it. There's a US edition with a documentary and some of the missing scenes.

Jake Arnott's novel re-imagines the London underworld in the 1960s, telling the story of Harry Starks, a homosexual Jewish East End gangster, via five people he came into contact with. This adaptation cuts that down to four people – the BBC only wanted that many episodes, apparently – but retains the basic structure of the story. Some real (and safely dead) people are included, and others are 'inspired' by those still alive and thus able to sue for libel. The back cover includes a statement that the corrupt police detective inspector is not linked to a real officer with a similar name…

The basic foundation of any good film is the script, and this has that. One of the memorable things from the commentary is star Mark Strong saying that it was something everyone wanted to be in, because the scripts were so strong. Unusually, reading the book first does not spoil watching the adaptation – normally, I am left thinking 'this isn't as good as the book…' Some scenes have been moved about, such as the red-hot poker trick, but even if you know how it ends, the ride is still so enjoyable. It helps that Strong in particular is excellent, and the visual look shows how much the makers cared about what they were doing.

Episode one features a homosexual Tory peer, played by Derek Jacobi. He is seduced, in more ways than one, into working for Starks. Despite the ups and downs of their relationship (he learns you do not get something for nothing when dealing with Starks) they end as friends. One of the aspects of Stark's character that makes him such a fascinating anti-hero is shown by both his willingness to use violence, but also to just use threats. Another character is seen to move straight to the violence, shocking both Stark and Jacobi's character.

Episode two sees a fading movie starlet become involved when her partner is sent to prison. Starks asks her for help with trying to make one of his boyfriends an actor and with running his nightclub. Again, she ends up still liking him, despite assisting in a killing of a lover. (For those of us living close by it and who enjoy playing 'spot the Rivoli Ballroom', the opening scenes were shot there.)

Episode three has Phil Daniels as a 'Jack the Hat' alike, who helps investigate the killing of a young male sex worker (the narrator missing from the book) while veering between trying to avoid becoming a murder victim himself and not caring if he lives or dies.

The final episode starts with Starks in prison and being the star prize for a visiting sociologist looking for something to write about. (There's a curious mismatch between the sentence announced by the judge and the one shown in newspaper headlines etc – was there an appeal or is this just a mistake that should have been picked up?) This is the funniest of the four, with my favourite being Starks introducing the sociologist with '.. this is my biographer' before the climatic confrontation. As with all the other 'civilians', he discovers you once you're involved, you can't avoid getting into deeper waters.

TL;DR Wonderful adaptation, reflecting the complexities of the novel. Well-acted, well-scripted, well-directed.

Film: 5/5
DVD: 4/5

Two discs, with two episodes on each. Informative and interesting commentary on the first and last episodes from Mark Strong, producer Liza Marshall, and screenwriter Joe Penhall. It's 'some music edits have been made' time though (the BBC can use music for broadcast programmes under a general licence that they cannot use – for a reasonable price – when issuing programmes on DVD). I didn't notice any difference and the original score is very good.

DVD and book links: