John Carpenter has now been an essential part of the horror genre for more than six decades.
The maestro of horror himself got his start with the shoestring independent science fiction horror film Dark Star in 1974 and never looked back. That formative film, which saw him collaborating with the then soon-to-be Alien screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, is one that Carpenter himself has been quick to dismiss in the years since as a more amateurish effort, preferring to cite 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13 as his proper debut. And that’s absolutely fair, given that Assault is an incredible accomplishment of a film even all these years later. But Dark Star is fascinating in that it houses so many of the instincts that would come to define Carpenter’s seismic body of work over the course of the ensuing years, from his penchant for science fiction to his hard-earned suspense tactics to his Howard Hawks-ian character archetypes to his subversive sense of humor.
Over the course of the next few decades, Carpenter would go on to refine these instincts and apply them in continuously compelling ways. This is the man who would go on to write, direct, and often even compose the musical score for films such as Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, Escape from LA, and The Ward. And yet, through it all, he somehow never got the kind of recognition he so rightfully deserved from the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Fortunately, that all changes this year, as John Carpenter is finally getting his Oscar.
Carpenter will receive the Luminary Award at this year’s Academy Museum Gala. This award is extremely rare and reserved for artists whose “singular contributions have expanded the creative possibilities of filmmaking.” That very much defines the work of John Carpenter, a man without whom horror would not be the same. The impact of Carpenter’s influence on modern horror is difficult to overstate, as he has essentially become to a new generation of filmmakers what Hitchcock was to filmmakers of Carpenter’s own era: an indelible influence whose craft can be palpably felt in many of the most popular horror films of the past several decades, even if his name isn’t attached to them.
This decision to honor Carpenter is especially notable on the Academy’s part, given just how little love Carpenter received from a critical standpoint throughout his career. While occasional films would break through and get the kind of acclaim they so rightfully deserved, such as Halloween, which won over many critics, many of his greatest films were met with outright scorn in critical circles upon release, only to be reevaluated in the years since.
The most prominent example of this is, of course, The Thing, which was deemed an outright disaster when it was released, something that had a negative effect on Carpenter’s immediate career prospects shortly thereafter. Today, though, The Thing is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of science-fiction horror ever put to celluloid, and rightfully so.
In this way, the fact that Carpenter is receiving the Luminary Award makes it something of a full-circle moment for the filmmaker. After decades of being underappreciated as a cinematic trailblazer, he is finally receiving the kinds of accolades he should have been getting for years.
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