Discovering The Thing From Another World. The True Sequel To John Carpenter's Classic.

Although John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) wasn’t a critical or box-office success, when it first came out in 1982, over the decades, it has become a cult favorite, and has received reappraisal by mainstream critics.

With its foreboding tone, startling and stylish visuals, deliberate pacing, and terrifying special effects, The Thing, is now considered John Carpenter’s greatest film.

With its belated success on cable and home video, there has been talk of producing a sequel to The Thing, since the 1990s, including Return of the Thing, a four-hour miniseries, and a direct sequel to the Carpenter movie, for the Sci Fi network. It was to be produced by Frank Darabont, the acclaimed director of The Shawshank Redemption, and The Mist, and written by David Leslie Johnson McGoldrick, of The Conjuring franchise.

But the project was shelved, partly due to budget concerns, and Universal Pictures decided to go for a big screen feature, unimaginatively called The Thing, a 2011 prequel set at the Norwegian camp featured in John Carpenter’s original.

But before that, a sequel was made, taking place mere hours after the events of Carpenter’s film.

The Thing From Another World, written by Chuck Pfarrer, was released by Dark Horse Comics, and is, arguably, the only true sequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing.

The graphic novel begins after the destruction of the U.S. Outpost 31, where the events of the film took place, by the shape-shifting extraterrestrial creature.

The only survivors are MacReady and Childs. MacReady is found and picked up by the crew of a Japanese whaling ship, and is held captive after a hysterical outburst. But soon after, he escapes, and tries to find out whether he is human, or just another version of the thing.

Pfarrer, a self-avowed student of Carpenter’s original film, writes a tense story in a hard-boiled, straightforward style, that propels the reader headlong into a series of set-pieces that never let up. He also ingeniously gets around the problem of dealing with the ending of Carpenter’s original, which basically painted the story into a corner.

In the novel, Pfarrer slowly reveals what happened to MacReady and Childs, and introduces a new complication that could have apocalyptic consequences.

The Thing From Another World is a dream come true for fans of Carpenter’s original. It picks up right after the events of the film, the characters remain true to their portrayals in the original, and Pfarrer's tone and style capture, to a large extent, the mood of the original.

The only caveat is that the headlong pace and grim tone, leave little room for character development, as this is pure story, with no real revelations about the main players. But this too, it could be argued, follows Carpenter’s original approach, which stuck to basic survival psychology, rather than delve deep into the minds of its characters.

With great artwork by John B. Higgins, The Thing From Another World is a treat for fans of the original, and it serves as a worthy sequel to Carpenter’s film.

Carpenter himself has endorsed the graphic novel on many occasions, to the extent that, according to him, if he ever got a chance to make a sequel to The Thing, he would closely follow Pfarrer's story.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2022.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. He is also the host of The Dark Fantastic Podcast. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @DFantasticPodcast

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Film Review: ROB ZOMBIE'S HALLOWEEN II (2009) *** and a 1\2 out of *****

(c) Dimension

While Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's original was a fierce and stylish film, Zombie's second time out is, well, something else entirely. With Halloween (2007), Zombie proved he could deliver one helluva an entertaining and scary film, and he managed to add enough new touches to the story to make it feel fresh and updated. But the fact remained that Halloween was, more or less, indebted to Carpenter's vision, and followed the same story, yet with what you might call revisions. What Zombie achieves with Halloween II is to make a film that's entirely his own, taking the Michael Myers mythos in a completely new direction, which is, for better or for worse, startlingly original.

The Plot: After barely surviving her battle with her brother, mass murderer Michael Myers, Laurie Strode tries to go on with her life. But her mind has been deeply scarred by her experiences, and after seeing visions of a still living Myers roaming about, continuing his killing spree, she begins to doubt her sanity. Meanwhile, Michael Myers, whose body was never found, turns out to be alive, and as he is haunted by visions of his dead mother and his younger self urging him to finish his work and "go home", he embarks on a journey back to Haddonfield and his sister, Laurie, whom he intends to kill in order for them all to be united in death as a family.

As the synopsis shows, Zombie takes the story in a bizarre direction, turning Laurie and Michael's tale into a twisted psychological drama, with hallucinatory visions and revelations that add an arguably supernatural bent to the story. But, in truth, one is never completely sure what Zombie is trying to do or say with this film, as the plot is confused, confusing and occasionally repetitive, and the tone of the film is unrelentingly grim.

But despite all that, Zombie succeeds in creating a stylish, visually lush, and narratively adventurous film that is unlike anything that has come before it in the long-running series. And the downbeat and disturbing ending packs a wallop and brings the story to a somewhat satisfying close.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2022.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. He is also the host of The Dark Fantastic Podcast. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @DFantasticPodcast

Film review: ROB ZOMBIE'S HALLOWEEN (2007) *** out of *****

(c) Dimension

Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's classic slasher film, is a strange beast. It tries to distance itself from the original's aesthetics, yet generously borrows from that film's plot devices, especially in the third act. Add to that a mediocre first act, a trashy second, and liberal doses of gratuitous violence and nudity, and you get a mostly uneven film.

That is, until the climax.

Zombie takes the ending of the original, combines it with a plot element from the sequel to Carpenter's original (also penned by Carpenter), and delivers a whopper of an ending.

Also, Zombie's take on Sam Loomis' character (the Van Helsing-type character that was Michael Myers' psychiatrist and, later, the one who hunts him down) is interesting and inventive, and is bolstered by Michael McDowell's charismatic portrayal of the character.

So, is it better or worse than the original? The answer is: it is a stylish, effective, shocking addition to the Michael Myers mythos, and it's way better than most of the sequels to the original.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2022.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. He is also the host of The Dark Fantastic Podcast. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @DFantasticPodcast

Halloweens, Abominations, and Fan Expectations

I remember back in October of 2018, when I was sitting in a movie theater, waiting with bated breath for the lights to go down and the credits to roll. It had been a long wait, a wait of decades, to get the so-called definitive sequel to 1978’s Halloween, endorsed by John Carpenter, and starring the original scream queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis.

Then the lights dimmed, the movie started, and, well, reality set in. About fifteen minutes into 2018’s Halloween, co-written and directed by David Gordon Green, I started to get this feeling that something was off. The film looked bland, had no discernible style, had no mood, only a kind of ugliness and a nasty attitude that rubbed me the wrong way. And as the end credits rolled, I felt so disappointed it almost hurt.

As a lifelong fan of the Halloween franchise, and of Carpenter’s oeuvre, I found Green’s Halloween to be the antithesis of the original Halloween. Where the original was atmospheric, elegant, stylish, and nuanced, this “reboot” was style-less, crude, vulgar, and smug. And, for the record, I really liked Rob Zombie’s take on Halloween, which was basically a white-trash/American Gothic version of Carpenter’s original, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t open to a little edge, a little grime, to spice things up.

Then came Halloween Kills, a trite, crass follow-up that amps up the violence to sickening levels, throwing everything but the kitchen sink in a cynical attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator. While Green's Halloween script's left something to be desired, the writing in Halloween Kills is, for the most part, abysmal, with characters speaking stiff dialogue and acting in ways that defy all logic. I’m not even going to get into that timely “message” about mob violence.

Then came the finale, Halloween Ends, a smug, terribly written film which drags the Laurie Strode character through the mud, features one of the most self-indulgent and poorly conceived plotlines in the history of the franchise, and which is executed with the subtlety of a sledge-hammer. Even if Halloween Kills is technically more accomplished and stylistically less crude than its predecessors, it’s still a crushing disappointment, and a terrible ending to an abomination of a trilogy.

I’m being too harsh, you say? Surely, David Gordon Green’s trilogy is better than the bizarre Halloween 5 (1989) or the ludicrously plotted Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers? Not really. Those films were basically low budget, quickly shot sequels without backing from a major studio, and didn’t have any input from Carpenter or Curtis. And they certainly weren’t produced by an Oscar-winning production company.

Gordon’s Halloween trilogy boasts higher budgets, a number of high-caliber screenwriters, backing by Universal and Blumhouse, and “input” from Carpenter himself. Gordon and company had every resource at their disposal to make good movies. They didn’t. What they delivered were three cynical, downbeat films, each worse than the one that came before it. Gordon and his team seem to be more interested in being edgy and abrasive, than in delivering legacy sequels that respect the franchise and the audience.

A big part of the blame has to fall on Carpenter’s shoulders, who has been constantly promoting this trilogy for four years, calling Green a great filmmaker, and praising the films to high heaven, which made fans, like myself, have sky-high expectations. One has to wonder if Carpenter’s self-confessed delight at receiving checks for doing nothing has something to do with it.

For me, after four years of waiting, watching, and enduring these films, I’m going to dim the lights, grab a bowl of popcorn, and watch a film that Carpenter has called an abomination. But, for my money, Halloween II (1981) beats the hell out of Gordon’s trilogy, a real abomination, any day of the week.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2022.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. He is also the host of The Dark Fantastic Podcast. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @DFantasticPodcast

Movie Review: HALLOWEEN KILLS (2022): THE EXTENDED CUT ** and a 1\2 out of *****

(c) Universal/Blumhouse.

With Halloween (2018), co-writer/director David Gordon Green made his intentions clear. He basically took the template and prestige of John Carpenter's original masterpiece and used them to create something of an abomination: a soulless and mostly artless horror movie that basically inverts everything Carpenter did in his original. Carpenter's movie was elegant, restrained, and full of atmosphere. Green's was crass, sloppy, and virtually devoid of any flavor. Carpenter's ending was haunting and subdued. Green's ending was preachy and over-the-top.

And now we come to Green's sequel, Halloween Kills (2022). There isn't much to add, really. It's a tad less crass, but it's even more meat-headed than Halloween (2018), and Green amps up the violence to sickening levels, throwing everything but the kitchen sink in a cynical attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator. While Green's Halloween script's left something to be desired, the writing in Halloween Kills is, for the most part, abysmal, with characters speaking stiff dialogue and acting in ways that defy all logic. Add to that Green and company's including a "message" about the madness of crowds in a film that is already politically-corrected to within an inch of its life, and you get something that is simultaneously bland, offensive, and forgettable.

Although Halloween Kills has its moments, they are few and far between, and one can only guess why Carpenter would add his name and blessing to such a mess of a sequel to his beloved classic.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2022.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. He is also the host of The Dark Fantastic Podcast. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @DFantasticPodcast

Flashback Review: THEY LIVE (1988)

Original Theatrical Poster

One of John Carpenter's most popular and fondly remembered cult films, They Live (1988) is a film that, upon revisiting, doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. As a die-hard fan of the master filmmaker, I revisit this film every couple of years, hoping to find something that would make me change my mind about it. That's not to say this is a bad, or even mediocre, movie. Not at all. Carpenter is incapable of making an unwatchable movie, as his voice/style always shines through, but They Live is truly one of his lesser works.

The concepts presented here, including staunch criticism of uber-capitalism and consumerism, are admirable and still hold up to this day. It is the execution that's less than stellar, as this is Carpenter at his most uneven, with the film starting out as a focused criticism of Reaganomics and the plight of the working class during the reign of conservative governments, and then, once the protagonist, an immensely likable Roddy Piper as Nada, puts on the "special sunglasses" and discovers the true shape of things, the film shifts tones and become a somewhat cheesy and technically conventional thriller, with less and less of Carpenter's storytelling prowess shining through.

It might be that Carpenter got so caught up in the politics and conceptual ambitions of the story that he somehow mishandled or let drop other aspects needed to make this a complete success. The performances, with the exception of Piper, are lacking, with the always reliable Keith David and Meg Foster delivering performances that are surprisingly unpolished. As for the film's technical merits, something that Carpenter always excels at in his pictures, they are below standard, as the film lacks Carpenter's usual visual panache, while the effects are, for the most part, not very impressive. Even the score by Carpenter and his associate Alan Howarth is unmemorable.

They Live also seems to have been a turning point for Carpenter, as he took a four year break after the film's release, returning in 1992 with the problematic studio picture Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992). In the years since, Carpenter has arguably produced some good work (1994's In The Mouth of Madness, and 1998's Vampires, for example), but he seems to have lost some of his passion after They Live.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2017

Flashback Review: HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)

Co-produced, co-written (uncredited), and scored by John Carpenter, this one-off sequel to the classic chiller is a quirky, original supernatural thriller with plenty to offer, including a compelling mood and some truly scary visuals. Director/co-writer Tommy Lee Wallace channels Carpenter's style with surprising efficiency, and the cast, headed by an earnest Tom Atkins, is good. The ending is deliciously tense and disturbing. A must-see for horror fans.  Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2016.

Book Review: THE FILMS OF JOHN CARPENTER. By John Kenneth Muir.

Compelling, carefully researched, and clearly written guide to the films and career of John Carpenter. Covering everything from the films, to the screenplays, to the TV projects, this is essential reading and a treasure trove for fans of Carpenter and the horror/Sci-Fi genre.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2016.

Flashback Review: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)

Original Theatrical Poster

One of Carpenter's most ambitious projects to date, Escape From New York (1981) is the auteur at his best. Visually, this is Carpenter firing on all cylinders, creating shot after shot of atmospheric, shadow-laden visuals and a world that feels ugly and spellbinding at the same time. It is also Carpenter's coldest, most cynical film, with nary a character that can be considered a "hero". Here, all characters - including Snake Plissken - are selfish, violent, nihilistic people, looking out for themselves and themselves alone, resulting in a bleak, yet darkly humorous film.

With Escape From New York, Carpenter delivered a hit that looked and felt big, despite costing only $5 million dollars, proving that he was ready for the big leagues. This led to him making what many consider his best film, The Thing (1982), a ferocious, bleak masterpiece of Lovecraftian proportions.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2016.

Flashback Review: CHRISTINE (1983)

Original Theatrical Poster

Made after the cold reception to his masterpiece The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), based on the hit novel by Stephen King, is John Carpenter as a hired hand. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, as Carpenter is a master of his craft, and Christine, despite its faults, is a compelling, atmospheric horror movie, with plenty to offer in terms of visuals, mood, sound design, and performances.

Where Christine falters is in its abrupt pacing and an under-polished script, especially when it comes to characterization. It also suffers from being one of Carpenter's least ambitious and personal films, with a particularly underwhelming climax. It does feature one of Carpenter's best soundtracks, a hypnotic, eerie score, with disturbing washes of synthesizers and thumping arpeggios. And despite all its faults, Christine is a film that begs for repeated viewings, as, ultimately, this is John Carpenter we are talking about here, and even with a flawed script, his mastery of the medium and his skills as a storyteller ensure that Christine is never boring and always gorgeous to look at.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2016.