John Carpenter: The Collection

Film Description

A collection of seven films from John Carpenter. Features The Fog (1979), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), They Live (1988), Escape from New York (1982), Prince of Darkness, Halloween (1978) and The Thing (1982).

In 'Halloween' (1978), six-year-old Michael Myers (Will Sandin) is confined to an insane asylum after stabbing his sexually active teenage sister to death on Halloween night 1963. Exactly 15 years later Michael (Tony Moran) escapes, returning to his home town of Haddonfield with psychiatrist Doctor Loomis (Donald Pleasence) in hot pursuit. Bookish babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), all alone in the house on Halloween night, soon discovers that she is Michael's next target.

In 'Escape from New York' (1982), it is 1997 and Manhattan Island has been turned into a maximum security prison, due to the enormous rise in the crime rate. Drug-dealer Prospero (Isaac Hayes) and his cronies hold control of the entire area, making it the most inopportune spot for a plane carrying the US president to crashland. Eye-patched anti-hero Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is entrusted with the task of rescuing his country's leader.

'The Thing' (1982) is a special effects-laden update of the 1951 Howard Hawks classic 'The Thing From Another World'. A research team in the Antarctic discovers a spaceship buried beneath the ice, and becomes terrorised by the shape-changing monster that is housed within.

In 'The Fog' (1979), 100 years ago at Antonio Bay, California, a ship was wrecked due to a false beaconlight, enveloped by a sinister fog. The ship's occupants return to punish the descendants of those responsible for their deaths - their arrival heralded by the fog inexorably rolling into Antonio Bay once again.

In 'They Live' (1988), Nada (Roddy Piper) arrives in Los Angeles, finds work on a construction site and a bed in a homeless camp. He notices the extent to which the people around him seem obsessed with television and obtaining material wealth, and one night, when he stumbles across a cache of special sunglasses, he finds out why. The American middle-classes have been taken over by capitalist aliens who use television and advertising to keep humans docile and ignorant about what is really going on. The sunglasses reveal the aliens as they really are and, with the aid of the glasses and a submachine gun, Nada begins to fight back.

'Assault On Precinct 13' (1976) is a homage to the classic Howard Hawks western, 'Rio Bravo'. Set in modern-day Los Angeles, it concerns a mob of crazy guerilla gunmen who lay siege to a soon-to-be-closed police station, trapping a single cop (Austin Stoker) and a couple of secretaries (Laurie Zimmer and Nancy Loomis) inside. The gunmen unleash wave upon wave of attacks on the beleaguered station, but the cop proves himself a resourceful foe.

Finally, in 'Prince of Darkness' (1987), Professor Birack (Victor Wong) and a group of scientists discover a mysterious canister in the basement of an abandoned church. Trouble is, the canister can only be opened from the inside. However, when the scientists find an ancient manuscript that refers to the contents of the canister, they realise that it is too late - it contains an evil green fluid which begins to seep out and transform everyone into zombies.

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