John Carpenter

The Fog – 4k Restoration

John Carpenter · 1980
89min · DCP
Playing Mar 22

Tuesday, Mar 22: 7:30 pm

4K restoration with a 5.1 audio mix. "In the decades since THE FOG debuted, Carpenter’s made a wide enough variety of films — action, science-fiction, social satire and more — that this particular picture no longer seems like a departure. Ultimately, it’s a John Carpenter movie: concerned with group dynamics, unhelpful authority figures, strong women, the sins of the past, and that moment when helpless isolation shades into outright terror." Noel Murray, Los Angeles Times

A weather beaten old fisherman tells an ancient tale of betrayal and death to fascinated children as they huddle together by their campfire. As a piece of driftwood in a child’s hands glows with spectral light an eerie fog envelops the bay and from its midst emerge dripping demonic victims of a century old shipwreck… seeking revenge.

Escape from New York – 4k Restoration

John Carpenter · 1981
99min · DCP
Playing Mar 23

Wednesday, Mar 23: 7:30 pm

4k restoration with a 5.1 audio mix. "The movie proudly wears its affection for crusty Sergio Leone archetypes and countdown-clock suspense sequences; Carpenter was Tarantino long before Tarantino was.” Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

In 1997, a major war between the United States and the Soviet Union is concluding, and the entire island of Manhattan has been converted into a giant maximum security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and crashes into the island, the president (Donald Pleasence) is taken hostage by a group of inmates. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal, is recruited to retrieve the president in exchange for his own freedom.

Prince of Darkness

John Carpenter · 1987
101min · DCP
Playing Mar 30

Wednesday, Mar 30: 7:30 pm

"What makes me goose-pimply about Prince of Darkness is its goofy-but-ingenious central conceit and its truly surrealistic imagery, some of which could have sprouted out of Buñuel and Dali's Un Chien Andalou." Jim Emerson, RogerEbert.com

A group of graduate students and scientists uncover an ancient canister in an abandoned church, but when they open the container, they inadvertently unleash a strange liquid and an evil force on all humanity. As the liquid turns their co-workers into zombies, the remaining members realize they have released the most unspeakable of horrors, Satan himself, thus paving the way for the return of his father - the all-powerful anti-God. Terror mounts as the last two members of the team must fight to save an innocent world from a devilish fury that has festered for over seven million years.

Village of the Damned

John Carpenter · 1995
99min · DCP
Playing Mar 31

Thursday, Mar 31: 7:30 pm

"Mr. Carpenter gives this formerly black and white story a handsome color retelling and a lot of new punch. And he avidly exploits the fears that are at its heart… even creepier to watch as a parent than it was to see as a child." Janet Maslin, New York Times

In this age of remakes & reboots, it's worth looking back to a remake by the one director you can trust: the master, John Carpenter. He injects his version of the 1960 film with his signature visual style and sardonic humor. Carpenter even enlisted Dave Davies of The Kinks to co-write & play guitar on the soundtrack!

After an unseen force invades a quiet coastal town, ten women mysteriously find themselves pregnant. Local physician Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve) and government scientist Dr. Susan Verner (Kirstie Alley) join forces when the women simultaneously give birth... and the reign of terror by creep kids begins!

Dark Star

John Carpenter · 1974
83min · DCP
Playing Apr 5

Tuesday, Apr 5: 7:30 pm

"DARK STAR is one of the damnedest science fiction movies I've ever seen, a berserk combination of space opera, intelligent bombs, and beach balls from other worlds." Roger Ebert

John Carpenter's first feature was this outrageously unique sci-fi semi-spoof of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Originally a 45-minute student film project by Carpenter and collaborator Dan O'Bannon (ALIEN; RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) it was expanded into a feature film. On the deep-space cruiser Dark Star, a crew of laid-back astronauts (including O’Bannon himself) are assigned the task of blowing up planets with unsuitable life forms in order to make the universe safe for the human race. The leader is Commander Powell (Joe Sanders), who’s cryogenically frozen after being killed in a freak accident. Next in line is Doolittle (Brian Narelle) who tries to keep the rest of the crew in check, which — due to the onset of alien creatures and intergalactic existential hysteria — is a much tougher job than expected.

2k restoration courtesy of Shout! Factory and the American Genre Film Archive.