Much of John Carpenter‘s filmography has gotten the appropriate amount of love given the respective merits of the projects. Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, Starman, Christine, Big Trouble in Little China, and They Live are all rightly deemed minor classics while Halloween, Escape from New York, and The Thing are all completely appreciated as full-on classics of cinema. Furthermore, Memoirs of an Invisible Man and Escape from L.A. were and continue to be (justifiably) dismissed as missed opportunities. But what about the movies that have fallen between the cracks, as it were? The ones that have merit yet have been lumped in with Memoirs of an Invisible Man by some, if not most, cinephiles.
Those are the ones that follow. They’re not golden eggs in Carpenter’s oeuvre, but they’re not lumps of coal, either.
1) Ghosts of Mars
A flawed but underrated action-horror movie, Ghosts of Mars unsurprisingly bombed hard when released during 2001’s summer movie season. It was always going to be niche, and its over-stylization and surprisingly cheap production values (at $28 million in 2001, it didn’t have a microscopic budget) were bound to kill repeat business.
And, admittedly, it’s perfectly understandable why Carpenter fans saw it as arguably his worst film. But time has been fairly kind to Ghosts of Mars. It’s not fully trying to be scary, it’s more trying to be fun, and once you get past how much of a drop it is from his Halloween and The Fog days, it succeeds in being that. For all intents and purposes, this is Carpenter’s swan song (in no way does The Ward feel like his), and it was an interesting final project to tackle.
Stream Ghosts of Mars for free with ads on The Roku Channel.
2) Village of the Damned
Like the next entry on this list, Carpenter’s Village of the Damned remake is an excellent example of the primary issue with the director’s latter half filmography. Specifically, many of the films start out very well but then proceed to gradually lose their way.
But unlike a few other examples, Village of the Damned opens phenomenally, then merely dips down to average. It’s also Christopher Reeve’s theatrical film swan song, and that alone gives it a considerable cultural curiosity factor (though the less said about Kirstie Alley’s performance, the better).
Rent Village of the Damned on Amazon Video.
3) In the Mouth of Madness
There’s enough of a cult following for In the Mouth of Madness to warrant the release of a book in 2025, 31 years after the film’s release, but it’s still not one of Carpenter’s more popular films. It’s not hard to see why, as it’s arguably the best example of the main problem with Carpenter’s later career, which is the aforementioned tendency to open well then go downhill.
But, even after going downhill, Madness is still impressive in its ambition. And, for H. P. Lovecraft fans, it’s an unmissable love letter. It also puts Sam Neill to better use than the regrettable Memoirs of an Invisible Man.
Stream In the Mouth of Madness for free on Hoopla.
4) Vampires
As a whole, Carpenter’s ’90s output was far inferior to his ’80s output, but Vampires is a lot of fun. It’s impressive because vampire movies are a well-worn staple of the horror genre, and outside the odd Abigail here and there, they mostly feel played out.
The key to Carpenter’s vision for the monster is that most of the focus isn’t on the monster (though Thomas Ian Griffith is well cast as Jan Valek), it’s on the vampire hunters. Admittedly, Daniel Baldwin isn’t particularly great as Anthony Montoya, but as the head vampire hunter Jack Crow, James Woods is magnetic. One wishes the film had more scenes of the whole vampire team doing their thing, because those first 20 or so minutes are so fun, but it’s not as if the movie treads water after they’re all slaughtered. It’s a mixed bag of a movie, but still the high point of Carpenter’s ’90s.
Stream Vampires for free on Netflix.
5) Prince of Darkness
A grim horror flick with an incredibly messed-up ending, Prince of Darkness is arguably Carpenter’s most ambitious work. And, because of that, it can occasionally feel a bit all over the place. But in that inconsistency, there’s quite a bit of gold and a few of the director’s scariest scenes.
The plot follows a classroom of quantum physics-studying college students (most of whom do not look college-aged) as they go to an old church to analyze a big cylinder filled with a pulsing green liquid. It turns out this liquid is the embodiment of Satan, and it’s desperate to be released. This was Carpenter’s middle installment of his “Apocalypse Trilogy,” which started with The Thing and ended with In the Mouth of Madness. And, while it’s no The Thing, it’s better than Madness.
Rent Prince of Darkness on Amazon Video.
What do you think are Carpenter’s most underrated movies? Let us know in the comments below!
