I Love John Carpenter Men

Okay, disclaimer time....
I'm working on little sleep and I'm feeling incoherent. So this is going to be REALLY unfocused.
REALLY unfocused.

There is your warning.

So without further ado.
I really love John Carpenter movies.
And I'm not just saying that because of Halloween. Not that Halloween isn't awesome. Its a classic, a staple in the horror genre, and imitated but every other horror film out there. Yes Halloween is awesome.
But My love for John Carpenter started with his other films. Films like The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Vampires, and They Live are the films where I developed my love of his work....well okay, its where I developed a love of his male characters.
Of course, my favorite films of his are probably the most macho ones he's made. Which makes me completely fascinated by his most macho males. If you've been reading this blog you've known by now that I'm a lady who loves her ladies tough. And lets face it, most of his females are not very strong. Actually most of them are whiny, whorish, both, or not even present in the film. But that's neither here nor there. I actually love Carpenter men because of the machismo. There's something about a buffed up blustering guy sporting a mullet that is extremely entertaining to me. Hypnotic as well.
No, its not the mullet.
I think the reason the overblown testosterone works for me with his movies is that the characters are both charming and almost borderline parody. Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China is so hilariously inept that his bad ass boasting is completely charming to me. Maybe I have a crush on Jack Burton? Yeah, probably.
Its not the mullet though. I swear to God its not.

Its not the jeans tucked into the boots look he's sporting either.

In Vampires, Carpenter created a character that even made James Woods a sexy bastard. Seriously. In any other movie I see James Woods and think "Oh hey, James Woods. He's a great actor." which is in no way a lustful thought. But when watching Vampires I only thought "Must lick Jack Crow!" In big block letters in my head.

Seriously. Hot Liquid Sex.

John Carpenter created a character that even made James Friggin' Woods sexy to me.
The man is a wizard!

And don't get me started on Keith David. Seriously. I'm already a huge fan of the cartoon Gargoyles. (Big enough fan that I staff a Gargoyles convention... Don't Judge Me!). Keith David never looked, acted, or sounded more appealing in both The Thing and They Live. Double for They Live.

Even when surly looking.

So my love of these guys are quite the paradox in my head. In real life I would meet these guys and cause them some sort of bodily harm after about two minutes of conversation. In other films I would tear my hair out and scream "DIE ALREADY!!!" at the movie scream. But John Carpenter manages to write these characters into awesome, bad ass, fun, and fascinating fellas. And I really can't get enough of 'em.
I can't be alone in this can I?
Well most of the followers are men so I may well possibly be.

Also, did you ever notice that the Masculinity in his movies almost boarder lines on homoerotic?
Just me?
Okay..um...moving on.

Micheal Myers Beefed Up.

I just finished watching the 2007 remake of Halloween, as done by Rob Zombie, starring everyone and Sherri Moon Zombie's butt. She has a very nice butt, I might add; I hope Mr. Zombie appreciates the booty he married into.

I was fully expecting a cinematic abortion; almost every podcast I listen to denounced this pretty completely. I was expecting something on the lines of suddenly the movie turns into X-Men 3 (which WAS a bad movie, by the way), or suddenly Micheal Myers bursts into song and wails The Marriage of Figaro as he hacks and slashes "teenagers" getting freaky.

Honestly, I liked this movie just fine, and found it to be much more credible than any of the sequels to the actual movie. I like those just fine too (except Halloween 3 because SURPRISE! it sucks), but let's be honest-- they're pretty silly, and get sillier as they go along.

This version of the Myth of Micheal Myers was interesting; the Meyers family is shown as very discordant and dysfunctional. Mom's a stripper, step-dad's got a bad case of needle dick, big sister's got a touch of the Ho Bag, little Mikey likes to butcher his pets and school mates, and the baby.. is a baby. She's cool.

Micheal Myers is played more as a straight forward psychopath, evincing all of the traditional markers of a burgeoning killer. There is no mysticism here, jut a really BIG man in a mask terrorizing Haddonfield in his quest to find his unknowing baby sister.

This version of events deviated a lot from the original 1979 Halloween, but I don't regard that as sacrosanct like a lot of horror fans seem to do. Don't misunderstand-- I love the original version of the film, and have a copy of that as well as the 25 Years of Halloween DVD that came out a few years back. People tend to hold this up as the end all be all of slasher films, but I'm just not that emotionally invested in most of the slasher genre. I enjoy it in a brainless way, but supernatural stories are more likely to scare me.

The original is a beautifully shot movie to be sure, and very moody and creeping. In this respect I think the original is superior to the remake. Rob Zombie is a very competent technical director, if not given as much of an artistic bent as John Carpenter. But Rob Zombie's kill scenes are much more realistic, frighteningly so. Plus, you gotta respect a kid who stabs a nurse to death with a fork.

John Carpenter is hit or miss with me-- on one hand we have Halloween and The Fog. On the other hand, he also did The Ghosts of Mars and produced the horrible remake of The Fog in 2005. So the idea of a remake of Halloween really didn't surprise me, and it was a pretty safe bet that Rob Zombie would get it an R rating, which he did.

I don't know that I would buy a copy of this for full price, but I'll snag it used for sure. It's worth a watch at the very least.