John Carpenter's Films - Ranked From Worst To Best

11. Dark Star (1974)

Pros: Black humour. Beach ball baddie. Low-budget charm

Cons: Inconsistent. Very rough around the edges. Hit-and-miss one-liners

Overall: John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon (writer of Alien) made Dark Star as a student film. The theatrical rights were then acquired by an independent distributor and they went back and shot fifteen more minutes of footage to pad out the running time to suitable theatrical length (83 minutes).

As a 68-minute student film, you'd imagine Dark Star would work a lot better. The fifteen extra minutes do not help its cause and Carpenter has admitted as much in the past. Still, credit must go to the pair for their resourcefulness and effects work on such a limited budget ($68,000). Dark Star is funny, but it's not that funny and the spoof wares a bit thin after a while.