It's Halloween so of course a new horror movie announcement from the legendary
John Carpenter comes with that added dose of excitement.
A press release says Carpenter will next adapt
Darkchylde, the popular mid-90's comic series from
Randy Queen about a cursed young girl who regularly transforms herself into her deepest nightmares and must save her small town from the forces of darkness she unleashes. I know nothing more about the comic than what
I read at wiki, but to me it looks like it exists along the same lines as
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Would that be accurate? The book was originally popular with women (i.e. Twilight but for comic nerds) but men must have been keen on it too as it outsold Batman, Spider-Man and pretty much everything else in it's first few years on the shelf, topping Wizard's chart at # 1 for it's first nine months. The film adaptation is self-financed by both Queen and Carpenter's companies and has been setup at WETA for the past two years, where LOTR vet
Richard Taylor recently showcased this test footage which gives us a massive hint as to what the film has in store for us. All of this stuff predates Carpenter's appointment as director/co-financier; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3XwSgCgBU0 Queen says;
As a horror fan, the thought of Carpenter and Weta together, beautiful dreamscapes, and multiple transformations, makes me incredibly excited. There is a reason nearly his entire catalogue has, or is being remade, and its because Carpenter is a genius.
Carpenter, a former maestro of horror who had an unbelievable run of success from
Halloween (78) to
Big Trouble in Little China (86), WAS certainly a genius but his advancing years has meant a consistent decline with each new film. We had thought he had given up on movies altogether with
Ghosts of Mars in 2001 and he couldn't go any lower but a couple of years ago he made the surprise announcement that he was coming back with
The Ward, a psychological horror starring gorgeous up and comer
Amber Heard. Initially I was excited... I dreamed that one of my favourite ever filmmakers was about to make a Lazarus comeback but after reading
The Playlist's pan, it seems time away from the movies hasn't helped Carpenter re-find his former glory. And he's made to making redundant pictures.
Though forever till the end of time I will be present opening day for Carpenter. If we can get ONE movie out of him that's HALF as good as we know he can be, then all the crap would have been worth it. Whilst I'm here would it be wrong to predict that his Ward star Amber Heard (above) might star in this?
