Movies & TV / Columns

The Top 5 John Carpenter Movie Villains

April 14, 2020 | Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz
Halloween Image Credit: Compass International Pictures

The 411mania Dumpster Fire of the Week

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a special edition of The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.

JohnCarpenter

John Carpenter is my favorite movie director hands down. I don’t remember what John Carpenter movie was actually my first (it may have been They Live or Big Trouble in Little China, but I’m not sure), but I do know that I’ve enjoyed all of them, even his lesser movies like his Village of the Damned remake and his second episode of Masters of Horror, Pro-Life. And while it’s true that Carpenter is known as “The Master of Terror,” most likely for Halloween and The Thing, Carpenter isn’t just a horror director. He’s made action movies (Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from N.Y., Escape from L.A.), dramas (the Elvis mini-series), science fiction movies (Dark Star, Starman, Ghosts of Mars), and comedies (Big Trouble in Little China, Memoirs of an Invisible Man). His filmography shows that he really can do anything and do it well. And when you see one of these “other” movies, you can tell that it’s one of his movies. The look, the music, the way the movie connects together; regardless of the story or plot or genre you can tell when you’re watching a John Carpenter movie.

And so, in this Dumpster Fire of the Week special edition, I thought I would take a look at the top 5 John Carpenter movie villains. Just who are the baddest of the bad guys in the cinematic world of John Carpenter?

This article contains spoilers for the movies mentioned. You have been warned.

**

Up first, the honorable mentions:

JohnCarpenterTheyLiveHolly

5- Holly in They Live: As portrayed by Meg Foster, Holly is just a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time when she meets the movie’s hero, John Nada (Roddy Piper). Nada kidnaps her, forces her to drive him back to her place, and then starts telling her about this crazy thing he saw. The audience knows what Nada is talking about is true and real, but Holly doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Again, when we first see her, she’s just a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time. And when we find out, later on, that she knows what’s going on and is part of the underground resistance against the aliens, she was probably just scared because she didn’t know that Nada knew anything. She’s an ally! And she likes Nada, probably (that little conversation they have in the meeting place right before the wall explodes shows they have a kind of chemistry)! We have no idea that she’s a plant and a human sympathizer of the aliens until she shoots Frank (Keith David) in the head. That bitch! When I first saw that happen I couldn’t believe it. How could she do that? And why would she allow the aliens continue to rule the world? Absolutely disgraceful. It’s too bad Nada didn’t shoot her in the head.

4- The President of the United States and Cuervo Jones in Escape from L.A.: In the dystopian future of Escape from L.A. you have two really bad options for ruler of the world. On one hand, you have the religiously insane ultra-right wing loonbag President of the United States played by Cliff Robertson, a man that got the U.S. Constitution amended so he could be President-for-life and had government scientists build a super weapon that could literally shut down the entire world. That’s all so very insane. And on the other hand, you have Cuervo Jones (George Corraface), the quasi-leftist gang leader that, after befriending the daughter of the President (Utopia, as played by A.J. Langer), manages to steal the President’s doomsday weapon and threatens to shut down the United States and rule the world. Jones puts on a good show and acts like he cares about the world’s downtrodden, but he’s a liar and a piece of shit and all he wants to do is be in charge of everyone and everything. That’s just awful. So when Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken manages to fuck both of them over (well, Map to the Stars Eddie does shoot Jones dead, but let’s face it, if Snake wasn’t set into L.A. and he wasn’t dedicated to keeping himself alive Jones probably would have taken over the world) it’s a good thing. Yes, Plissken does shut down the world, but at least the world doesn’t have to be ruled by either the President or Jones. And I’ve always suspected that there was a chance that the Sword of Damocles satellite weapon didn’t really shut the world down permanently. Remember what Hershe (Pam Grier) said about the Plutoxin-7 virus? The SoD is a bad weapon and will fuck up the world, but it isn’t necessarily the end. Maybe. I still think there’s a chance that’s the real ending. The power is off, but it won’t be off for long.

JohnCarpenterAssaultonPrecinct13Gangs

3- Unified Street Gangs in Assault on Precinct 13: We really don’t know anything about the gangs except they’re all pissed about the LAPD declaring war on them. We know that the gangs have in their possession a stash of guns and silencers and, as we see the four gang leaders (Frank Doubleday, Gilbert De La Pena, Al Naukachi, and James Johnson) riding around the city, threatening to shoot anyone they want, they are willing to do anything to get back at the cops and the city. And when we see the gangs terrorize an ice cream truck driver and shoot a kid dead (Kim Richards) for no reason, they are totally committed to being terrifying. And when they decide to infiltrate the soon to be abandoned police station because the father of the kid they shot is inside (the father ran there after shooting Doubleday dead), they will do whatever it takes to destroy. That’s terrifying. They don’t care about anything beyond their own bullshit. And if some of their ranks die, as they do, more and more will show up to continue the siege. They really are like the zombie hoards in Night of the Living Dead, aren’t they? Some of the gang members have guns, though. That’s actually scarier.

2- Michael Myers in Halloween: The thing that makes Michael Myers so scary in the original Halloween is that you’re not quite sure what he really is. At first, it seems like he’s just an incredibly dangerous escaped mental patient. But, as the movie progresses and we find out more about Myers from Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and we see him in action, there’s a chance that Myers isn’t just a man. There’s a chance that Myers may be supernatural. If he isn’t a man and he’s “something else,” that would explain why you can keep knocking him down, beating him up, jamming knitting needles into his eyes and shooting him six times and he just won’t die. There’s a chance that Myers, “The Shape,” really is the Boogeyman. That’s amazing and scary and terrifying. How do you defeat that? Can you defeat that?

**

DumpsterFireImage1

And the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week: The Top 5 John Carpenter Movie Villains top spot goes to:

JohnCarpenterTheThingTheThing

1- The Thing in The Thing: How could it not be the Thing? It’s an alien monster that can essentially turn into anyone or anything and all it wants to do is survive, kill, and grow. We never find out what it “really” looks like. All we really know is that it’s so incredibly dangerous that if it isn’t stopped at the American research station it will assimilate everything on the planet in a few years (or maybe even sooner than that, who the heck knows?). You can’t trust anyone or anything around you because there’s a chance that the Thing is there with you and just waiting for the right moment to take you over. You can probably stop and kill the Thing, but, as the end of the movie suggests, how do you know that you killed it? Even after blowing up the base and essentially destroying everything in the area, there’s a real chance that the man in front of you is the Thing. That’s a real shitty world to live in, isn’t it?

**

Thanks for reading. Agree? Disagree? Sign up with disqus and comment. You know you want to, so just go do it.

Please “like” The Gratuitous B-Movie Column on Facebook!

Oh, and B-movies rule. Always remember that.

article topics

Bryan Kristopowitz