Cult Movie Theatre: Black Moon Rising

Tommy Lee Jones as Quint.

To supplement his income as a director early in his career, John Carpenter penned screenplays--several of which were subsequently produced without his involvement. He wrote the Western Blood River for John Wayne's production company. It was intended as a star vehicle for The Duke, but he died before the movie was made.

Another Carpenter screenplay, written around 1980 was Black Moon Rising. Carpenter once called it his "my car is stolen and I'm going to get it back story."  His script went unproduced for almost ten years until the release of Black Moon Rising in 1986. Carpenter received a co-writing credit on the screenplay, but otherwise had nothing to do with the finished film. He even claims to have never seen it.

Linda Hamilton as a car thief.

Tommy Lee Jones stars as Quint, a high-tech thief employed by the government to steal a data tape from a corrupt corporation. He nabs the cassette tape, but not before a rival--now working for the bad guys--recognizes him. At a desert gas station, Quints hides the tape in an experimental hydrogen-fueled car being transported to Los Angeles. His plan is to find his own way to L.A. and retrieve the tape once there.

Quint's plan goes awry when the car is stolen--along with many other luxury vehicles-- from a nightclub parking lot. Quint follows the car thieves to a twin-tower complex where the stolen cars are being kept under heavy security. It won't be easy, but his only course of action is to steal the car back so he retrieve the tape.

The experimental Black Moon.

It's a shame that John Carpenter didn't direct Black Moon Rising. As he showed in Escape from New York and Assault on Precinct 13, Carpenter has a gift for fast-paced action films with colorful characters. However, in the hands of journeyman director Harley Cokeliss, Black Moon Rising is a perfunctory heist film elevated by Tommy Lee Jones's convincing performance and some modestly impressive car chases.

Jones captures Quint's world-weary facade--one can't imagine him staying in retirement for very long. As a car thief who becomes Quint's lover, Linda Hamilton sports a big '80 perm and a lot of pouty attitude.  Sadly, she displays none of the natural strength that she did in The Terminator two years earlier. She and Jones also make an odd pair--in fact, I was somewhat stunned when Cokeliss cuts from the pair riding in her Mercedes to a bedroom lovemaking scene!

Robert Vaughn as the villain.

The supporting cast includes veterans such as Robert Vaughn, Richard Jaeckel, and Kennan Wynn--and then gives them little to do. Vaughn does his best to make his villain creepy by mooning over videos of Hamilton's character from the night he "recruited" her off the street.

The film's saving grace is an extended heist sequence that culminates in the climax. It doesn't come close to Topkapi or even The Return of the Pink Panther, but still generates reasonable tension. Indeed, if you keep your expectations low, Black Moon Rising is a satisfactory popcorn movie--but it's a small bag of popcorn and you'll still be hungry.

The V.I.P.s and The Fog

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

The V.I.P.s (1963).  A fogged-in London airport provides the setting—and serves as the catalyst—in playwright Terence Rattigan’s The V.I.P.s. This collage of mini-dramas shares the same structure as films such as Grand Hotel and Rattigan’s own Separate Tables. The principal characters include: an emotionally-withdrawn tycoon (Richard Burton); his ignored wife (Elizabeth Taylor), who plans to leave him; her lover (Louis Jourdan); a businessman (Rod Taylor) fighting a hostile takeover of his company; his secretary (Maggie Smith) who secretly loves him; an elderly, financially-strapped dowager (Margaret Rutherford); and a blustery filmmaker (Orson Welles), who stands to pay a hefty tax bill if he can’t leave the country by midnight. As expected, some subplots are engrossing (Rod Taylor’s dilemma), while others are filler (the plight of Welles’ filmmaker). The standout performances come from Richard Burton and Maggie Smith. Burton’s initially one-dimensional character gains depth as the film progresses, while Maggie Smith shines brightly from start to finish. A scene between Burton and Smith toward the end is a master class in acting. Dame Margaret Rutherford won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as the befuddled dowager. She’s good, delivering a more reserved portrayal than usual. However, I would have given that award to the luminous Maggie Smith. 

Adrienne Barbeau in the lighthouse.

The Fog (1980). In his theatrical follow-up to Halloween (1978), John Carpenter opts to create a different kind of horror film with a supernatural tale set in an atmospheric Northern California coastal community. The premise is set up with a nifty recounting of a local story in which a clipper ship’s crew of six died in a crash against the rocks after mistaking a campfire for the lighthouse on a foggy night. A hundred year later, as Antonio Bay prepares to celebrate its centennial, a glowing fog engulfs the town—and brings forth the vengeful ghosts of the ship’s crew. But why are the murderous spirits seeking the lives of six town residents? The answer is somewhat interesting, but therein lies the problem with The Fog. It’s a middle-of-the-road effort that rarely lives up to its potential. The ghosts aren’t frightening, the characters lack interest, and Carpenter fails to generate adequate suspense (a surprise coming on the heels of his superbly-crafted Halloween). The cast—which includes real-life mother and daughter Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis—is game, but just doesn’t have enough quality material. One suspects Carpenter recognized these flaws as he shot additional footage after viewing the rough cut. The director certainly rebounded, with his next two movies, Escape from New York (1981) and The Thing (1982), ranking among his best.

'80s Flashback: Trouble in Little China and Vampires in Santa Carla

Kurt Russell as Jack Burton.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986). This fourth collaboration between Kurt Russell and director John Carpenter is a mildly diverting martial arts fantasy--which has nevertheless attracted a strong cult following. 

Russell stars as Jack Burton, a tough-talking truck driver trying to collect a gambling debt from pal Wang Chi (Dennis Dun). When Wang's fiancée Miao Yin is kidnapped soon after arriving in San Francisco, Jack agrees to help Wang rescue her. It turns out that the green-eyed Miao Yin has been abducted by Lo Pan, a powerful ancient sorcerer. He wants to "marry" the girl so he can regain earthy form and rule the world.

Kim Cattrall as Gracie Law.

Big Trouble in Little China consists mostly of colorful fight scenes and chases as Russell quips one-liners and banters playfully with Kim Cantrell, who plays a crusading lawyer. It's all very tongue-in-cheek and boasts an amusing conceit: Wang is the real hero and Jack is the sidekick.

And yet, despite its good intentions, the film comes across as "B" movie fodder, especially compared to Russell and Carpenter's previous pairings Escape from New York (1981) and The Thing (1982). Perhaps, part of the problem is that Carpenter was the driving force behind those films whereas Big Trouble in Little China was a big studio film already in development before Carpenter came aboard.

There are worse ways to spend 99 minutes. However, if you want to see a Kurt Russell-John Carpenter movie, you're better off watching Escape from New York, The Thing--or even Elvis.

The Lost Boys (1987). As the Emerson family drives past the "Welcome to Santa Carla" sign, a spray-painted message on the backside adds: "Murder capital of the world." An ominous greeting for new residents, no doubt!

Corey Haims and Jason Patric.

Recently divorced, Lucy Emerson has relocated to the coastal community to move in with her elderly father. It will be a new start for Lucy and her teenage sons: the introspective Michael (Jason Patric) and his younger outgoing brother Sam (Corey Haim). 

During a nighttime concert on the crowded, neon-lit boardwalk, Michael makes a connection with an attractive teenage girl named Star (Jami Gertz). She is somehow affiliated with a gang of delinquents led by the charismatic David (Keifer Sutherland). What Michael doesn't know--but soon finds out--is that David and his cronies are vampires!

The Lost Boys is one of the best teen horror films of the 1980s, a smartly-written drama with several strong performances, stylish cinematography, and a sly sense of humor. The film's title is a tip-off that it's a play on James M. Barrie's Peter Pan--only these Lost Boys have to drink the blood of the living to avoid growing up. Like Peter Pan's "gang," these youths need a mother and it turns out that their target is Lucy Emerson (a delightful Dianne Wiest).

A softly menacing Sutherland.

The weak link in the cast is Corey Haim. Certainly, Haim got a lot of mileage out of his likably goofy on-screen persona. It works well enough in The Lost Boys, but it still feels like Haim is trying to too hard. There's a "look at me" quality to his acting that conflicts with the polished performances of his co-stars. Jason Patric commands attention with his brooding attitude while Sutherland can generate chills simply by uttering: "Michael."

The Lost Boys clicked with audiences in 1987, earning almost as much as bigger productions such as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Studio heads flirted with a sequel to be called The Lost Girls. In the end, two low-budget belated sequels--Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008) and Lost Boys: The Thirst (2010)--were released straight to video. Corey Feldman (not Haim) revived his role as a vampire hunter from the original.

Cult Movie Theatre: John Carpenter Channels Howard Hawks in "Assault on Precinct 13"

When Los Angeles police officers execute six gang members for stealing guns, the local gangs join together and swear a blood oath to retaliate against the city. That afternoon, a gang member randomly shoots a young girl. Her father, overcome with grief and rage, pursues and kills his daughter's murderer. But then, the hunter becomes the hunted and the father seeks protection inside a police station with the gangs in pursuit.

Austin Stoker as Lt. Bishop.

What he doesn't know is that Precinct 9, Division 13 has been replaced by a new police headquarters. Only a skeleton crew, led by a new highway patrol lieutenant, remains inside the old building. Of course, there are also some unexpected prisoners--to include death row killer Napoleon Wilson--who arrived when a prison bus had to make an unplanned stop. It's shaping up to be a long night for Lieutenant Ethan Bishop, as he battles hundreds of gang members assaulting the police station, copes with the prisoners inside, and deals with power outages and severed phone lines that keep the precinct building isolated.

Following the success of his debut film, the sci fi satire Dark Star (1974), writer-director John Carpenter wanted to make an homage to Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo. His limited budget of $100,000 prevented Carpenter from making a Western, so he transplanted the action to modern-day L.A. and titled his script The Anderson Alamo. Running a crisp 91 minutes, Carpenter's film jettisons Hawks' well-defined characters, but still retains the central premise of an unlikely group of misfits fending off an attack on a jail against all odds.

After a slow build-up, the last half of the film is almost wall-to-wall action as the gang members make varied attempts to capture the police headquarters. In addition to Rio Bravo, Carpenter has a grand time paying homage to other genre classics such as Night of the Living Dead (1968) and The Thing from Another World (1951). In regard to the latter, there's a long hallway that will look mighty familiar to sci-fi fans. As for Night of the Living Dead, Carpenter has acknowledged that Romero's ghouls inspired the gang members, who become nameless, nondescript creatures once the siege begins. In addition, Night fans will pick up on subtle references like the brief discussion on the merits of the basement as a safety haven.

Darwin Joston as Napoleon Wilson.

The use of little-known actors, which was a financial necessity, works to the film's advantage. While there were never any concerns about John Wayne's John T. Chance dying in Rio Bravo, the fate of Austin Stoker's Ethan Bishop remains in doubt until the film's closing scenes. The three leads--Stoker, Laurie Zimmer as a police employee, and Darwin Joston as the death row killer--acquit themselves nicely. Joston, a quirky screen presence, comes across as an early version of Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken from Carpenter's later Escape from New York (1981). One of the running gags in Assault on Precinct 13 has people asking Napoleon Wilson how he got his first name. (He replies that he'll tell them later...but never does.)

Kim Richards then and now.

Laurie Zimmer.

The only cast member to achieve any kind of stardom was Kim Richards, who played the young girl Kathy. She starred in Disney's Escape from Witch Mountain and its sequel. Decades later, she gained fame (of a sort) playing herself on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Of the three leads, Laurie Zimmer, who conveyed brains and beauty, seemed like the one most likely to succeed. However, she made only three more films and retired from acting. Twenty-seven years after Assault on Precinct 13, filmmaker Charlotte Szlovak tracked her down for the documentary Do You Remember Laurie Zimmer? It revealed that Zimmer was a teacher who was married and living in San Francisco.

Although the film takes place in Precinct 9, Division 13 headquarters, the film's backers thought the title Assault on Precinct 13 was more memorable (and rightly so). The movie only did so-so business in the U.S., but performed very well in Europe and led to Carpenter making Halloween (with a budget that tripled the one for Assault). Halloween (1978) went on to gross $70 million at the boxoffice (yes, that's 233 times its budget).

A respectable remake of Assault on Precinct 13 appeared in 2005 with Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishbourne, and Maria Bello. It retains the 1976's film's basic plot, but changes the characters.

Finally, John Carpenter's memorable, minimalist score for the original film--which was written in just three days--was unavailable as a soundtrack until 2003.

One Good "Thing" Leads to Another

When I first saw this movie in 1982, I left convinced that John Carpenter had produced a complete misfire (especially in comparison to the classic 1951 version). But I’ve come to learn over the years that some movies age well, or perhaps they grow better because we’ve aged and our tastes have changed. John Carpenter’s The Thing is definitely one of those films for me. It's now required viewing on the first snowy day of winter and has become my favorite among the director’s work.

The Thing opens in intriguing fashion with a helicopter chasing—and trying to kill—a lone Husky in the desolate Antarctica snow. The dog runs to the U.S. National Science Institute No. 4, a remote research station. In a bizarre series of events, the helicopter crew is killed and the dog is taken in by the research station’s residents. But this is no ordinary dog. It prowls the station’s corridors stealthily as if stalking its prey. It spies silently on the residents. It’s afraid to join the other dogs, which snarl at the newcomer viciously.

Seeking an explanation for the helicopter crew’s unusual behavior, McCready (Kurt Russell) and Doc (Richard Dysart) trace its origin to a Norwegian research facility. They discover frozen corpses and a strange, partially buried “thing” that could be human. Back at the U.S. station, an alien creature reveals itself for the first time by mutating out from inside the Husky (a fairly gory scene). With the creature’s ability to imitate other life forms established, the film’s premise is finally set into motion.

If the alien can be anyone of the research station’s crew, how can it be stopped? The seriousness of the situation worsens when one of the scientists models the alien’s ability to infect humans. He determines that if the “intruder organism” reaches the general population, it could take over the planet in 27,000 hours from first contact.

The plot is supposed to be closer to John Campbell’s short story "Who Goes There?" than 1951’s The Thing (see Aki's nifty review from earlier this month). But, truth to be told, this is a mystery masquerading as science fiction. A murderer is among a group of people at a remote location—isn’t that the plot of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians? The twist here is that the killer can reveal itself and then hide again by assuming another identity. The film’s best scene is when McCready devises a test for revealing the alien’s identity. This tense setup also recalls the classic mystery climax where the detective calls together all the suspects and unveils the murderer.

Subsequent viewings of The Thing allow one to appreciate its smaller pleasures: Ennio Morricone’s suspenseful electronic score (which has a definite Carpenter sound to it); an open ending that actually works (usually I loathe them); and Kurt Russell’s solid performance (less cartoonish than in Carpenter’s Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China).

Still, it’s the remote locale and the “who is it” premise that makes The Thing so entertaining for me. Other films have featured aliens who could take human form (most notably, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and cult classic The Hidden)—but this one remains my favorite.