October saw the release of filmmaker John Carpenter’s latest studio album, Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998, a collection of memorable scores from his career. To promote the album, Carpenter is going on tour with his band, and the first stop is The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Sunday, October 29.
I previewed Carpenter’s concert for Vegas Seven after sampling the album, using excerpts from an interview provided by his publicist. As a director, Carpenter has been out of sight since 2010’s The Ward (a film few people saw), but he’s gained a new following thanks to two successful electronic albums, Lost Themes and Lost Themes II. In fact, he’s seems to be enjoying this “second career” at an age in which most people have settled into retirement. At 69, not only is Carpenter embarking on a tour, but he’s also lined up to score the
next Halloween movie, due out in 2018, and he recently wrote the foreword for Now Playing Podcast’s Underrated Movies We Recommend.
I’ve been a fan of Carpenter’s films since I was a kid, getting hooked on The Fog, Halloween, and They Live. In the 90s I discovered The Thing and Christine, and I remember seeing Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A.,Vampires, and Ghosts of Mars in the theater. Shockingly, I didn’t see Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, or Prince of Darkness until I was an adult — for some reason, I just never stumbled upon the films when they were on cable, and I passed them over without much thought at the video store.
But now I’ve seen them all, and while I can’t say they’re all great, they’re all patently Carpenter, right down to his synth scores. In some cases, the scores are better than the movies themselves, and that’s what gets me so excited to see him live.
