J.C. Rises: The Return of John Carpenter
PREAMBLE: John Carpenter has been so influential to my life and has entertained and engaged me to such a tremendous degree that I’ll attempt to merely relay this bit of news without allowing myself to elaborate my love into a dissertation-sized jerk-off piece.
Another day.
A couple of “Masters of Horror” episodes not withstanding, John Carpenter has been A.W.O.L. since 2001’s The Ghosts of Mars. That was his last foray into feature filmmaking and it was not met with kind eyes by the general public or the many pinky-fingers of the critical establishment. I might be one of the few people in the lower 48 to have seen it at least three times.
As a result, most yucksters have not spent eight long years lamenting the lack of fresh Carpenter. I sure have. So, today is a good day.
The casting process has begun on The Ward (or as I’ll call it: John Carpenter’s The Ward). He has been rumored to be at the helm of a dozen or so projects in the past five years but none have got as far as casting, so this announcement actually has an air of legitimacy to it.
The plot follows a young girl who encounters creepy-creepy at a psychiatric ward. Amber Heard (Pineapple Express) will employ the many “say what?” faces the plot will likely necessitate. While the plot synopsis doesn’t sound the most gung-ho original, I do enjoy Carpenter when he touches insanity (see: John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness) and I will gladly plop down a whole paycheck if it means I get more Carpenter widescreen images.
I wonder if he’d find it endearing or alarming if I quit my job, hitch-hiked to the shoot and hobo-begged for a production assistant job.