An acquaintance on Pluspora attributed the Howling to John Carpenter the other day. It is not a Carpenter film. I’ve made a point to watch every film that John Carpenter makes as they become available. Carpenter single-handedly created the slasher genre with Halloween. He started James Cameron on his path to greatness by utilizing him on Escape from New York. His best films (to my mind) are Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness both of which I’ve watched numerous times. He’s best known for the unforgettable line from They Live where Rowdy Roddy Piper uses his signature wrestling tagline as the intro to one of the bloodiest scenes in They Live. I know my Carpenter films. The man is a movie genius and really should be better respected in movie circles than he is.
Ennio Morricone created the soundtrack to the second or third most recognizable of the Carpenter film library, The Thing. It stands out among the ranks of Carpenter’s oeuvre because of its haunting musical score. Ennio Morricone created the soundtracks for over 400 films. All of them that I have watched and listened to have been distinctively marked as his work. They could only be his work. While John Carpenter is a movie genius in my mind, capable of creating fantasy worlds for next to nothing budget-wise, Ennio Morricone was a master of the soundtrack. No one does it like he did. He will be missed.
