John Carpenter

Geek Punditry #108: Blake’s Five Favorite Frigid Fables

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Here in Southern Louisiana, we’re known for a few things: food, music, and a general manager that none of the best potential head football coaches in the country want to work with. But this week, we got put on the map for something pretty unusual for us: snow. On Tuesday, we were hit with a snowstorm that dumped more of the white stuff than anybody alive has ever seen in the state of Louisiana before, as much as 10 inches in some areas. I know some of you in the north are scoffing at that – ten inches of snow is nothing to you if you live in North Dakota, for example, but this is insane for us. We don’t get snow like this. Every few years we get a dusting that makes us giggle until we have enough to make a snowman roughly the size of a Funko Pop and then we hope it happens again before we’re drawing social security. But this was more snow than Louisiana has had since 1895. That’s not a typo, it’s more than we’ve had in 130 years, and pretty much everything was shut down: roads, schools, businesses…everything except the Waffle House. As a result, I got three days to spend with my wife and son in a winter wonderland.

Seriously, this NEVER happens.

So naturally, I’m thinking about horror movies.

Well, not exactly. But spending so many days unable to leave the house because of ice and snow got me thinking about stories with that premise: people stranded together due to cold weather. And the fact is, most of those are scary movies. (Or Hallmark Christmas movies, but I’m not gonna write about those in January.) Pretty much every great example I could think of qualifies as a thriller, if not an outright horror film, and I guess it makes sense. Being forced in a confined space with people over a period of time can start to wear on you, the edges can be chipped off, and before long you’re staring at each other like Daffy Duck does when Porky Pig starts to look like a steamed ham. 

So in honor of this once-in-a-lifetime event, I decided to break out my Five Favorite Frigid Fables, five great movies about people stuck together in the cold. As always, these lists are highly subjective. They’re the five best movies I thought about that fit my criteria, and it’s always possible that if I made this list tomorrow I’d pick five totally different movies. I’m going to go from the most well-known movie on this list to the least, at least, according to the viewing numbers on Letterboxd. The first three are movies that will make most of you say, “Well obviously,” but I’m hoping by the end you’ll find something you may not have heard of before.

The Thing (1982), directed by John Carpenter

My family made it through the Louisiana Sneauxmageddon pretty easily, but if I hadn’t included this movie on the list my wife may have left me anyway. This is probably the defining example of a cold weather confined area horror movie, as well as being one of the best sci-fi/horror mashups ever made. In this film, if you’re one of the three people on the planet who aren’t aware of it, a group of researchers at an Antarctic base uncover an alien creature that has been buried under the ice for hundreds of thousands of years. Although it is literally never a good idea to thaw one of these out, the alien escapes and begins to prey on the men.

Making matters worse, they discover that the alien is a shapeshifter. Not only is it a murderous beast, but it has the ability to transform and look like any one of them, so they can’t even trust each other. The resultant film is a masterpiece about fear, mistrust, and paranoia, a world where even your best friend may be the thing that’s out to kill you. The ending in particular is wickedly clever and absolutely perfect for this film. The movie is a remake of the 1951 film The Thing From Another World, itself based on the novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, thereby simultaneously proving that sometimes the remakes are better than the original and sometimes the adaptation is better than the book. On the other hand, the remake/prequel of THIS movie from 2011 is…well, it’s just okay. But of the four iterations of this story, John Carpenter is the one who did it best.

The Hateful Eight (2015) directed by Quentin Tarantino

I feel like this is kind of a “forgotten” film. It’s not so much that people don’t know about it, but it rarely seems to make the conversation when people talk about their favorite Tarantino movies, which is surprising to me, because I’d easily place it in my top three. (The others are Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, since you asked.) In some ways, you could almost call this a western version of The Thing. Several travellers are snowbound at a haberdashery during an intense blizzard, including some bounty hunters, a condemned murderer, a sheriff, a cowboy, and a former Confederate general. As the storm rages outside, inside the lodge we start to learn that all of these people may not be the strangers that we assumed. These are people with deep wounds, some of them caused by the others that they’re now trapped with, and there is a hunger for revenge.

Even for Tarantino, this is a dark film. There is a rage and anger brimming beneath the surface, and there really aren’t any “good guys.” The movie is about bad people, badly damaged people, and the things they do to one another. The entertainment factor comes from trying to unravel the mystery of exactly how all of these people are connected and who has a past with whom. In that way, it may be the most well-written of Tarantino’s movies, with a complex plot that rewards multiple viewings as you try to untangle the web. There’s also an extended version, released via Netflix as a four-part miniseries, which I never got around to watching, but writing about it now is making me want to do so. 

Misery (1990) directed by Rob Reiner

Do you ever stop to think about how weird the career trajectory of some people turns out to be? Rob Reiner, the guy who played Meathead on All in the Family, grows up to direct two of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time (this one and Stand By Me) along with stuff like The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally. Go figure. 

Anyway, in this magnificent movie based on one of King’s best stories, novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) gets in a car accident in the snow and is rescued by a former nurse named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates). Annie tells Paul that she’s his biggest fan and is delighted to help nurse him back to health, but from the very beginning things feel…off. Things get much worse when Annie discovers Paul killed off her favorite character in his newest book, and the two enter into a deranged battle of wills as Annie fights for the survival of the fictional Misery Chastain, while Paul has to fight for his life. 

The movie is incredible – taut, tense, and full of legitimate chills. This was Kathy Bates’ breakout role, and garnered her an Oscar for Best Actress back when the Academy Awards still actually meant something. Everybody involved in this movie is at the top of their game, and it’s just as engaging and exciting today as when it was released 35 years ago.

Frozen (2010) directed by Adam Green

Elsa is going to be crowned the queen of Arendelle and her sister–wait, wrong Frozen. No, this movie came out three years before that other one, and it is most definitely NOT a beloved musical about the power of familial love. This film involves a trio of young skiers (Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell, and Kevin Zegers) who – through a series of mishaps that make Kevin McCallister getting left behind in Home Alone seem plausible – get stuck on a ski lift as the weekend mountain resort they’re visiting shuts down for the week. 

Although the circumstances necessary to get the three of them trapped up there admittedly stretch credulity a little bit, once you get past that the movie is fantastic. You’d think a movie about three people stuck on a ski lift would run out of steam quickly, but the way the situation rapidly escalates into a life-or-death battle against the elements is totally gripping. It’s the kind of movie that makes you question what you would do in that situation, forcing you to wonder if you could possibly survive such an experience, dangling from an immobile ski lift with no hope of rescue for days as the temperature keeps falling and wolves begin to prowl in hard-packed snow beneath you. This was actually the first Adam Green movie I watched, before I discovered his signature Hatchet franchise, and it’s usually the one I recommend to people first. I love this movie.

Scare Me (2020) directed by Josh Ruben

The final film on this list is the most recent and least well-known, but by god, it deserves an audience. Writer/director Josh Ruben plays Fred, a writer on a retreat in the mountains. While taking a jog one morning he encounters Fanny (Aya Cash), a fellow writer who’s also on vacation. When a storm knocks out the power to their cabins, Fred and Fanny decide to ride out the weather together, passing the time by telling chilling stories as they challenge one another to – well, as the title says – “scare me.”

This is a movie that’s so simple, but absolutely brilliant. Almost the entire film is simply these two in a cabin talking to one another, but it’s done in such a way that you get sucked right in from the very beginning. The tales they tell are inventive and entertaining, but also slowly reveal things about the two main characters that lead you to question the entire situation. As good as the writing is, though, it wouldn’t be anything without the performances by Ruben and Cash. Both of them are probably better known for their comedic work (although after this movie, Cash hit it big on The Boys), but as I’ve said many times, the line between comedy and horror is very thin and the two disciplines rely on a lot of the same skills. That is to say, a great comedic actor very often has the chops to be a great horror actor, and these two prove it with this movie. They’re both wonderfully funny, but on a dime they can turn the entire situation around and scare the pants off of you. If you haven’t watched this movie, it’s currently available on Shudder and Hoopla, as well as the usual digital rental services. This movie proves how possible it is to tell a killer scary story without relying on gore and special effects, but just great performances. In fact, it could very easily be turned into a stage play, and it would be amazing.

There you have it, guys – five stories about people trapped in the cold. If it’s your thing, I hope you check them out. And if you’ve got suggestions for other such movies beyond these five, let’s hear it! Drop your own suggestions in the comments.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He briefly considered including the 2002 Cuba Gooding Jr. terror film Snow Dogs, but he thought that might be a bit too much.

Geek Punditry #42: Halloween — the TV Series?

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Last week Miramax Pictures (motto: 100 percent Weinstein-Free these days) announced the news that horror fans have been waiting for with baited breath. They have acquired the rights to make a TV series based on John Carpenter’s Halloween franchise. And if that wasn’t enough, there are talks about spinning it off into (drumroll please) a new cinematic universe! Isn’t that great? Isn’t it amazing? Isn’t this the best news you’ve ever heard?

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

Look how happy he is. Like a kid on Christmas.

I’m sure the question most of you are asking is, is a universe really necessary? The answer, of course, is “No, of course not, what are you, high?” Marvel pulled the cinematic universe off, but nobody else who has tried it has come close to their level of success. Of course, this hasn’t stopped people from attempting it with everything from the works of Roald Dahl to the world of My Little Pony. I’m frankly stunned that no one has tried to link the recent movies Air, Flamin’ Hot, and Blackberry into a “Folks Coming Up With New Products” Cinematic Universe, although now that I’ve willed it into existence, no doubt someone will try.

As for making a TV show out of it…eh. I have mixed feelings. There’s nothing inherently wrong with making a TV series based on a horror franchise. It’s been done before to some acclaim (such as Bates Motel and the current Chucky series), after all. Freddy’s Nightmares cast the titular Krueger as a sort of Cryptkeeper lite, narrating anthology stories, although he occasionally took part in them as well. Then there were shows like Friday the 13th: The Series, which had nothing to do with Jason Voorhees except for a cameo appearance by a hockey mask. It could go either way. The question should be, is Halloween really the best choice for this kind of a project? 

The good, the bad, and the Freddy.

First of all, what storyline are they planning to follow? The film series has been rebooted and restarted so many times that there are no less than five different continuities spread out among the 14 movies, which most of you will recognize as being at least four too many. What’s more, each and every continuity has its own fans and its own detractors, so the idea of choosing one that will satisfy a majority of fans seems slim. The best option is probably to start from scratch and not worry about any of the previous continuities – of course, going that route will only result in a sixth iteration of the franchise. (Which is five too many.)

Realtime photo of the Halloween continuity.

Let’s say, just for the sake of discussion, that they go in this direction: a new continuity, unbound from any of the previous films. And let’s be generous and assume that they do it really well, in a way that all of the fans (okay, let’s be realistic here – a plurality of the fans) are satisfied with the show. That still leaves the question of how the hell you turn a single-villain slasher franchise into a cinematic UNIVERSE. I just don’t think there’s enough meat on that bone.

 If you decide that you want to tie together multiple existing horror franchises, it could make sense. They did it with Freddy Vs. Jason, and the criminally underrated film Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is implied to place in a world where ALL the classic horror movies are canon. The comic book series Hack/Slash takes this approach as well, using generic villains that “feel” like the classics most of the time, but it has also included several official crossovers with horror franchises including Chucky, Hatchet, The Crow, Army of Darkness, and Re-Animator. Of course that’s a comic book, where quick crossovers are relatively easier to negotiate. In a practical sense, with the rights to all these franchises spread out among dozens of different studios, it’s all but impossible to see such a cinematic universe materialize until the Walt Disney Corporation and Shadow Government and Tanning Salon finally gets around to buying up all the different companies, which isn’t scheduled to happen until next Tuesday.

How do you make Halloween, by itself, a universe? There’s only one antagonist, first of all. Maybe more if you count the “Curse of the Thorn” storyline that ran through a few of the films, but that’s frankly one of the weakest ideas in the franchise’s history – never adequately explained and butchering Michael Myers as a character by making him a sort of victim of supernatural forces rather than the personification of evil that makes him so iconic. What other characters could you build a world on? I could see someone planning a prequel series about the life of Dr. Loomis, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea. Prequel series are fraught with their own landmines that make them difficult to do successfully. As for the other main characters, does anyone really want to watch Laurie Strode without Michael Myers? For that matter, does anyone really want to watch Laurie Strode without Jamie Lee Curtis? 

As odd as it sounds, if Miramax simply must try the cinematic universe idea, there’s really only one place I think they could look. They need the weirdest, most off-kilter installment of the entire franchise. They need Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

“Help me, Obi-Wan Tom Atkins. You’re my only hope.”

Quick history lesson, for those who don’t know how this happened: when John Carpenter was approached to do a third Halloween movie, he decided to take it in a totally different direction. Rather than bring Michael Myers back for Round Three, he tried to make the franchise into an anthology series, with the plan being to make a new horror movie every year or two centered on the holiday of Halloween but totally standing on its own. Season of the Witch is about an evil novelty company that has a bonkers scheme including Druids, Stonehenge, and rubber Halloween masks with the intent to murder millions of innocent children for reasons. It underperformed and was torn apart critically, and the franchise has not deviated from the story of a Michael Myers since. 

In recent years, however, people have begun to reexamine Halloween III, calling it an underrated gem of a film, that it works as a clever deviation from the audience’s expectations, and that Tom Atkins’s mustache does not at all look like a caterpillar hoping to eat his upper lip. I…I’ll be honest, I don’t agree. I mean, the movie has a certain cheesy charm, but that’s far from calling it a good movie. That said, I agree that it may have been received better (as many argue) if it was the second film in the franchise instead of the third, or if it had just been released as a standalone film divorced from the Halloween franchise, or even if it had come out 30 years later, when anthologies were on the rise. 

But the truth is, it doesn’t even matter if the movie itself was good or not – it’s still the bedrock upon which this cinematic universe should lie. I’m not saying they should ignore Michael Myers, of course. Doing a Halloween series without Michael Myers would be as ludicrous as doing, say, a Scream series and changing the mask.

This never happened.

But I think if they link Michael directly to the doings of the Silver Shamrock company, makers of the demonic masks, this may be the linchpin the universe needs to get started. It’s true that Michael Myers should not be a supernatural character. He’s much more frightening and interesting when he’s a murderous, unspeakably evil human being. On the other hand, that’s not the same thing as saying that the supernatural cannot exist in the same universe as him. 

What I would do, were I the showrunner of this hypothetical Halloween series, is start with a sort of platonic ideal of Michael Myers. He’s a killer, he’s escaped from custody, he has terrified the town of Haddonfield, Illinois in the past. I would not marry him to any specific continuity from the previous films. I might mention Laurie Strode or Dr. Loomis, but only in passing – wouldn’t even confirm one way or another whether they’re alive or dead in this universe. The story here is that of the insidious Silver Shamrock company, whose attempt at destroying the world some years ago failed (way to go, Tom Atkins and his mustache!) but they’re ready to try again.

“A little louder for the people in the back!”

This time, their scheme hinges on Michael Myers. If they can get their hands on the real-life boogeyman, who is again unleashing havoc on a small town, they can use their magic to weaponize the pain and anguish he has caused for their own nefarious ends. How are they going to do it? They’ve got to replace his iconic mask with one of their magic ones. Our heroes, now, are a new group of characters who start out trying to stop Michael’s killing spree (like you do), but halfway through the first season discover the Silver Shamrock connection and realize that they not only have to defeat him, but they also have to save him from falling into Silver Shamrock’s hands. 

So there’s the first season. But how, Blake, does this sort of thing lead into a full-on cinematic universe? Well, there’s a few ways that it could go, but here are the two I would find most interesting, and they’re ideas that compliment each other:

  1. Silver Shamrock is a big company, with lots of different cells around the world, each of which is dedicated to wreaking havoc using the local boogeyman of that area. This would not only allow us to create new villains, but we would no longer be limited to just slashers. Bring in other monsters – vampires, werewolves, do a season set in New Orleans featuring the Loup Garou. The possibilities are endless. The important thing is, wherever the current chapter is set, it’s about trying to weaponize fear.
  2. They’ve been doing this for a while. Who are the other heroes that have stood against them? Perhaps an entire underground society of monster-slayers has risen up, a kind of Buffy crossed with John Wick organization, dedicated to ending the threat of these menaces once and for all. Maybe Loomis was part of it, maybe not. Maybe, if they get really ambitious, they could try to recruit Laurie Strode. Or maybe not – again, if it ain’t Jamie Lee Curtis, that would be a hard sell.

Anyway, with this set-up, you’ve constructed a universe that allows for virtually any kind of horror movie story you want to tell, which is what Carpenter wanted to do with the franchise back in 1982 anyway, except this time it’s all tied together. As for the title – well, that’s simple enough. Under the rules of this shared universe, all of the evil forces we encounter are at their strongest at – drumroll please – Halloween. You can bring in Michael Myers any time you want, but you’re not beholden to him. It’s possible to build a dense mythology, with shows or movies focusing not just on Michael, but on the monster-slayers or any of the various monsters or the history of Silver Shamrock. Hell, you can even throw in the Curse of the Thorn as one of the various evil organizations our monster-slayers fight against. A set up like this would give the world room to grow.

This is what I would do, anyway. But I’m not on the payroll of Miramax (although I would be willing to discuss compensation for this obviously brilliant idea), and odds are if they’ve even gone far enough to tell people they’re planning a cinematic universe, they’ve probably also got an idea already as to how they want to do it. That’s their prerogative. What I’m here for is to suggest a way to do it that’s not just a case of retreading old ground. 

And if they instead just do more of the same and it flops…well, I guess I’ll see you at Halloween Iteration Seven. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His current writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, a new episode of which is available every Wednesday on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform. Come back next time when he explains to you the intricacies of the Prom Night cinematic universe! (Hint: there isn’t one.)