John Carpenter Biography

Born in Carthage, New York on January 16, 1948, John Carpenter was a fan of Western and sci-fi B-movies from a young age and even shot his own films on 8mm cameras as a junior high student. He briefly went to college in Kentucky, but transferred to USC's School of Cinematic Arts and graduated in 1971. His directorial debut came three years later with the sci-fi black comedy Dark Star, bringing his considerable talents to Hollywood's attention by delivering a reasonably successful film on the shoestring budget of only $60k. His next film, Assault on Precinct 13, was an homage to the Westerns of his youth and though it was passed over by American viewers in 1977 it became a smash hit in Europe and is considered responsible for launching Carpenter's career in earnest.

Carpenter's next project was Someone's Watching Me! and was overshadowed entirely by his second 1978 release, Halloween, which was a smash success not only at the box office, but also with critics and filmmakers alike, giving birth almost singlehandedly to the entire slasher genre. Carpenter's next big success came when he stepped into the sci-fi genre to write and direct Escape from New York, grossing several times its production budget and starting a recurring working relationship with Kurt Russel. Carpenter was tapped to direct the critical success Starman, but after the financial failure of the cult favorite Big Trouble in Little China he had trouble finding financing for his films and returned to making lower budget fare.

Though Carpenter's career has gone into remission in the past decade his films enjoy massive success as cult favorites and have been the targets of multiple remakes (Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, Halloween, The Thing).