BY MARK MAWSTON
Three days before the
launch of the new Halloween film and
40 years since the original was released, Cinema Retro’s Mark Mawston was
invited to photograph the London leg of the new tour by the original films
director John Carpenter. As with his concert
here two years ago, John’s set was littered with some of his finest moments;
themes that have transcended their mere film score monikers to become rock music
synth classics in their own right. Tunes such as The Fog, accompanied as it was by dry ice and clips from the film itself,
projected onto screens around the stage, were nirvana for those many fans gathered
to witnesses the maverick director’s other great contribution to cinema: his music,
played live on stage.
The theme from Halloween has become so imbued with the
world psyche that it is now challenging Chopsticks as the tune most children
learn to play first on the piano. Carpenter’s simple- yet -deadly- scores have always
been as important as the characters from his films such as Michael Myers and
Snake Plissken in helping make many of his movies eternal cult favorites. Many
of those films weren’t hits when first released but, like so many great slow-
burning albums, are now seen as genre classics and are continuing to grow in
stature, finding new fans in successive generations. One hopes that the forthcoming
Halloween film is as good as the new
music that Carpenter previewed at the concert; a reinvention the fans craved
where the tricks on screen hopefully match the treats that were heard here.