With unforgettable movies like Escape from New York, The Thing, They Live, Halloween and Assault on Precint 13 in his filmography, John Carpenter’s legacy as a supreme writer-director of genre cinema - and being a pretty mean synth score composer as well- is secure. The huge success of last year's Halloween, a direct sequel to his original genre-defining 1978 slasher, and which he executive produced and scored, only confirms how potent his cinematic creations remain. This year sees Deptford Cinema honour the master of cult cinema with a retrospective of his finest films, and included in the line up will be the recent remastered editions of Dark Star, The Fog, The Thing, Escape From New York, Big Trouble in Little China and They Live!
STARMAN:
Having crashed to Earth, an extraterrestrial space traveller must assume a human identity lest he be captured by the authorities. The alien (Jeff Bridges) chooses the likeness of the recently deceased husband of Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen). At first dumbstruck, Jenny becomes both hostile toward and frightened of her guest. He gradually wins her confidence, learning a few vital English-language phrases so that he can explain his presence. The "starman" has come to Earth with a message of peace, in response to the similar message sent out on Voyager One. He asks for Jenny's help in transporting him to the Nevada desert, where his fellow aliens are to pick him up and take him to his home planet. Soon he and Jenny form a united front against a mean-spirited National Security Council agent (Richard Jaeckel), who intends to seize the starman and turn him over for scientific scrutiny (and possible extermination). While en route to Nevada, Jenny grows closer to the gentle-natured Starman, eventually making love with him. By the time he is poised to leave, she is carrying his child, leaving the field wide open for a sequel--which was never produced, though a weekly TV version surfaced in 1986.
dir. John Carpenter
year. 1984
115 min
£6.00 (£4.50 conc.)
Doors 7:30PM
Film 8PM
“Starman truly is one of the best genre films of the 1980s, as well as one of Carpenter’s best efforts.”