Every John Carpenter Horror Movie Ranked From Worst to Best

Director John Carpenter has made some legendary—and some lesser—horror movies over his decades-long career, but how do they rank in comparison to each other? Released in 1978, Halloween was an unexpected success at the box office that soon came to define one of horror’s most famous subgenres. Although the likes of Psycho and Bob Clark’s original Black Christmas all featured elements of what would become slasher movies, Halloween was the first relentlessly effective scare machine to combine a stalking POV camera, a faceless knife-wielding villain, and a slew of teen victims for him to slice through.

Over 40 years later, the Halloween franchise is still going strong with the upcoming installment Halloween Kills set to unmask Michael Myers and pit him against Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie again. However, the original film was only the beginning of Carpenter’s many forays into horror and was followed by some of his most critically acclaimed outings. Unfortunately, the director also made a handful of lesser projects that don’t quite live up to his reputation.

Carpenter’s unbeaten streak as a genre helmer lasted throughout the ‘80s, with the helmer making everything from the underrated The Fog to the bizarre Italian horror homage Prince of Darkness. After that, the director’s ‘90s output saw him fall out of critical favor with releases like 1995’s Village of the Damned being released alongside underappreciated cult classics like the Lovecraftian-inspired horror In The Mouth of Madness. So, which is the weakest of Carpenter’s horror efforts, and which is his best horror movie ever?

10. Ghosts of Mars (2001)

The 2001 action-horror that almost killed his career, Ghosts of Mars in a rare dud from Carpenter, with the movie’s constant flashbacks leading to confusing continuity. Lead Natasha Henstridge is miscast and the movie wastes both Jason Statham and Pam Grier, making this the helmer’s weakest horror. The story is essentially Assault On Precinct 13’s siege plot remade as horror, with an outpost of cops attempting to defeat demonically-possessed Martian miners. Sci-fi and horror can work well together (as proven by Alien and its many sequels), but this uninspired outing is a case of the two proving uneasy bedfellows.

9. Village of the Damned (1995)

The Village of the Damned remake beats Ghosts of Mars because this movie’s plot is at least comprehensible. However, the overly-familiar story of a small town in the thrall of some white-haired psychic kids has little else going for it, though it does have a great cast and a few creepy moments. Carpenter’s direction is atypically lifeless (he later admitted he saw the outing as something of a “contractual obligation,” and it shows) and the punishing pace would make viewers yearn for the comparatively mile-a-minute action of King adaptation Childre of the Corn.

8. Vampires (1998)

Vampires isn’t outright bad, and the premise of mixing the titular bloodsuckers with a Western setting could have worked well. Unfortunately, as far as mash-ups go, Vampires is also no From Dusk Till Dawn, and the movie fails to find the right balance between that Robert Rodriguez outing’s fun goofiness and the darker, more self-serious horror Western Near Dark. A plot that bounces from one faceoff to another without much in the way of stakes doesn’t help this middling effort, which is elevated by a strong cast but remains a lesser Carpenter film overall.

7. The Ward (2010)

A solid return to form for Carpenter, his last movie to date The Ward is a scary – if unspectacular – slasher with a fun twist. Like the recent James Wan movie Malignant, this psychological horror spends its opening acts following a simple, retro slasher tale before taking a left turn into trippier territory near the climax. The Ward, set in an institution where the young female patients are plagued by the ghost of a former inmate, benefits from an impressive cast including Amber Heard, Lyndsy Fonseca, and Danielle Panabaker and its fusion of J-horror with classic scares makes for a decent if forgettable outing.

6. Prince of Darkness (1987)

1987’s gruesome Prince of Darkness doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then, any homage to Italian horror is almost obliged to have a sloppy, unclear plot. The characters are paper-thin but the gore, score, and camerawork are all classic Carpenter, and the choppy story is more than made up for by the impressively gross setpieces and genuinely unnerving atmosphere. Inspired not by Giallo movies but by the less famous Italian supernatural subgenre, this effort is as weird and beguiling as anything from masters like Lucio Fulci or Argento.

5. Christine (1983)

Christine sees one master of horror adapting the work of another as Carpenter takes on Stephen King, and this 1983 movie offers a fresh take on the slasher by making the killer a possessed car. Despite a seemingly silly premise, Christine is a frightening and slick outing that is one of Carpenter’s strongest. It is not quite as effective as Halloween, but Christine’s admirably stripped-back story of a likable teen and his lethal Plymouth Fury (recently referenced in Stranger Things season 3) is still an unmissable treat.

4. The Fog (1980)

The Fog is often forgotten amidst Carpenter’s legendary ‘70s-‘80s run, but the small-town horror is tense and filled with clever social commentary. It’s also a classic campfire story, replete with great jump scares and tense sequences. The ensemble cast manages to make The Fog’s loose approach to storytelling work, and Jamie Lee Curtis is stellar as always in one of her many early ‘80s horror heroine roles.

3. In The Mouth of Madness (1994)

Carpenter at his most ambitiously weird, In The Mouth of Madness is an underrated Lovecraftian effort that blurs the line between reality and fiction while also managing to provide a scary story beneath the meta-commentary. Sam Neill’s antihero travels to a small town in search of Sutter Cane, a Stephen King-like author who has taken his status as an iconic writer a step too far. The mind-melting twist is a killer ending, but the buildup is admirably reserved and deeply creepy as a result, and it is considered one of Carpenter’s last great movies.

2. Halloween (1978)

The original and (still) greatest slasher, Halloween remains a perfect distillation of the subgenre’s appeal. Less uneven than the surprisingly slow Friday the 13th, Halloween keeps its scares coming with each sequence building on the last and the tension rising despite the lengthy preamble to the kills. When the violence does arrive, it is less bloody than many viewers remember, but it is a testament to Carpenter’s direction that the climax never feels stretched or silly and instead manages to remain tense so many decades later.

1. The Thing (1982)

Carpenter’s scariest movie despite stiff competition, The Thing took Alien’s idea of combining R-rated horror with sci-fi trappings and replaced the Alien’s lethal Xenomorph with a paranoia-inducing body horror nightmare. A masterclass in building suspense, The Thing manages to be foreboding even before the still-staggering practical FX takes over proceedings, and the sparse script forces viewers to invest in the gruff, limited cast despite the bleak atmosphere making their inevitable fates clear. Criminally underrated upon initial release, The Thing became a cult phenomenon in the decades since and is now rightly regarded as the pinnacle of John Carpenter’s horror filmmaking craft.

About The Author

Cathal Gunning
(1446 Articles Published)

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

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