A lot of people think John Carpenter’s first film was the slasher classic Halloween (1978). Not so, in fact disregarding the monster movies he made when he was a wee nipper, Carpo (as he doesn’t like to be called) belted out two movies Dark Star (1974) and Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) prior to the ‘night he came home’.
Both films have become cult classics, with Assault being rather artlessly remade in 2005. But it is Dark Star, a film Carpenter describes as, “Waiting for Godot… in space” that truly shines as a no-budget classic.
Originally Dark Star was a 45 minute student film directed and written by Carpo with Dan O’Bannon. O’Bannon went on to pen the original Alien (which you can see touches of in the form of ‘the-beach-ball-with-claws’ in Dark Star) and direct Return of the Living Dead.
Producer, Jack H. Harris was so impressed with what he saw he paid for 38 extra minutes and transferred the footage to 35mm.
The result is a strangely-paced, mix of stoner comedy, existential speculation and screwball antics. It’s 2001’s younger, hippie brother yet despite decidedly un-special effects and sparse locations it manages to be consistently entertaining, if a trifle static.
Umbrella’s DVD release contains both Carpenter’s Director’s Cut and the original theatrical version, not to mention biographies of the main principals, the theatrical trailer and a picture gallery.
This retails for less than fifteen bucks and, seriously, if you want to know where the giddy genius that brought us The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Escape From New York and They Live began you’d best nip out to the shops and buy a copy now.
This isn’t a film for everyone. It’s ponderous and patchy, with references that only ardent readers of sci-fi would get, specifically Ray Bradbury – the final moments are almost verbatim from his short story Kaleidoscope.
However any film that features a self-aware bomb with a messianic complex discussing the meaning of existence is a trippy winner and needs to be seen to be believed.
SCORE: 4/5
A brief aside: Clawsome does not condone nor recommend the use of drugs. That said, if you HAPPEN TO BE a bit of a weed fiend, bong head, stoner, joint jockey or midnight toker you’d do well to get nicely baked before viewing this. Just saying…
