“I’m extremely proud”: John Carpenter names the single greatest scene of his career
Having directed several of cinema’s most iconic cult classics, ask 100 people to name their favourite John Carpenter scene, and you’ll get a few different answers. However, ask John Carpenter to name his favourite John Carpenter scene, and you’ll only get one.
For some, the knockdown, drag-out brawl between Roddy Piper and Keith David in They Live can’t be bettered, while for others, it’s hard to look beyond the first time Michael Myers claims a victim onscreen in Halloween, and that’s barely the tip of the iceberg.
Dan O’Bannon’s Pinback being stalked by a spherical alien in an elevator shaft in Dark Star, that man Piper again informing a room full of alien impostors that he’s there to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and, unfortunately for them, finds himself out of bubblegum, or Snake Plissken’s unforgettable introduction in Escape from New York are also worthy of consideration.
When a filmmaker makes such indelible movies, it’s only natural that they’re filled with indelible moments. There are few, if any, directors who’ve single-handedly been responsible for as much cult greatness as Carpenter, but he’s not one of those helmers who refuses to play favourites because it’s like naming a preferred child.
The above examples only cover a handful of his most famous flicks, too, and there are no doubt some staunch supporters of Christine, In the Mouth of Madness, The Fog, and Starman who believe each of them contains at least one sequence that deserves to be placed among the top tier.
Not that Carpenter cares, though, since he knows what sits at the very top. When asked to name the best scene from his entire filmography, he didn’t hesitate. “I did love, and I’m very proud of the blood-test scene in The Thing,” he declared. “I’m extremely proud of that. I worked on it; it’s a storytelling scene.”
There are several standout scenes in his 1982 masterpiece of nail-biting tension and grotesque body horror, most of which involve the practical effects. That’s what you’d expect from a horror movie that lives and dies by the way it presents its most terrifying moments, but the brains behind the picture preferred a quieter, more introspective exchange.
Carpenter has never really been known as a story-first director, but you can’t fault the blood testing. It’s a masterclass in slowly ratcheting up the anxiety to nerve-shredding levels, and all it requires are a few drops of blood from the key characters to prove that they aren’t serving as the host for an extra-terrestrial entity hell-bent on death and destruction.
It might not even be everyone’s favourite scene from The Thing, but Carpenter stands by it as the finest few minutes he’s ever committed to celluloid, and it’s hard to disagree with the man himself.
