The film John Carpenter called his “favourite bad movie”
The landscape of cinema would have looked a whole lot more boring without the influence of John Carpenter, the iconic American filmmaker who contributed greatly to the shape and style of the 1980s. Helming such classic movies as Escape From New York, The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China, Carpenter rubbed shoulders with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott throughout the decade.
A lover of cinema as well as one of its greatest filmmakers, Carpenter has never been afraid to voice his opinions regarding his favourite movies and directors. Indeed, when listing his ten favourite movies of all time, he included films from such iconic filmmakers as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, picking the likes of The Searchers, Vertigo and Chimes at Midnight, respectively.
Elsewhere, he also listed his all-time guilty pleasure movies, naming a whole host of classic B-movies and more. Among the list was one of John Wayne’s only directorial efforts, 1968’s Green Berets, a war flick that Carpenter said was: “Amazing extreme-right fantasy. Great siege on a firebase. Vietcong toasted on concertina wire like marshmallows. Wayne and the Green Berets sneak into a mansion, capture Vietcong bigshot and his concubine”.
But there’s one movie in his guilty pleasures list that sticks out above all the others, one which he calls his “favourite bad movie”.
Speaking about the 1957 film The Giant Claw by Fred F. Sears, Carpenter proudly called the movie: “Every monster movie lover’s favourite bad movie. Absolutely brilliantly dumb. The silliest monster ever. Giant puppet chickenhawk made in Mexico. Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Morris Ankrum and the entire earth shrink in terror from the squawking anti-matter chicken”.
Continued, he added: “It’s got it all. Stock footage. Inane narration. Great fifties love scene aboard an airplane. Toy planes crashing. Toy helicopter landing. Toy train destroyed. Toy cities destroyed. The ultimate”.
An eccentric actor and director, The Giant Claw wasn’t the only monster movie Sears helmed, also making The Werewolf back in 1956. The Giant Claw told the story of a mysterious UFO, which was actually a giant bird terrorising the skies across the globe, destroying everything in its path, and starred the likes of Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday and Morris Ankrum.
Take a look at the trailer for the cult favourite, The Giant Claw, below, and give it a whirl if you fancy a bombastic monster flick.
