CIGARETTE BURNS (2005: Dir. John Carpenter)
Having strip-mined his own sci-fi horror oeuvre for the self-referential satire of Ghosts of Mars (2001), John Carpenter was clearly experiencing an extended period of creative burn-out when he received an attractive offer to return to his television roots. Showtime, the cable channel who had previously been unable to come to terms with Carpenter over his proposed portmanteau series Body Bags in 1993, had partnered with former film journalist turned writer-director Mick Garris to create an anthology show based on a series of raucous Hollywood dinner parties attended by a who's who of horror auteurs. Dubbed Masters of Horror, each 60 minute episode would be directed by a different veteran filmmaker, each enjoying complete artistic freedom in the matter of subject and content, within certain budgetary limitations. Appealing to these rebel outsiders who had been repeatedly worn down by the Hollywood development process, Showtime were able to attract a rogue's gallery of talent behind the camera. Enthusiastically joining Carpenter were many of his ghoulish contemporaries including John Landis, Joe Dante, Don Coscarelli, and Larry Cohen. The results were an often refreshing return to form, and in Carpenter's case, a brilliant book-end to his continued obsession with the supernatural apocalypse. Written by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan, John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, as his segment is entitled, could be read as a sly reference to the director's own oral addiction, as much as it refers to the vernacular for the ring-shaped reel-change markers that appear in the top right-hand corner of a projected celluloid frame of film. These markers have ominously begun appearing in the nightmares of the story's protagonist Kirby, a repertory cinema owner and film detective, played by a suitably seedy Norman Reedus. He has been hired by reptilian film collector Udo Kier, to locate the (fictional) lost horror classic La Fin Absolue du Monde, a notoriously chimerical cinematic opus reputedly responsible for driving everyone who saw it, including its own creator, insane. Kirby is also haunted by the loss of his girlfriend Annie (Zara Taylor), whom he was unable to save from a deadly drug overdose. Brought on by Kirby's search, reality itself seems to unravel, allowing Carpenter to stage imaginative scenes of the coming cataclysm, running the gambit from disquieting dread to giggling gory excess. It is however, the tragedy of a lost love that hangs over the events like a veil of sadness, with the director deftly bringing the manic atmosphere into emotional focus just in time for the rushed bravura climax dictated by the abbreviated running time. Cigarette Burns signaled Carpenter's renewed relish as a compelling storyteller, and he immediately followed this up with Pro-Life, a Season 2 Masters of Horror episode satirizing fundamentalist religious groups and the ongoing U.S. abortion debate. This brief burst of creativity seemingly came to an end in 2010 with The Ward, a well-acted and suitably atmospheric tale of five women confined to a mental ward who become the prey of a vengeful ghost. Set in 1966 with a female dominated cast, The Ward was a fresh twist on Carpenter's typical tales of terror that disappointingly failed to engage both audiences and critics. More than half a decade later and he has still not returned to either the big or small screens, but last year he did release a album of instrumental music reminiscent of his spooky film scores. Even if Carpenter officially retires from film-making he will forever be revered for a lasting body of work, and of these horrific hallucinations none are memorable than his doomsday quartet. DVD REGION 1
