John Carpenter Retrospective at CINEMATEK

From 2 September to 30 October, CINEMATEK presents a complete retrospective of John Carpenter, “the master of the horror genre.” A true total filmmaker, Carpenter has often taken on directing, screenwriting and composing himself. His distinctive style combines precise visual storytelling with economical filmmaking, creating maximum suspense while keeping form and substance closely intertwined. From his early works Dark Star (1974) and Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) to the seminal Halloween (1978), he developed a signature language built on tension, suggestion and genre-crossing, with Halloween becoming a defining blueprint for the modern slasher. Throughout the 1980s, films such as Escape from New York (1981) and The Thing (1982) broadened his scope, exploring dystopian futures, paranoia and moral collapse, while Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and They Live (1988) combined action, satire and social commentary.