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The no-nonsense, often inspired director of unabashedly formulaic
genre pictures, Carpenter has persistently essayed science fiction,
horror and other exploitation-movie fields but with a decreasing rate
of returns. Having caught the attention with the inventive Dark Star,
and scored heavily with the classic Halloween, which remains his
biggest commercial hit, he subsequently had problems knowing what to
do with bigger budgets and stars. In his best films, like The Thing and
Assault on Precinct 13, he matches taut pace, flashes of wit, and
photographic elegance with a sense of camaraderie among an ensemble
cast, or laconic loner humour, like that of Snake Plissken in the Escape
films.
Tim Robey
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