John Carpenter's Watchcast Schedule for October 2022

Greetings, Nextlanders! It's Alex here once again to give you the rundown on the upcoming Watchcast schedule for October. As this is legally recognized as the spooky month, we're putting Star Trek on hiatus until November to fully dig into some classic horror and horror-like films. Our theme for our very first spooky Watchcast series features a director very near and dear to my heart, The Horror Master himself, John Carpenter. With five Mondays in the month, we've got five of the man's masterworks on the docket for your viewing and listening pleasure. Here's what's posting when!

October 3rd: The Thing (1982)

OK, we're definitely opening with what would by all rights be the closer any other time, but there's something to be said with just getting the biggest banger out of the way right out of the gate. Carpenter's once misunderstood adaptation of the novella "Who Goes There?" has rightfully come to be understood as one of the greatest horror films of all time, and a major achievement in practical monster effects. This is the only one on the slate for this month that we've all seen before, but we still had plenty to talk about with this stone cold classic. Though not required watching for the podcast, we do also chat a little about the original The Thing from Another World and the 2011 prequel in here.

October 10th: Prince of Darkness (1987)

To round out our selection of films for this month, our Mission Control and Mysterious Benefactor patrons voted on one of four possible choices, and they ultimately landed on the second movie in Carpenter's loose "Apocalypse Trilogy", a slow-burn and extremely weird movie about what happens when you discover a jar of Satan in your basement. Neither of the other guys have seen this one, and I haven't seen it in at least two decades, so this is gonna be a fun one to revisit.

October 17th: In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

The third film in the aforementioned Apocalypse Trilogy, and my favorite among Carpenter's less-seen works, In the Mouth of Madness was, for its time, about as close as anyone got to doing a Lovecraftian story in movies--and, more specifically, doing it well. It's a strange, lumpy film that doesn't always fit together, but it's got some incredible, madness-inducing vibes, and Sam Neill is at the top of his game here as a man sent to uncover what happened to a horror writer gone missing. Also, the opening theme shreds so much harder than it has any right to. Another one that neither of the other guys has seen, and I'm dying to see their reactions to it.

October 24th: They Live (1988)

Arguably the least horror of the bunch we're watching this month, I included it because A. It rules, and Brad somehow has never watched it. And despite it not being exactly capital-H Horror, there's some good dread here as "Rowdy" Roddy Piper stumbles his way through a vast alien conspiracy and spends 15 minutes beating the piss out of Keith David to convince him something is very, very wrong. I truly love this movie, and the alien design, rubbery as it is, is iconic.

October 31st: Halloween (1978)

Look, if we're gonna have one of these post on literal Halloween, it's gotta be the Halloween one, right? You can't not do that. So we're doing that! Shockingly, not even Vinny has seen this one, so both of the guys will finally get to see how the incredibly durable and long-lasting Halloween franchise kicked off! Turns out it's with a well-crafted, if unusually sedate slasher film that really doesn't do much to tip off just how batshit the movies that came after eventually got. For folks watching at home, most of these movies have pretty good-to-great commentaries featuring Carpenter and one of the stars, and if you've seen Halloween already, listening to him and Jamie Lee Curtis talk through making the film is a great way to re-experience it. (The The Thing and They Live commentaries are also great, and feature their respective stars). 

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And that's gonna do it for October! As I've said elsewhere, Star Trek episodes will return for the month of November, and it's gonna be an all-Trek month to catch us back up, so stay tuned for that. As always, thanks for watching and listening along with us. See you at the movies!