ACW1996: Escape from LA

Debra Hill is back.

John Carpenter. Escape from LA. 1996.

Wow! Debra Hill is back as a producer!

John Carpenter is known as a genre director, but this is the only sequel he’s done. He didn’t even direct any of the Halloween sequels.

The highest-rated review on imdb says that it’s a misunderstood masterpieve but it’s also “near self-parody”, which is kinda confusing.

We’ve got Stacy Keach back from the hilarious Body Bags anthology film, and, of course, we’ve got Kurt Russell back from, well, all the other Carpenter films.

And watching this, the main thought I have is… why? But I guess the answer is on imdb: “Budget: $50,000,000 (estimated)” So this is more money than Carpenter ever had when making a film.

“The future is right now.”

Kurt Russel soldiers through, but there’s no fun here; no plot; not reason for this film to exist. It’s the first Carpenter film I’ve watched where I’ve thought “where did the budget go?”

It’s just so joyless.

I do appreciate the ending. It’s kinda apt today.

This post is part of the A Carpenter Winter series.

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