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116-505: The Necromorphs' creation and design were led by Ben Wanat, who served as production designer on the first Dead Space and creative director of Dead Space 3 , though the team did not initially settle on the Necromorphs as the main antagonistic threat. Wanat's wife came up with the term "Necromorph" at a whim later in the development of the original Dead Space ; the team found it useful as an internal reference, but decided to limit its usage to

232-469: A "shutdown" order in which the systems turn off one by one. It is also used to send false messages to hostiles, to place the tide of battle in the favor of America. The technology is later reverse-engineered by the Russian Federation to shut down American antiballistic missile satellites from a tracking station at Socotra Island, Yemen. Cyberwarfare has moved from a theoretical idea to something that

348-494: A 1985 interview with Starlog , where he said, "I was called 'a pornographer of violence'   ... I had no idea it would be received that way   ... The Thing was just too strong for that time. I knew it was going to be strong, but I didn't think it would be too strong   ... I didn't take the public's taste into consideration." While The Thing was not initially successful, it was able to find new audiences and appreciation on home video , and later on television. In

464-505: A 2.39:1 aspect ratio, generally favoring wider focal lengths. The Ward was filmed in Super 35 , the first time Carpenter has ever used that system. He has stated that he feels the 35 mm Panavision anamorphic format is "the best movie system there is" and prefers it to both digital and 3D . In a 2016 interview, Carpenter stated that it was his father's work as a music teacher which first sparked an interest in him to make music. This interest

580-400: A Lurker sound sample included in an article published by Game Informer , Veca explained that the first few hundred milliseconds of the vocalization is a "cute" baby coo, which cross-fades into a mix of a leopard's roar and child's scream, and ends with the sound cross-fading into a lower lion growl as well as a minute amount of processing on some of the other elements. Some early concepts of

696-624: A beginning film course at USC Cinema during 1969, Carpenter wrote and directed an 8-minute short film, Captain Voyeur . The film was rediscovered in the USC archives in 2011 and proved interesting because it revealed elements that would appear in his later film, Halloween (1978). The next year he collaborated with producer John Longenecker as co-writer, film editor, and music composer for The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film . The short film

812-505: A chain reaction-type nuclear bomb in his 1944 science-fiction story " Deadline ", which led to the FBI investigating him, due to concern over a potential breach of security on the Manhattan Project . The use of radiological , biological , and chemical weapons is another common theme in science fiction. In the aftermath of World War I, the use of chemical weapons, particularly poison gas,

928-521: A classic of the genre. Carpenter's next film, Christine , was the 1983 adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name . The story concerns a high-school nerd named Arnie Cunningham ( Keith Gordon ) who buys a junked 1958 Plymouth Fury which turns out to have supernatural powers. As Cunningham restores and rebuilds the car, he becomes unnaturally obsessed with it, with deadly consequences. Christine did respectable business upon its release and

1044-463: A core solution for the Necromorph threat early in development, with the result that it became an informing element to all relevant concepts surrounding the Necromorphs. In Wanat's view, players ought to approach strategic dismemberment in combat scenarios like a brain teaser: for example, slashers are intentionally designed with long arms that extend above their head to create opportunities for players. If

1160-647: A critical reassessment in the United States, where it is now generally regarded as one of the best exploitation films of the 1970s. Carpenter both wrote and directed the Lauren Hutton thriller Someone's Watching Me! . This television film is the tale of a single, working woman who, soon after arriving in L.A., discovers that she is being stalked . Eyes of Laura Mars , a 1978 thriller featuring Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones and directed by Irvin Kershner ,

1276-553: A cult following, Escape from L.A. (1996), the sequel of the cult classic Escape from New York , which received mixed reviews but gained a cult following since then and Vampires (1998), which featured James Woods as the leader of a band of vampire hunters in league with the Catholic Church. During 1998, Carpenter composed the soundtrack (titled "Earth/Air") for the video game Sentinel Returns , published for PC and PlayStation . In 2001, his film Ghosts of Mars

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1392-613: A decade. Tim Turi from Game Informer lauded the Necromorphs as some of the most grotesque enemies he "ever had the pleasure of dismembering in a video game". Ben Reeves, also from Game Informer , praised Veca's effective use of layering familiar sounds to unnerve players and "fool their minds into fear" by exploiting the human subconscious. The Necromorphs have appeared in numerous "top" lists published by sources such as IGN , Paste Magazine and GamesRadar . IGN also described Necromorph as one of their favorite video game monsters of all time. The opportunity to play as Necromorphs in

1508-451: A diverse variety of Necromorph forms posed some unique challenges for the team, with some forms requiring a redesign in order to function practically within certain levels and environments. The limitations of the in-game engine also presented a major influence over the design process, requiring team members to come up with solutions which work around these restrictions or discard certain Necromorph monster concepts altogether. The audio design of

1624-508: A few exceptions, he has scored all of his films (some of which he co-scored), most famously the themes from Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13 . His music is generally synthesized with accompaniment from piano and atmospherics. Carpenter is known for his widescreen shot compositions and is an outspoken proponent of Panavision anamorphic cinematography. With some exceptions, all of his films were shot in Panavision anamorphic format with

1740-446: A film I would love to have seen as a kid, full of cheap tricks like a haunted house at a fair where you walk down the corridor and things jump out at you". The film has often been cited as an allegory on the virtue of sexual purity and the danger of casual sex, although Carpenter has explained that this was not his intent: "It has been suggested that I was making some kind of moral statement. Believe me, I'm not. In Halloween , I viewed

1856-453: A ghostly revenge tale (co-written by Hill) inspired by horror comics such as Tales from the Crypt and by The Crawling Eye , a 1958 film about monsters hiding in clouds. Completing The Fog was an unusually difficult process for Carpenter. After viewing a rough cut of the film, he was dissatisfied with the result. For the only time in his filmmaking career, he had to devise a way to salvage

1972-627: A hope that the Necromorphs would stand the test of time as a memorable and unique archetype in horror fiction. For the 2023 remake of the original Dead Space , Necromorphs have bones underneath limbs which players must blast with precision in order to complete the dismemberment, otherwise the limb would be left dangling if a small amount of flesh is left behind on the wound. Necromorphs have multiple layers of defense for players to deal with, such as flesh that peels away as they are struck with high-damage, low-precision weapons, or bits of clothing and body armour that players must take into consideration. This

2088-482: A landmark depiction of horror themes within the video game industry. Caty McCarthy from USGamer described the Necromorphs to be a revolting yet memorable mixture of the Alien franchise's facehuggers and common tropes from gruesome zombie films , and that their penchant for emerging from unexpected spaces to ambush the player character is "exhilarating". She suggested that much of the critical acclaim and fan following of

2204-411: A list of requirements should he direct the film; they were: 100 percent creative control, the right to assume scriptwriting duties, being able to co-compose the film's musical score, total editorial control, the casting of Brian Dennehy as Santa Claus and a $ 5 million signing-on fee (the same amount that the film's star Dudley Moore was receiving). Salkind withdrew his offer for him to direct. After

2320-467: A long history, beginning with the abortive 1960s Hardiman powered exoskeleton project at General Electric , and continuing into the 21st century. The borrowing between fiction and reality has worked both ways, with the power loader from the film Aliens resembling the prototypes of the Hardiman system. American military research on high-power laser weapons started in the 1960s, and has continued to

2436-598: A low, horizontal target which took up a significant amount of space on the floor: from the initial design of a fairly large creature composed of multiple bodies, the Leaper was downsized to a smaller, simpler design based on the upper torso of a single human body to allow the character model easier access to navigate spaces within in-game levels. Other creatures have different needs: the Lurker need flat walls to path along, whereas Slashers needed to be able to pass around one another to reach

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2552-531: A minimum as it does not match the serious tone of the video games series' narrative. The artistic direction on the various strains of distorted Necromorph monsters drew inspiration from seminal works such as John Carpenter 's The Thing , System Shock , and Resident Evil 4 . The Necromorphs are intended to instill a sense of unease from the player's fleeting glimpses of their former humanity, though later games introduce other variants made from non-human biomass like dogs and alien lifeforms. Each Necromorph form

2668-483: A more optimistic take on alien visitation. The impact on Carpenter was immediate – he lost the job of directing the 1984 science fiction horror film Firestarter because of The Thing ' s poor performance. His previous success had gained him a multiple-film contract at Universal, but the studio opted to buy him out of it instead. He continued making films afterward but lost confidence, and did not openly talk about The Thing ' s failure until

2784-459: A multiplayer mode where players could assume the role of various Necromorph forms in player versus player team battles between human and Necromorph forces. In Dead Space 3 , Necromorph forms reconstituted from mummified human remains or a long-extinct alien species are also introduced, the Feeder, based on wendigo , which Feeders are a necromorph created when a human consumes Necromorph flesh, along with

2900-451: A nearly finished film that did not meet his standards. In order to make the film more coherent and frightening, Carpenter filmed additional footage that included a number of new scenes. Despite production problems and mostly negative critical reception, The Fog was another commercial success for Carpenter. The film was made on a budget of $ 1,000,000, but it grossed over $ 21,000,000 in the United States alone. Carpenter has said that The Fog

3016-487: A number of fictional universes. Nuclear weapons are a staple element in science-fiction novels. The phrase "atomic bomb" predates their existence, and dates back to H. G. Wells ' The World Set Free (1914), when scientists had discovered that radioactive decay implied potentially limitless energy locked inside of atomic particles (Wells' atomic bombs were only as powerful as conventional explosives, but would continue exploding for days on end). Cleve Cartmill predicted

3132-424: A recurring feature in science fiction . In some cases, weapons first introduced in science fiction have been made a reality; other science-fiction weapons remain purely fictional, and are often beyond the realms of known physical possibility. At its most prosaic, science fiction features an endless variety of sidearms —mostly variations on real weapons such as guns and swords . Among the best-known of these are

3248-434: A script, directed the script, did the casting. 'Halloween' is his movie, and besides, the script came to him already titled anyway. He liked 'Black Christmas' and may have been influenced by it, but John Carpenter did not copy the idea. Fifteen other people had thought to do a movie called 'Halloween,' but the script came to John with that title on it. The film was written by Carpenter and Debra Hill with Carpenter stating that

3364-520: A soldier trained in many styles of combat and weaponry, or unable to feel pain), or a mixture of both. In a future timeline of the series, the technology has been devised into a mass weapon, able to "remote wipe" anyone and replace them with any personality. A war erupts between those controlling actives, and "actuals" (a term to describe those still retaining their original personas). An offshoot technology allows actual people to upload upgrades to their personas (such as fighting or language skills), similar to

3480-709: A special unit called the Swooping Hawks equipped with a "lasblaster". In the Command & Conquer video game series, various factions make extensive use of laser and particle-beam technology. The most notable are Allied units Prism Tank from Red Alert 2 and Athena Cannon from Red Alert 3 , the Nod's Avatar and Obelisk of Light from Tiberium Wars , as well as various units from Generals constructed by USA faction, including their "superweapon" particle cannon. Weapons using plasma (high-energy ionized gas) have been featured in

3596-527: A stalker, Carpenter took the idea and another suggestion from Yablans that it occur during Halloween and developed a story. Carpenter said of the basic concept: "Halloween night. It has never been the theme in a film. My idea was to do an old haunted house film." Film director Bob Clark suggested in an interview released in 2005 that Carpenter had asked him for his own ideas for a sequel to his 1974 film Black Christmas (written by Roy Moore) that featured an unseen and motiveless killer murdering students in

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3712-540: A subtle way. Using the diminutive Lurkers as an example of his creative process for Necromorph sounds, Veca explained in a feature published by Game Informer in December 2009 that the designers wanted the Lurkers to sound childlike, yet mean and menacing at the same time. To achieve this, Veda decided to use a toddler's sounds, then carefully layered them with a mixture of intimidating sounds made by leopards and lion. Referencing

3828-626: A target. Examples of such weapons include Jules Verne 's "fulgurator" and the "glass arrow" of the Comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam . A classic science-fiction weapon, particularly in British and American science-fiction novels and films, is the raygun . A very early example of a raygun is the Heat-Ray featured in H. G. Wells ' The War of the Worlds (1898). The discovery of X-rays and radioactivity in

3944-527: A university sorority house. As also stated in the 2009 documentary Clarkworld (written and directed by Clark's former production designer Deren Abram after Clark's tragic death in 2007), Carpenter directly asked Clark about his thoughts on developing the anonymous slasher in Black Christmas : ...I did a film about three years later, started a film with John Carpenter, it was his first film for Warner Bros. (which picked up 'Black Christmas'), he asked me if I

4060-465: A virtual battleground in which battles are fought using software weapons and counterweapons. The Star Trek episode " A Taste of Armageddon " is another notable example. Certain Dale Brown novels place cyberweapons in different roles. The first is the "netrusion" technology used by the U.S. Air Force. It sends corrupt data to oncoming missiles to shut them down, as well as hostile aircraft by giving them

4176-412: Is because the Necromorphs could jump scare players anytime and anywhere, especially when they pass by ventilation shaft openings. Design work on the Necromorphs further evolved in subsequent sequels to the first Dead Space , with other designers besides Wanat in an expanded development team contributing their own ideas to create fresh content for the sequels, such as new Necromorph forms. Wanat noted that

4292-497: Is characterized by a number of notable failures including Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) and Village of the Damned (1995). Also notable from this decade are Body Bags , a television horror anthology film that was made in collaboration with Tobe Hooper , In the Mouth of Madness (1995), a Lovecraftian homage which did not do well either commercially nor with critics but now has

4408-509: Is encountered as the final boss of the first Dead Space . Subsequent sequels and entries in other media have explored the Necromorphs' origins and introduced further new or different takes of Necromorph forms. Dead Space 2 introduced forms such as the Pack, children who are twisted into horrific forms, and the Puker, which vomits a short range, acidic projectile as an offensive ability. It also introduced

4524-409: Is intended to have an improvised aesthetic, with body organs crudely repurposed or modified to increase its capacity for grievous bodily harm of its victims. For example, a Necromorph form may have bone shards that have broken into teeth-like protrusions which are not literally teeth, or possess wings which are organs that have been bent backwards and stretched. The design process involved with creating

4640-437: Is intended to help indicate what the player's attacks are doing even when they are not actively aiming for dismemberment of their limbs. Don Veca, who had the position of audio director at Visceral Games, was responsible for the audio design of the Necromorphs. According to Veca, refining the sound design and foley for each Necromorph form took "weeks of planning and iteration". To create a "truly terrifying" aural experience with

4756-667: Is not his favorite film, although he considers it a "minor horror classic". Carpenter immediately followed The Fog with the science-fiction adventure Escape from New York (1981). Featuring several actors that Carpenter had collaborated with ( Kurt Russell , Donald Pleasence , Adrienne Barbeau , Tom Atkins , Charles Cyphers , and Frank Doubleday ) or would collaborate with again ( Harry Dean Stanton ), as well as several notable actors ( Lee Van Cleef and Ernest Borgnine ), it became both commercially successful (grossing more than $ 25 million) and critically acclaimed (with an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes ). His next film, The Thing (1982),

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4872-430: Is notable for its high production values, including innovative special effects by Rob Bottin , special visual effects by matte artist Albert Whitlock , a score by Ennio Morricone and a cast including Russell and respected character actors such as Wilford Brimley , Richard Dysart , Charles Hallahan , Keith David , and Richard Masur . The Thing was distributed by Universal Pictures . Although Carpenter's film used

4988-482: Is now seriously considered as a threat by modern states. In a similar but unrelated series of incidents involved various groups of hackers from India and Pakistan who hacked and defaced several websites of companies and government organizations based in each other's country. The actions were committed by various groups based in both countries, but not known to be affiliated with the governments of India or Pakistan. The cyber wars are believed to have begun in 2008 following

5104-545: Is that there is an "improvised terribleness" behind the creation of each Necromorph forms from available corpses: the idea was that the infection has an insidious notion behind what the body needs to become, but is unable to mold it into that vision and thus makes due with what the raw biomass has to offer. A major aspect of the team's research for the Necromorph visual design involved the collection of medical, autopsy, and accident photos, which were kept in an office folder labeled "body trauma". In an effort to study and reimagine how

5220-536: The Dead Space franchise could be credited to the "horrifying levels of Necromorphs that Wanat and other artists at Visceral Games designed over the years". and that they have claimed a corner of their own in history, "not just in the realm of video game horror, but all horror". Tom Power concurred that plenty of the praise the first Dead Space received was due to the effective portrayal of the Necromorphs, and that they have been an iconic part of video game culture for over

5336-539: The Resident Evil franchise are important influences for the primary antagonists of the Dead Space . However, the art director of Dead Space 2 , Ian Milham, said the biology of parasitic fungus left the biggest impact on the creatures' design process and compared the contents of a mycology textbook to that of a horror novel. In his view, fungi are horrific both in their appearance and how they spread, representing an "organic and otherworldly" feel that he wanted to evoke as

5452-698: The phaser —used in the Star Trek television series, films, and novels—and the lightsaber and blaster —featured in Star Wars movies, comics, novels, and TV shows. Besides adding action and entertainment value, weaponry in science fiction sometimes touches on deeper concerns and becomes a theme , often motivated by contemporary issues. One example is science fiction that deals with weapons of mass destruction . Weapons of early science-fiction novels were usually bigger and better versions of conventional weapons, effectively more advanced methods of delivering explosives to

5568-646: The 1970s and 1980s, he is generally recognized as a master of the horror genre. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival , the French Directors' Guild gave him the Golden Coach Award and lauded him as "a creative genius of raw, fantastic, and spectacular emotions". Carpenter's early films included critical and commercial successes such as Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), and Starman (1984). Though he has been acknowledged as an influential filmmaker, his other productions from

5684-663: The 1970s and the 1980s only later came to be considered cult classics ; these include Dark Star (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), They Live (1988), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), and Escape from L.A. (1996). He returned to the Halloween franchise as a composer and executive producer on Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), and Halloween Ends (2022). Carpenter usually composes or co-composes

5800-595: The 2008 Dead Space comic book series, the inaugural release of the multimedia Dead Space franchise which was published between March and August 2008. They are highly aggressive reanimated undead creatures which originate from the strange powers exhibited by alien artifacts known as the Markers emitted through signals, which cause paranoia and hallucinations to living beings in its vicinity, which leads them to engage in strange behavior or violently attack each other. Upon their deaths, their corpses are reconstituted or repurposed by

5916-505: The 22nd century, Daleks are claimed to have invaded Earth after it was bombarded with meteorites and a plague wiped out entire continents. A subgenre of science fiction, postapocalyptic fiction , uses the aftermath of nuclear or biological warfare as its setting. The Death Star is the Star Wars equivalent to a weapon of mass destruction, and as such, might be the most well-known weapon of mass destruction in science fiction. The idea of cyberwarfare , in which wars are fought within

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6032-646: The Air . Arthur C. Clarke envisaged particle beam weapons in his 1955 novel Earthlight , in which energy would be delivered by high-velocity beams of matter. After the invention of the laser in 1960, it briefly became the death ray of choice for science-fiction writers. For instance, characters in the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage (1964) and in the Lost in Space TV series (1965–1968) carried handheld laser weapons. By

6148-512: The Flier, which was meant to be a recurring flying enemy type in zero gravity spaces that would crawl on the walls once the player had disabled its wings, or a conjoined pair of monsters called the Tentacle Slinger which could still work together to confront the player even after they are severed in two. In December 2009, Game Informer published an article which explores the thought process behind

6264-591: The Lurker, mutated human infants who crawl along walls and produce three long tendrils capable of shooting projectiles at the player character; the Brute, a large Necromorph form composed of multiple human corpses; and the Spitter, which could deliver charged attacks from long distances. A gigantic Necromorph form known as the Hive Mind is portrayed as being capable of telepathically commanding other Necromorphs within its vicinity, and

6380-577: The Marker signal, then broken and twisted into something else in a violent and improvisational manner. In the case of the Slasher, the most common and recognizable Necromorph form, the body seemingly rips itself open and develop extra limbs that are used to impale and tear apart potential victims. The 2008 Dead Space title introduced several Necromorph forms. Notable examples include Leapers, capable of jumping great distances with their powerful tail-like appendage;

6496-573: The Mumbai attacks believed to be by a group of Indian cyber groups hacking into Pakistani websites. Hours after the cyber attacks, a number of Indian websites (both government and private) were attacked by groups of Pakistani hackers, claiming to be retaliation for Indian attacks on Pakistani websites. The back and forth attacks have persisted on occasions since then. Themes of brainwashing , conditioning, memory-erasing , and other mind-control methods as weapons of war feature in much science fiction of

6612-472: The Necromorphs is the "strategic limb dismemberment" mechanic. To properly eliminate most Necromorph forms, the player must utilize a handheld mining tool modified into an improvised weapon known as the Plasma Cutter , and completely cut off the limbs, heads or other protruding features of a Necromorph with it to halt their advancement. Designer Ben Wanat was primarily responsible for the concept and design of

6728-574: The Necromorphs were discarded early in the development of the Dead Space intellectual property because they look too much like a highly evolved organism, which does not fit into the creative vision of the Dead Space franchise. Other Necromorph forms saw actual development but were ultimately cut prior to the completion of development for some individual titles due to technological limitations, or were otherwise considered unsatisfactory in terms of its implementation during game testing. Monster concepts that were discarded due to technical constraints included

6844-629: The Necromorphs!' You know, it's just ridiculous." — Ben Wanat, "Monster of the Week: The Godfather of the Necromorph on Creating Dead Space's Famous Creature" Wanat's wife came up with the term "Necromorph" to describe the undead antagonists of the Dead Space series, after she perused the creatures' conceptual designs and thought they were alien forms made out of corpses. The composite words "necro" and "morph", of Greek origin , mean "death" and "to change" respectively. The team considered "Necromorph" to be an appropriate out-of-universe name for

6960-507: The Necromorphs, Veca took inspiration from sounds made by real life wild animals, which from a scientific perspective conveys subconscious messages to humanity's primal instincts in preparation for imminent danger. He paid particular attention to recordings of animals which make "freaky sounds" when subjected to "unique situations". The final product is created by layering and interweaving pieces of noises made by up to five or six different animals, twisted to sound unrecognizable but yet familiar in

7076-405: The Necromorphs, which involves a layering technique that combines human and animal sounds, is an important element of their portrayal as horror-themed antagonists. A staple antagonistic force across all franchise media, the Necromorphs of Dead Space have been recognized by critics as one of the most influential and memorable video game depictions of horror themes. The Necromorphs first appear in

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7192-528: The Necromorphs: production on their basic concept commenced in January 2006, with Wanat and his team at EA Redwood Shores, who were rebranded to Visceral Games in 2009, finalizing their work 18 months later. Wanat recalled that his team planned for the introduction of enemy archetypes from a design perspective early in development, with the first Leaper and Slasher concepts ready within the first two to three months. It

7308-610: The United States in July 2011. It received generally poor reviews from critics and grossed only $ 5.3 million worldwide against an estimated $ 10 million budget. As of 2024, it is his most recent directorial effort. Carpenter narrated the video game F.E.A.R. 3 , while also consulting on its storyline. On October 10, 2010, Carpenter received the Lifetime Award from the Freak Show Horror Film Festival. On February 3, 2015,

7424-493: The asymmetrical multiplayer mode of Dead Space 2 received a more mixed response. Quintin Smith assessed footage of the multiplayer mode's beta phase and found it to be somewhat boring. He criticized the quality of Necromorph animations within said footage and opined that it failed to make a good case for players to choose to play as Necromorphs, as opposed to the "excellent array of weaponry" which could be wielded by human characters. On

7540-445: The basis of the Necromorph corruption. Milham said the spread of Necromorph infection is similar in nature to that of typical parasitic fungus, in that the sparse, surface-level manifestations of a seemingly isolated Necromorph outbreak are in fact a "small part of a much bigger, sometimes vast, network of strands", connected together on a galactic scale and "taking over anything and everything it comes across.” The team's creative vision

7656-419: The characters as simply normal teenagers." In addition to the film's critical and commercial success, Carpenter's self-composed "Halloween Theme" became recognizable apart from the film. In 1979, Carpenter began what was to be the first of several collaborations with actor Kurt Russell when he directed the television film Elvis . Carpenter followed up the success of Halloween with The Fog (1980),

7772-536: The concept of an unused Necromorph form known as the "Flytrap". According to Milham, the Flytrap was an attempt by the development team to introduce an enemy type which serves as "half environmental hazard and half enemy" that would travel along the ceiling and dangle down to snare the player character using a lure. Its intended role was to slow players down and immerse them into a world that is "organic and logical". The Necromorphs have been unanimously acclaimed by critics as

7888-464: The creatures and congruent with series lore, but not a term characters within the Dead Space universe would say to other characters in dialog or for the player's reference. Wanat explained that the name sounds silly to him and the rest of the team when it is said out loud, and a conscious decision was made by the team to minimize the use of the term within the fiction of the franchise itself. The 1982 horror film The Thing and depiction of zombies in

8004-476: The cutter's barrel on the spot to aim more effectively at the enemy's limbs. A fourth main series title for Dead Space was planned by Visceral Studios but never realized following its closure. Wanat noted that the Necromorphs were intended to be a bigger threat in zero gravity environments for the canceled sequel, and suggested that a new enemy type would have the capability of snaking through zero gravity corridors and propelling itself in open space to grapple with

8120-510: The designers came up with grotesque features based on actual human anatomy: a signature hook for each individual form may include bat-like wings, large bladed arms, or tentacles that spit spikes, but all of the hideous add-ons are based on actual human anatomy. For coloration, Milham explained that the designers drew from a combination of hues humanity would associate with infection and bodily organs, such as olive green, ochre, purple, and off-white. The first game's deserted space station setting and

8236-659: The eleventh entry in the Halloween film series, simply titled Halloween , released in October 2018. The film is a direct sequel to Carpenter's original film, ignoring the continuity of all other subsequent films. It was his first direct involvement with the franchise since 1982's Halloween III: Season of the Witch . Carpenter also worked as a composer and executive producer on the 2021 sequel Halloween Kills and 2022's follow-up Halloween Ends . During Summer Game Fest in June 2023, it

8352-477: The executive producer of the Superman film series , Ilya Salkind , offered Carpenter the chance to direct the latest Alexander–Ilya Salkind fantasy epic Santa Claus: The Movie . Salkind made the offer to Carpenter during lunch at The Ritz, and while he loved the idea of differing from his normal traditions and directing a children's fantasy film, he requested 24 hours to think about the offer. The next day he had made

8468-502: The film's characters. Being a graphic, sinister horror film , In a 1999 interview, Carpenter said audiences rejected The Thing for its nihilistic, depressing viewpoint at a time when the United States was in the midst of a recession . When it opened, it was competing against the critically and commercially successful E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ($ 619   million), a family-friendly film released two weeks earlier that offered

8584-484: The financial failure of his big-budget action–comedy Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Carpenter struggled to get films financed. He resumed making lower budget films such as Prince of Darkness (1987), a film influenced by the BBC series Quatermass . Although some of the films from this time, such as They Live (1988) did develop a cult audience, he never again realized mass-market potential. Carpenter's 1990s career

8700-402: The first season. His episode, " Cigarette Burns ", received generally positive reviews from critics and praise from Carpenter's fans. He later directed another original episode for the show's second season in 2006 titled " Pro-Life ". The Ward , Carpenter's first film since Ghosts of Mars , premiered at Toronto International Film Festival on September 13, 2010, before a limited release in

8816-605: The future as people came to understand what lasers could and could not do; this resulted in the move to phasers on-screen, while letting lasers be known as a more primitive weapon style. In the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, a human faction known as the Imperial Guard has a "lasgun", which is described as being a handheld laser weapon, as their main weapon, and larger cannon versions being mounted onto tanks and being carried around by Space Marines. The elf-like Aeldari , meanwhile, have

8932-435: The greatest and most elegantly constructed B-movies ever made". Trace Thurman described it as one of the best films ever, and in 2008, Empire magazine selected it as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, at number 289, calling it "a peerless masterpiece of relentless suspense, retina-wrecking visual excess and outright, nihilistic terror". It is now considered to be one of the greatest horror films ever made, and

9048-509: The immediate area. The incorporation of a ventilation shaft system, which provide alternative routes for the AI -controlled Necromorphs to reroute and regroup without forcing the developers to build additional space in the level to accommodate them, is an important solution that circumnavigates the limitations posed by the environment, and fulfill an additional goal of adding tension to the survival horror driven gameplay by serving as "monster closets": this

9164-607: The indie label Sacred Bones Records released his album Lost Themes . On October 19, 2015, All Tomorrow's Parties announced that Carpenter will be performing old and new compositions in London and Manchester , England. In February 2016, Carpenter announced a sequel to Lost Themes titled Lost Themes II , which was released on April 15 that year. He then released his third studio album, titled Anthology: Movie Themes 1974–1998 , on October 20, 2017. Carpenter returned, as executive producer, co-composer, and creative consultant, on

9280-570: The individual body parts could be rearranged into something horrific, the team realized that the more they made the Necromorphs "look like normal people who went through something terrible, the deeper the emotional impact". The Slashers in particular became more human-looking compared to initial designs in later iterations; recognizing the need for more variety with the Slashers' look, Wanat attempted to come up with new ways to differentiate each design variant and allow them to feel unique. From their research,

9396-755: The intended victims. Langford revisited the idea in a fictional FAQ on the images, published by the science journal Nature in 1999. The neuralyzer from the Men in Black films are compact objects that can erase and modify the short-term memories of witnesses by the means of a brief flash of light, ensuring that no one remembers encountering either aliens or the agents themselves. The TV series Dollhouse (2009) features technology that can "mindwipe" people (transforming them into "actives", or "dolls") and replace their inherent personalities with another one, either "real" (from another actual person's mind), fabricated (for example,

9512-566: The last years of the 19th century led to an increase in the popularity of this family of weapons, with numerous examples in the early 20th century, such as the disintegrator rays of George Griffith 's future-war novel The Lord of Labour (1911). Early science-fiction film often showed raygun beams giving off bright light and loud noise like lightning or large electric arcs . Wells also prefigured modern armored warfare with his description of tanks in his 1903 short story " The Land Ironclads ", and aerial warfare in his 1907 novel The War in

9628-470: The late 1950s and 1960s, paralleling the contemporary panic about communist brainwashing, existence of sleeper agents , and the real-world attempts of governments in programs such as MK-ULTRA to make such things real. David Langford 's short story " BLIT " (1988) posits the existence of images (called "basilisks") that are destructive to the human brain, which are used as weapons of terror by posting copies of them in areas where they are likely to be seen by

9744-473: The late 1960s and 1970s, as the laser's limits as a weapon became evident, the raygun began to be replaced by similar weapons with names that better reflected the destructive capabilities of the device. These names ranged from the generic " pulse rifle " to series-specific weapons, such as the phasers from Star Trek . According to The Making of Star Trek , Gene Roddenberry claimed that production staff realized that using laser technology would cause problems in

9860-612: The more technical aspects of recording, allowing Carpenter to focus on writing the music. The renewed interest in John Carpenter's music thanks to the Death Waltz reissues and Lost Themes albums prompted him to, for the first time ever, tour as a musician. As of 2016 , Carpenter was more focused on his music career than filmmaking, although he was involved in 2018's Halloween reboot, and its sequels. Weapons in science fiction#Plasma weaponry Strange and exotic weapons are

9976-462: The music in his films. He won a Saturn Award for Best Music for the soundtrack of Vampires (1998) and has released five studio albums: Lost Themes (2015), Lost Themes II (2016), Anthology: Movie Themes 1974–1998 (2017), Lost Themes III: Alive After Death (2021), and Lost Themes IV: Noir (2024). Since 2012, he has co-owned the comic book company Storm King Comics alongside his wife, film producer Sandy King . John Howard Carpenter

10092-444: The music was inspired by both Dario Argento 's Suspiria (which also influenced the film's slightly surreal color scheme) and William Friedkin 's The Exorcist . Carpenter again worked with a relatively small budget, $ 300,000. The film grossed more than $ 65 million initially, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time. Carpenter has described Halloween as "true crass exploitation. I decided to make

10208-416: The new settings introduced in the Dead Space sequels influenced the design for each iteration of the Necromorphs, and provide a different "flavor". For example, a tall monster that uses its tongue to choke the player character and replaces his head with its own was described by Wanat as a "cool, bizarre but uniquely Necromorphy sort of thing that they could do". The team identified strategic dismemberment as

10324-450: The other hand, Simon Park assessed the multiplayer mode to be a "slight but focused" experience and praised the tactical respawn options for various Necromorph forms, which differ from each other in power or strength, as an "ingenious system". John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror , action , and science fiction films of

10440-422: The player character. According to Wanat, a primary concern for most Necromorph units is that they need to be able to pass through doorways, which influenced how tight the team could design corridors, as well as the methods they used to depict level spaces to feel more claustophobic. A traditional game design method employed by the developers are "kill doors", which only open once the player eliminated all enemies in

10556-437: The player opts to disable the slasher's legs, the creature presents a different challenge compared to what would occur if it was beheaded or literally disarmed. Because of the core design philosophy surrounding on strategic dismemberment, the player character's plasma cutter weapon never loses effectiveness even when newer Necromorph forms or weapon types are introduced, as players could respond to changing circumstances by rotating

10672-407: The player. Wanat retained a significant amount of early concept art work for the Necromorphs, which he continued to catalogue on his ArtStation portfolio following his departure from Electronic Arts. Reflecting on the development process behind the Necromorphs, conceptually otherworldly entities with a fantastical nature but designed to be as "real and grounded and believable as possible", Wanat express

10788-443: The popular name "Star Wars" after the popular franchise created by George Lucas . In some cases, the influence of science fiction on weapons programs has been specifically acknowledged. In 2007, science-fiction author Thomas Easton was invited to address engineers working on a DARPA program to create weaponized cyborg insects, as envisaged in his novel Sparrowhawk . Active research on powered exoskeletons for military use has

10904-490: The process seen in The Matrix , albeit for only one skill at a time. Some new forms of real-world weaponry resemble weapons previously envisaged in science fiction. The early 1980s-era Strategic Defense Initiative , a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons ( Intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles ), gained

11020-412: The redesign of creatures such as the Lurkers, which are now based on dogs as opposed to infants. Dead Space 3 reveals that the Necromorphs are in truth part of a life cycle that culminates in the completion of a "Convergence" event and the formation of colossal space-faring entities known as Brethren Moons, the true source of the Marker signals. An essential gameplay element of combat scenarios involving

11136-517: The same source material as the 1951 Howard Hawks film, The Thing from Another World , it is more faithful to the John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There? , upon which both films were based. Moreover, unlike the Hawks film, The Thing was part of what Carpenter later called his "Apocalypse Trilogy", a trio of films ( The Thing , Prince of Darkness , and In the Mouth of Madness ) with bleak endings for

11252-629: The sci-fi western Terror from Space , starring the one-eyed creature from It Came from Outer Space . He graduated from College High School, then enrolled at Western Kentucky University for two years as an English major and History minor. With a desire to study filmmaking, which no university in Kentucky offered at the time, he moved to California upon transferring to the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1968. He would ultimately drop out of school in his final semester in order to make his first feature film. In

11368-414: The structures of communication systems and computers using software and information as weapons, was first explored by science fiction. John Brunner 's 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider is notable for coining the word " worm " to describe a computer program that propagates itself through a computer network , used as a weapon in the novel. William Gibson 's Neuromancer coined the phrase cyberspace ,

11484-473: The variety of creature designs conceived by the artistic team led to the creation of a diverse range of levels for the player to encounter and engage the Necromorphs. This necessitates the constant refinement of the enemy 3D models over time, as well as the redesign of individual Necromorph types to enable their character models to interact effectively with their environment. As an example, the Leapers are presented as

11600-498: The westerns of Howard Hawks and John Ford , as well as 1950s low-budget horror films such as The Thing from Another World (which he would remake as The Thing in 1982) and high-budget sci-fi like Godzilla and Forbidden Planet . Carpenter began making short horror films with an 8 mm camera before he had even started high school. Just before he turned 14 in 1962, he made a few major short films: Godzilla vs. Gorgo , featuring Godzilla and Gorgo via claymation , and

11716-461: The years following its release, critics and fans have reevaluated The Thing as a milestone of the horror genre. A prescient review by Peter Nicholls in 1992, called The Thing "a black, memorable film [that] may yet be seen as a classic". It has been called one of the best films directed by Carpenter. John Kenneth Muir called it "Carpenter's most accomplished and underrated directorial effort", and critic Matt Zoller Seitz said it "is one of

11832-537: Was Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), a low-budget thriller influenced by the films of Howard Hawks , particularly Rio Bravo . As with Dark Star , Carpenter was responsible for many aspects of the film's creation. He not only wrote, directed, and scored it, but also edited the film using the pseudonym "John T. Chance" (the name of John Wayne 's character in Rio Bravo ). Carpenter has said that he considers Assault on Precinct 13 to have been his first real film because it

11948-450: Was a major worry, and was often employed in the science fiction of this period, for example Neil Bell's The Gas War of 1940 (1931). Robert A. Heinlein 's 1940 story " Solution Unsatisfactory " posits radioactive dust as a weapon that the US develops in a crash program to end World War II; the dust's existence forces drastic changes in the postwar world. In The Dalek Invasion of Earth , set in

12064-470: Was adapted (in collaboration with David Zelag Goodman ) from a spec script titled Eyes , written by Carpenter, and would become Carpenter's first major studio film of his career. Halloween (1978) was a commercial success and helped develop the slasher genre. Originally an idea suggested by producer Irwin Yablans (titled The Babysitter Murders ), who thought of a film about babysitters being menaced by

12180-446: Was an early adopter of synthesizers , since his film debut Dark Star , when he used an EMS VCS3 synth. His soundtracks went on to influence electronic artists who followed, but Carpenter himself admitted he had no particular interest in synthesizers other than that they provided a means to "sound big with just a keyboard". For many years he worked in partnership with musician Alan Howarth , who would realize his vision by working on

12296-521: Was announced that Carpenter was collaborating with Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive on the zombie first-person shooter video game John Carpenter's Toxic Commando . The game is set to release in 2024 on PlayStation 5 , Xbox Series X/S , and Windows via the Epic Games Store . Carpenter's films are characterized by minimalist lighting and photography, panoramic shots, use of steadicam , and scores he usually composes himself. With

12412-467: Was born in Carthage, New York , on January 16, 1948, the son of Milton Jean (née Carter) and music professor Howard Ralph Carpenter. In 1953, after his father accepted a job at Western Kentucky University , the family relocated to Bowling Green, Kentucky . For much of his childhood, he and his family lived in a log cabin on the university's campus. He was interested in films from an early age, particularly

12528-453: Was difficult to make as both Carpenter and O'Bannon completed the film by multitasking, with Carpenter doing the musical score as well as the writing, producing, and directing, while O'Bannon acted in the film and did the special effects (which caught the attention of George Lucas who hired him to work with the special effects for the film Star Wars ). Carpenter received praise for his ability to make low-budget films. Carpenter's next film

12644-413: Was enlarged to 35 mm , sixty prints were made, and the film was released theatrically by Universal Studios for two years in the United States and Canada. Carpenter's first major film as director, Dark Star (1974), was a science-fiction comedy that he co-wrote with Dan O'Bannon (who later went on to write Alien , borrowing freely from much of Dark Star ). The film reportedly cost only $ 60,000 and

12760-442: Was ever gonna do a sequel, and I said no. I was through with horror, I didn't come into the business to do just horror. He said, "Well, what would you do if you did do a sequel?" I said it would be the next year, and the guy would have actually been caught, escape from a mental institution, go back to the house, and they would start all over again. And I would call it 'Halloween'. The truth is John didn't copy 'Black Christmas', he wrote

12876-491: Was important for Wanat and his team that the Necromorphs' design aesthetics reflected an adequate "glimmer of their former human self" visually; the goal was not to create something that is gross for its own sake, but enough to make players feel a sense of fear and revulsion. "It's not like you're getting attacked and your limbs are getting hacked off of your friends and you're like, 'Everybody stay away from the—what are they going to call these things... Necromorphs! Stay away from

12992-476: Was received well by critics. He said he directed it because it was the only thing offered to him at the time. Starman (1984) was produced by Michael Douglas ; the script was well received by Columbia Pictures , which chose it in preference to the script for E.T. and prompted Steven Spielberg to go to Universal Pictures . Douglas chose Carpenter to be the director because of his reputation as an action director who could also convey strong emotion. Starman

13108-429: Was released and was also unsuccessful. During 2005, there were remakes of Assault on Precinct 13 and The Fog , the latter being produced by Carpenter himself, though in an interview he defined his involvement as, "I come in and say hello to everybody. Go home." Carpenter worked as director during 2005 for an episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror television series as one of the thirteen filmmakers involved in

13224-503: Was reviewed favorably by the Los Angeles Times , New York Times , and LA Weekly , and described by Carpenter as a film he envisioned as a romantic comedy similar to It Happened One Night only with a space alien. The film received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Jeff Bridges ' portrayal of Starman and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical Score for Jack Nitzsche . After seeing footage of Starman ,

13340-641: Was the first film that he filmed on a schedule. The film was the first time Carpenter worked with Debra Hill , who would collaborate with Carpenter on some of his most well-known films. Carpenter assembled a main cast that consisted of experienced but relatively obscure actors. The two main actors were Austin Stoker , who had appeared previously in science fiction, disaster, and blaxploitation films, and Darwin Joston , who had worked primarily for television and had once been Carpenter's next-door neighbor. The film received

13456-499: Was to play a major role in his later career: he composed the music to most of his films, and the soundtrack to many of those became "cult" items for record collectors. A 21st-Century revival of his music is due in no small amount to the Death Waltz record company, which reissued several of his soundtracks, including Escape from New York , Halloween II , Halloween III: Season of the Witch , Assault on Precinct 13 , They Live , Prince of Darkness , and The Fog . Carpenter

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