Vampires in 4K with Memoirs of an Invisible Man in 35mm

Escape from New York in 4K

Set in a grim, not-too-distant future where a walled-off Manhattan Island has been converted to a massive prison, John Carpenter’s Escape from New York confronts issues of social unrest, government surveillance and corruption. Kurt Russell plays Snake Plissken, a former bank robber and classic anti-hero, promised a pardon if he rescues the American president, who is trapped in Manhattan. The now-iconic character allowed Russell to shed his image as a Disney live-action leading man and kindled a long collaborative relationship with Carpenter. An early example of the cyberpunk genre in cinema, the film was a critical and commercial success, influencing many screenwriters and authors.

In the first installment of what Carpenter would later call his Apocalypse Trilogy, a research team in Antarctica runs afoul of a shapeshifting alien menace. This bleak and stylish sci-fi horror thriller features Kurt Russell as resourceful helicopter pilot MacReady and Bill Lancaster’s screenplay in a faithful adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There?, which was first filmed in 1951 as The Thing from Another World. Upon release, Carpenter’s film was overlooked in favor of Steven Spielberg’s record-breaking, friendly alien adventure E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), but in the ensuing decades, The Thing has become a contemporary classic, influencing many filmmakers. It was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2025.

In person: Dr. Gay Yuen, board chair of the Friends of the Chinese American Museum

In the small coastal California town of Antonio Bay, an old local is spinning tales of a ghostly fog to children on the beach, evoking terrors from 100 years earlier. As the clock strikes midnight, the fog and its vengeful spirits return, once again wreaking havoc. The Fog is seen as a welcome return to the horror genre for Carpenter after the monumental success of Halloween (1978). John Carpenter directs Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, and John Houseman through the haunting of Antonio Bay.

Quantum physics Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) tasks his students with their most unusual assignment yet when a Catholic priest (Donald Pleasence) uncovers a strange and ancient substance in a monastery. As the young scientists investigate, dark entities descend upon the church, bringing representatives of Satan to the Earthly plane. John Carpenter wrote, directed, and co-scored Prince of Darkness as the second chapter in his Apocalypse Trilogy, which begins with The Thing (1982), and finishes with In the Mouth of Madness (1995).

In person: actor Julie Carmen

Captain Voyeur

A restless computer technician grows obsessed with a female coworker and secretly spies on her, treating his voyeurism like the duties of a masked superhero/villain. This short, made while John Carpenter was a film student at the University of Southern California, is rife with plot and filmmaking techniques he would later incorporate and improve upon in his slasher masterpiece Halloween (1978).

Adapted from Stephen King's 1983 novel, John Carpenter's Christine follows bullied high schooler Arnie (Keith Gordon) and his growing attachment to his sentient car. As Arnie transforms into a revenge seeker, blindly loyal Christine abets Arnie in hunting down bullies and questioners of the bewildering relationship. The '58 Plymouth Fury is also, seemingly, indestructible, reverting to mint condition whenever tarnished, thanks to the work of Academy Award-nominated visual effects supervisor Roy Arbogast (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977). This cult classic is the perfect blend of King's thriller and Carpenter's unique take on the supernatural.