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himself, including the haunting main theme that is as instantly recognizable as John William's classic creations for "Jaws" or "Star Wars." Perhaps more than anything else in his impressive filmography, this movie will stand the test of time as Carpenter's ultimate, and most important, legacy. It grossed over $65 million in its initial release, and continues to be a popular favorite to this day.

In 1980, Carpenter made "The Fog," a film with more than its share of production problems. Ultimately dissatisfied with the film, Carpenter tried to salvage it in post-production, but was never fully happy with it. Although it opened to mostly negative reviews, it was a popular hit and further established Carpenter as one of the reigning kings of horror.

Kurt Russell starred as Snake Plissken in Carpenter's next film, the enormously successful "Escape from New York" (1981), based on a script the director originally wrote in the 1970s as a reaction to the Watergate scandal. Considered a political hot potato at the time, no studio would touch Carpenter's controversial script. The enormous success of "Halloween," however, and Carpenter's current "hot" status as a director of note, changed all that. The $7 million budget for "Escape" was the largest that Carpenter had worked with up to that time, but the studio's faith in him was well-rewarded. The movie returned more than $25 million during its initial run, with better than $4 million earned on its opening weekend alone.

Next, Carpenter set his sights on remaking one of his favorite 1950s sci-fi films, "The Thing from Another World" (1951), originally directed by the famed Howard Hawks. Carpenter's version, entitled simply, "The Thing" (1982), is more faithful to the John W. Campbell story upon which both films are based, and would eventually prove to be another feather in the cap of the young director, although the bleak ending and pessimistic tone proved difficult for audiences at the time to swallow, riding high, as they were, on upbeat, family friendly sci-fi fare like "Star Wars" (1977), "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), and "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial" (1982). "The Thing" would be Carpenter's first failure, although it would gain more appreciation in later years.

Carpenter turned to a popular novel by Stephen King, "Christine," about a demonically-possessed car, for his next film in 1983. A modest success, it was followed in 1984 by "Starman," a more positive science fiction/romantic comedy starring Jeff

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