The Horror Master is back—that’s the all too fitting Twitter handle of director John Carpenter, who brought us such genre classics as Halloween, The Fog and The Thing. But now, the horror legend has given us something new—a music video for the “Christine” track of his upcoming album Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998. Carpenter of course gave us that 1983 Stephen King adaptation as well: The story of a possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury with a taste for blood. Now, Christine has returned from the impound lot—in video form! You can watch the full video above.
The soundtrack selection for “Christine” starts off low and menacing, as the titular car crawls around a malevolent-looking city, presumably on the prowl for a victim. It finds one in the guise of a young woman who is broken down on the side of the road before giving chase. However, we’re given one last surprise of merit when we see who’s actually behind the wheel—it’s Carpenter himself, sporting a jaunty chapeau and looking more or less like the angel of death. The director describes the song as “Electronica for a killer car. Most of the soundtrack for Christine was 1950’s rock ‘n roll (with a main title appearance of George Thorogood and the Destroyers’ “Bad to the Bone”). I filled in where necessary.”
The video is Carpenter’s first foray into what the press release calls “narrative work” in the last seven years, which presumably means since the 2010 release of his last feature film The Ward. That Amber Heard-starring vehicle didn’t exactly perform well with critics, and in recent years Carpenter has instead turned his interest primarily toward music, which was always an iconic component of his films. We interviewed the great man back in 2015 when he was releasing his first album, Lost Themes—you can read that intriguing conversation here.
It certainly seems a fitting time for another Stephen King-inspired video to hit the web, even as It is smashing box office records left and right. Perhaps working on this video will scratch an old itch for Carpenter, and we’ll see the now 69-year-old director return to film at least one last time? Let’s hope so.
Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998 is out out Oct. 20 on Sacred Bones, just in time for Halloween.