Telling It Like It Is
By Stephen Rebello
The director of such nail biters as HALLOWEEN and ESCAPE FROM L.A. talks about his thing for New Mexico (where he's already filmed twice!), his favorite Santa Fe bar, and why he's scared to drive here.
STEPHEN REBELLO: You just filmed your new futuristic action movie, JOHN CARPENTER'S GHOSTS OF MARS, in New Mexico, and you earlier filmed VAMPIRES here. What's so scary about Santa Fe that you're drawn here to shoot sci-fi horror.
JOHN CARPENTER: (laughs) New Mexico has been for a long time a great place to shoot movies. It's so stunningly beautiful, and the weather, though treacherous at times, is unbelievable. I mean, we shot GHOSTS OF MARS during a monsoon! The movie pioneers who originally moved to Los Angeles gravitated there because it had been a perfect place to shoot films, but that's all over. New Mexico, on the other hand, is vast, beautiful, unrestricted, smog free. Anywhere you point a camera outdoors, it's magnificent.
Hey , want to work for the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce?
(laughs) I could. And I'd shoot there again in a second.
For GHOSTS OF MARS, you shot on a Native American reservation, right?
We shot on Zia Pueblo, about 20 miles outside of Albuquerque. Because the movie supposedly takes place on colonized Mars in the future, we needed a town and we filmed on a gypsum mine atop a mountain. Being a gypsum mine, it was endless acres of all white, so we used biodegradable food dye to dye it red and we built our town there. Not only were the Pueblo Indians kind enough to let us do that, but they gave us an opening ceremony calling upon their deities to protect and get us through the shooting. And it worked!
Did you use any Indians on-camera in the movie?
Oh, yes, and as antagonists in a crowd of attacking… well I don't want to give away any plot surprises, so I'll just say, "Yes, we did."
It does seem an offbeat spot to film a sci-fi movie, no?
(laughs) It's really a Western disguised as a science-fiction movie, but just don't tell anyone that, okay?
What's scariest: driving up I-25 in a blizzard, spending an evening at Santa Fe's topless dance club Cheeks, or relying on the New Mexico branch of FedEx?
Oh, listen to you! That's hilarious. I must tell you, the weather in New Mexico is fascinating. It can be very cruel. You have some unusual drivers there: I would call driving on New Mexico highways "interesting" and not always pleasant, and leave it at that. As for Cheeks, when we did VAMPIRES, Cheeks was my home away from home, my "corner bar." I really love that place. It's so much fun - the whole crew and I would go after work and bond. It's just a perfect place.
So, if I asked whether you spent more time at El Farol, the Coyote Café, or Cheeks…?
I would have to admit it's Cheeks. I spent most of my time there. Can I get a pass for that place or something?
We'll have to look into that. Have you ever considered buying a place in New Mexico, like Val Kilmer, Jane Fonda, Patrick Swayze, and Oprah?
They all have spreads there, huh? I hadn't thought of it, as much as I like it there. I've got a pretty nice spread here in Hollywood, so I think I'll hang on to that.
Where did you have your most memorable New Mexico meal?
Oh, what a great question. I had great Mexican food, home cookin', in Bernalillo, right outside of Albuquerque. My God, was it good. I don't even remember the name of the place or what I ordered, but it was very spicy and I was just knocked over by everything I tried.
Any favorite Santa Fe hotels?
When I'm there, I stay at the big, famous one downtown - the Eldorado. When they have room, they put me in the Presidential Suite. That's living. It's beautiful. When we shot VAMPIRES there, I stayed out in one of the little bungalows in the back.
How much moolah have you blown at the Indian casinos?
Not a penny. I'm not dumb. I don't go gambling. My cast on GHOSTS OF MARS {Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube, Clea DuVall, Pam Grier, Liam Waite, Rodney A. Grant} were gambling fanatics, though. That's all the did! They just wanted to go lose their money all the time. Hey, we paid 'em, what they did with their money afterward is not my problem. Our director of photography won big one night, tripling his money to, like, three or four thousand.
As someone who loves such earlier great moviemakers as John Ford and Howard Hawkes, who made some outstanding Westerns, what are the odds we'll ever see you sporting a Stetson and chaps?
The hat, I have. The chaps? I don't think so. I'm really not into that sexuality. I'm more of a heterosexual-type guy.
Who made chaps gay? The Village People?
They may have turned the corner on chaps, I think. So, hat yes, chaps no.
How good a horseman are you?
My skills were pretty good earlier. I grew up in the South, in Kentucky, and I rode quite a bit. Nowadays, since I'm an old guy in Hollywood, I haven't ridden in many years and I don't think I'd like to jump aboard again. I could probably do it, but I think I'll leave that to the younger guys.
What, to you, is the real Old West?
The Old West is the most fascinating period of time in America for me. When I was in college, I took several history courses, and I was just fascinated by the period up to, including, and beyond the Civil War, up to 1900. The real stories of that time are utterly fascinating, but it's the myths that stay with us - the things we get from popular culture, from movies, from Frederic Remington, from the "penny dreadful" magazines, from the work of "yellow journalists." All that stuff lives within us and resonates the American myth - it isn't true, but it's wonderful. Both the truth and myth are wonderful. Places like Arizona, California, New Mexico were pretty rough-and-tumble in those days. Survival was tough. The West of the movies is heavily romanticized, but truth and myth can walk together.
Who turned out to be the closest thing to a real cowboy in the cast of GHOSTS OF MARS?
A cowboy? Ice Cube? Ha-ha-ha. It'd have to be Rodney Grant, because he's a cowboy in real life. Everybody's a cowboy on-screen in this movie, though. It's really an Old West movie, as I said, wrapped up in science-fiction trappings - with a little bit of Zulu in there, too.
First Courtney Love was announced as your leading lady, then Natasha Henstridge replaced her. Any stories?
Only that I've worked with several of the actors on this movie before, like Pam Grier, and they're all good. I'm proudest of Natasha Henstridge, though, because she does an unbelievable job for me. She's associated with the SPECIES movies, where she took her clothes off all the time. Which is just great! We all love that. Believe me, I'm not complaining. But she has quite some power in this movie. She's quite an actress.
Is the movie any good, do you think?
I've got an action-horror movie that takes place on Mars here. I'm very delighted with it.
Since you're a horror maestro, who do you think has made the best horror movie of the past 10 years?
Parts of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS are pretty good. So, I'd have to say Jonathan Demme.
Are you planning on staging the hat trick by doing a third movie in New Mexico?
I would in a flash if the movie would work in that setting. Both times there, I had a great time. I only have good thoughts about New Mexico.
