Few 68-year old horror movie directors could fill a warehouse for an evening of their music, but The Fog/Halloween director John Carpenter has been soundtracking his films for as long as he has been making them. Tonight his huge cult following have donned a ghastly array of zombie and slasher costumes for a (black) celebration of the man’s gruesome oeuvre.
It’s scarily thrilling to hear Carpenter’s classic electronic and synth-rock soundtracks played pulverisingly loud, by a granite-hard band including the director, his son and godson, as scenes from the films prompt whoops of recognition.
A 90-minute fantasy/nightmare setlist rampages from Escape from New York and Assault on Precinct 13’s vintage themes to the recent excellent Lost Themes I and II albums of “imaginary soundtracks” – icy electronica and tension-racked doom metal. There’s even room for Ennio Morricone’s music for The Thing, and the murderous extraterrestrial is soundtracked by sub-bass, which literally shakes the venue walls.
Wearing black (of course), the sunglassed, grey-haired Carpenter is having a hoot. The horror-film master enjoys a little jig behind his keyboard, plays cheeky avant-jazz piano, makes grisly quips and unveils a gentler side with a love song about a girl with green eyes. “Horror movies will live for ever,” he cries, darkly, introducing 1978’s influential Halloween.
The terrifying combination of screen-slasher Michael Myers and the film’s chilling arpeggiated theme tune receives the loudest cheer of all – and ensures that everybody watching will have a nervous journey home.
•At the Troxy, London, on 31 October and 1 November. Box office: 0844-249 1000.
