How John Carpenter became one of the coolest filmmakers

The massively popular reboot of Halloween is just the latest revival of the John Carpenter legacy. Several of his best films have already been re-made or rebooted (or Hollywood would like to). His reputation as a composer has been burnished by the release of his well receive Lost Themes albums.

And numerous retrospectives have taken great pains to place him where he rightfully belongs, in the great pantheon of filmmakers.

This wasn't always the case. Sure, Carpenter was always revered by horror movie buffs, although he had success in other genres. And he always had a certain B-movie appeal, but it seems like lately it's finally become socially acceptable to cite him as a major auteur, not just a fun entertainer.

It's been a wonderful thing to see, especially since so few filmmakers of his era are similarly revered by younger audiences. Unfortunately, post-Tarantino auteurs have often overshadowed the iconic movie brat generation of Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, De Palma et al., in younger viewers' esteem.

Why has Carpenter had such a resurgence? Perhaps it's because despite whatever dated qualities his films might have, they almost all hold up really well -- especially the work he did for about 10 years straight from Halloween through They Live.

They're pretty accessible movies to see and to appreciate. Clearly, They Live alone has inspired a million memes and a counter culture art campaign of its own. And that film's messages (as well as the subtext of some of his other films) about consumerism and corporate corruption still hold up.

Also, his early collaboration with his late ex-wife Debra Hill, suggested a willingness to provide more nuanced portraits of women than many genre films of at that era bothered to imagine.

Still, it's fascinating that for the most part his golden age was largely marked by films that were considered failures at the time. Halloween was a blockbuster, which put him on the map. But my sense is that his scary movie follow up, The Fog, while terrific and creepy, was viewed as something of a commercial disappointment.

The 1981 thriller Escape from New York was a modest, mostly cult success, even though it has become a major cultural touchstone and it's my personal favorite of his films. And it wasn't even in the top 30 movies released that year.

His next effort is now widely viewed as his greatest masterpiece and one of the decade's great films -- but 1982's The Thing bombed with most critics and audiences when it debuted.

His next run of fan favorites -- Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China and Prince of Darkness -- were all mixed bags in terms of their critical and commercial reception, even if they are now all seen as genre triumphs.

Unfortunately, his later output tailed off in terms of quality, even if I do think movies like Memoirs of an Invisible Man and In the Mouth of Madness have their moments, and his 1998 movie Vampires is a ton of fun.

Carpenter doesn't make movies anymore, which is a shame -- but his legacy is more than secure. His films hung in there, building up their reputations and fanbases despite almost all of them flopping initially.

His reemergence as a filmmaking institution is an inspiration to any artist who fails to connect on their first pass because he's proof positive that sometimes slow and steady really does win the race.