John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, and composer. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres, he's most commonly associated with horror and science fiction films from the 70s and 80s. He particularly achieved international success with the thriller movies 'Halloween' (1978) and 'Escape from New York' (1981). Some of the films in Carpenter's career have been critical and commercial failures, with two notable exceptions mentioned above. Yet his soundtrack work has received much praise, bringing comparisons with contemporary dark electronic music. As well, many of his works from the 70s and the 80s that initially had mixed reviews such as 'Dark Star' (1974), 'Assault on Precinct 13' (1976), 'The Thing' (1982), 'Starman' (1984), 'Big Trouble in Little China' (1986), and 'They Live' (1988) have since been seen as cult classics, and Carpenter has been acknowledged as an influential filmmaker by many both in and out of the industry. His latest musical release, an album titled 'Lost Themes', came out in early 2015. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.