Okay, I know that this isn’t technically a short. It’s a music video for John Carpenter’s theme to Christine. However, there are a few reasons why I’ve selected it, and they bleed together. First and foremost… John is older. He’s not only older; he’s a legend of horror. He’s given us so much over the years: The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Halloween, The Fog (to name but a few). Horror hounds owe this man a lot. In the past two years, we’ve lost so many of our icons, and that’s tough when the world around you is going to absolute shit. We’ve lost so many weavers of dreams and nightmares. You want to hang on to those people, and you express disbelief that someone who made it to their 80s was taken too soon. Losing John right now would be a gut punch. More than one person has expressed a desire to layer Mr. Carpenter in bubble wrap and instruct him not to go outside.

How do you reconcile that scary inevitability of a finite timeline? The truth is, well, he’s old. He’s going to go at some point, and it’s going to fucking suck when it happens. We can’t stop that, nor is it natural to stop that; there are entire classic novels and films devoted to the wrongness of the concept of immortality. What we can do, though, is to appreciate what we have while it’s still around. You don’t suddenly become great once you die – you become great when those who love you realize what they have. So yes, it’s a music video, not a short. But we still have John Carpenter, goddammit. And for every wink and familiar synthesizer note and trope of a young, pretty girl running away from danger, we still get to enjoy the sly winks.     

Mr. Carpenter, I hope we get you for a long time to come, but that’s not mine to dictate. Thank you for everything you’ve given us. Even short pieces of music paired with your classic staples.

Happy Saturday.