John Carpenter’s 10 Greatest Characters
3. Snake Plissken (Escape from New York):
Hard as a damn rock and as rugged as… well, his face after a half dozen hours without a shave, Snake Plissken is the man’s man. He takes no shit, dishes out swift ass whoopins, always delivers a memorable walkaway line, and really, just doesn’t give a damn about anyone. He’s an anti-hero to fear and look up to simultaneously, and he’s also the greatest thing to emerge from John Carpenter’s social commentary piece, Escape from New York.
2. R.J. MacReady (The Thing):
This Kurt Russell fella… he just can’t seem to do wrong. He’s always a hero, and he’s always a leader. Even in the cramped confines of a camp located deep in the heart of no man’s land, with no one in a position of legal power to oversee things, Russell steps up as the boss. In this case the macho man with all the cards is R.J. MacReady, a helicopter pilot with a taste for hard liquor and a thin attention span. But he’s got a will to survive like few others, and he’s always got his head on straight. If you’ve got to stare down a hopeless situation, you want R.J. MacReady by your side.
1. Laurie Strode (Halloween):
Laurie Strode reminded us what a truly pure heroine is. Laurie Strode reminded us of everything we could want from a final girl. Innocent to a near fault, Laurie Strode was the darling of the big screen in 1978. Jamie Lee Curtis’ work is so natural and moving that the picture immediately becomes a rally behind natural beauty and internal strength. We all wanted Laurie to survive her dreadful encounter with the menacing Michael Myers, and when she did, we all breathed a collected sigh of relief. No disrespect to the women who took on this position prior to Curtis, and no disrespect to those who have done so in the years beyond the release of Halloween, but Laurie Strode is THE quintessential scream queen.
