Escape From New York (1981)

An old classic that I hadn't seen for a long time, this is arguably up there with John Carpenter's finest work. He had quite an impressive six year run from 1976 to 1982, boldly following this up with The Thing (1982). Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken is one of both Carpenter and Russell's finest creations, the criminal tasked with hunting down the kidnapped President (Donald Pleasence) who is somewhere in a futuristic downtown Manhattan, now a gigantic maximum security prison. Comparisons can certainly be drawn between this and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner that came just a year later; the character of Romero reminded me a lot of Daryl Hannah's Pris, and the external shots of a decrepit and dark Manhattan are a dirty looking dystopia that you feel might be one revealed in Blade Runner if you turned off all the neon lighting in the futuristic Los Angeles. This is Russell's film, Plissken is a character that has gone down in history, and Carpenter is another master of the 90 minute thriller, once again proving his thorough grip on the sci-fi genre. 7.3/10