Captain Voyeur (1969) dir. John Carpenter

Look, we all have to start somewhere in our careers.

A frequent theme of Lunch Links is attempting to find an authorial signature in the primordial works of well-known directors. Though a little primitive technically and terminally juvenile overall, it’s not too difficult to match this student short with elements of John Carpenter’s biggest film. We follow a masked character stalking the shadows and having a knack for encountering people having sex. The nighttime photography that slinks behind our hero(???) and shots from his POV of a slender brunette who takes action against his creeping ways seems familiar. A bit old hat, in fact, until you consider there wasn’t Halloween and its many imitators to influence this, and wouldn’t be for another eight years.

There’s also a lot of charming bits of a bygone era, like the massive computers spinning their reels and the hand drawn title cards. A handmade element could be considered another Carpenter indicator, though one born more of necessity than preference. Carpenter would work with more money – slightly more money – to make his earliest features starting with Dark Star, which would begin production the year after this as another student project before blossoming over the following years into a theatrically released feature.