John Carpenter has often turned to the horrors of science fiction, most brilliantly in The Thing (1982) and They Live (1988), and also in his Village of the Damned remake (1995), Ghosts of Mars (2001), and his more humorous feature debut, Dark Star (1974). But Starman is the director’s purest sci-fi outing, as well as his most beautiful and heartfelt work, which relies more on human drama than creature shocks.
Light years from the creepy shape-shifting alien in The Thing, the entity from space here, who crash-lands in Wisconsin and transforms into the figure of a dead man, Scott, using cells from his hair found in a family photo album, appears to be a kind, gentle being. Having received the gold-plated record that was sent into space (like in real life) aboard the two 1977 Voyager spacecrafts as an invitation to extraterrestrials, he comes equipped with the knowledge of greetings in over 50 languages and a base understanding of English.
Drinking wine and watching home movies on the night of the Starman’s arrival, Scott’s widow, Jenny, is still grief-stricken over her husband after six years, and the idea of having “him” back will trigger some intense psychological confusion on the road trip the new Scott forces her to take, in order to rendezvous with his people in Arizona. In an all-too-rare headlining role, Karen Allen quietly but firmly anchors the film—her Jenny Hayden here and Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark account for two of the finest female lead roles of the ’80s—and watching her become drawn to her unearthly companion is nothing less than fascinating. The fear of where he came from is diminished by the desire to keep the memory of her love alive, and what develops between the two is truly romantic, with chemistry that crackles.
Jeff Bridges, nominated for an Oscar for his work as the alien, looks subtly otherworldly as he innocently mimics the behavior of those around him. He sees Earth as the problematic planet that it is—imagine if he came for a visit now!—and while he recognizes the value of its diversity, still deems it a hostile place consumed by violence. But his presence provides hope that there’s a higher quality of life beyond ours, and his compassion provides many magical moments—in the best of these, he brings a dickhead hunter’s slaughtered deer back to life—all perfectly accompanied by the memorably melancholy music of Jack Nitzsche, marking one of the few Carpenter-film scores not composed by the director himself. As great sci-fi does, Starman (re)activates audiences’ childlike wonder, and seeing this credit at the end makes the nerd inside all of us smile even wider: RICK BAKER DICK SMITH SAM WINSTON STARMAN TRANSFORMATION CREW. 🩸
is a writer, editor, and horror programmer based in New York. She is the editor of Bloodvine and her writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Film Comment, and Rolling Stone.
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