As a rule I try not to get excited about movies based on video games for reasons that should be painfully (very painfully) obvious.

But for those of you that may not know, John Carpenter is one of the greatest horror film directors of all time, and during a streak in the late 70’s and into the 80’s directed some truly immortal movies, including the greatest sci-fi horror flick ever made, “The Thing.”

So when that man says he’s interested in making a video game into a movie, you pay attention. When that move is an adaptation of “Dead Space,” you have permission to shed your cynicism towards the whole idea.

Such appears to be the case as John recently told Game Informer that he would in fact “love to make ‘Dead Space’” into a movie. Now of course, no one has announced a “Dead Space” movie (except for those animated films), and this is just friendly banter from Carpenter, so far as anyone can tell, so this news should be taken as nothing more than that.

Even in that spirit though, it’s hard to not start imagining that Carpenter would in fact knock this out of the park. “Dead Space” the game is an elaborate haunted house type horror story, with some psychologically intense elements and an incredibly interesting plot that doesn’t interrupt the scares. Carpenter made his name directing films like that, and, when you consider the fact this is a case of a big name director who is genuinely excited about adapting a video game, it’s easy to forget that Carpenter hasn’t done a truly noteworthy film in about 20 years, and to start considering the possibility that this could just work in a big way.

Plus, are you going to tell me you’re not going to give the man who directed “The Thing” the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making one more truly great film?

This isn’t exactly news, but it drubbed up an old dream that I might see a Halo movie before 2010. I found this article through a post on TechCrunch by the illustrious Michael Arrington. The article is written by Josh Olson, who you may remember as a potential writer for the Halo script. He was also nominated for a whole slew of awards for his 2006 screenplay, A History of Violence.

The article is a good read, but it makes it all the more depressing to think that a guy like Olson was actually going to pen the script for the Halo movie. I think any movie set in the Halo universe has incredible potential. It’s soul-crushing to see all of the talent involved in the project, and then think it might not get off the ground.

Speaking of involved talent, you should see District 9 if you haven’t. Great flick, and it was written by Neil Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson. Sigh.