In November 1988, Jessica Arrendondo, 21, was an operator at the U.S. West phone company. She had graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School a couple of years ago, where she played soccer, served on the student senate, and captained the school’s cheerleading squad. Perhaps it’s because it was the 1980s and Jessica loved dancing, but her pictures bring to mind the actress Jennifer Beals of
Flashdance fame. At the time of her murder, Jessica was living at home with her parents and her beloved dog Frosty.
She also loved her new car, an eye-catching red 1988 Mustang convertible. According to her family, she had saved money for months and months, and the car was her pride and joy. She kept it in immaculate condition, and the car had a personalized license plate that read “88 PONY.”
Friday, November 25, 1988, was the day after Thanksgiving. Jessica and her boyfriend hopped in her car and headed towards Glendale, Colorado, a municipality in the southern part of metropolitan Denver. On the way, they had a minor disagreement. She dropped him off at Neil’s, a bar in Glendale, and drove away. It was the last time he would see her.
At 11:25 PM, Jessica’s Mustang was found abandoned with its blinkers on at E. 7th and Jackson Street, a few blocks from Neil’s. When police inspected the scene, they noticed there was damage to the exterior of the car as if a minor accident had occurred. Witnesses reported that Jessica had been kidnapped from the site by multiple men, and at least one article mentions that two cars were involved. Police suspected that someone had crashed into her car intentionally as a ruse to get her to pull over and then abducted her.
On Saturday afternoon, two passersby were playing in the snow along U.S. 36 in Larrimer County and found a nude body about 50 feet from the road. This area is north of Denver, close to Rocky Mountain National Park, and approximately a 1.5 hour drive from where Jessica’s car was abandoned. The autopsy later revealed Jessica had died from blunt force trauma to the head. Although one article in the Denver Post stated there were no signs of sexual assault, a later article in the Fort Collins Coloradoan clarified that investigators believe she was sexually assaulted, although there is no forensic evidence proving so. Some reports state that the trauma to Jessica’s body may have been from her jumping from a moving vehicle, but this is merely speculation. Jessica’s clothes were recovered scattered along the highway near where her body was found.
At the scene, law enforcement found tire tracks indicating someone had backed up a vehicle and dumped Jessica’s body down an embankment. The other notable clue was not one, but two sets of footprints in the snow near the body, consistent with witnesses’ assertions that there were multiple men at the scene of her abduction.
Despite composite sketches of two of the men seen at the accident scene, law enforcement never named any suspects. Jessica’s case soon went cold.
Another Murder, Five Years Later On February 12, 1994, Rhonda Maloney, 25, finished her shift as a waitress at Harrah’s Casino in Central City and headed towards her home in Adams County. Robert Eliot Harlan, 29, pulled his car alongside hers and ran her off the road near the intersection of I-76 and I-25. Once she had stopped the car, Harlan threatened Maloney with a gun. He dragged her from the car and proceeded to rape her repeatedly.
Mother of three Jaquie Creazzo was on her way to pick up her father around 5:45 AM. The sun had not yet risen, but in the darkness she noticed the two cars haphazardly on the side of the ramp to northbound I-25, one with blinkers on. She slowed down and caught a glimpse of a blonde woman fleeing one of the cars; the terrified expression on her face made Creazzo come to a complete stop. Maloney ran to Creazzo’s car and jumped in, telling her she’d been run off the road and then raped for hours by a man with a gun.
Creazzo immediately headed toward the local police station. Harlan had not given up; he was in hot pursuit, and a dangerous chase ensued on the icy road. Harlan pulled alongside Creazzo’s Cadillac and fired several rounds into the driver’s side, hitting Creazzo in her face, knee, and spine. She tried to steer but she lost control, crossed the median, and came to a stop on the lawn of her destination, the Thornton Police station. Behind the wheel, Creazzo was still conscious but covered in blood, unable to move and spitting out teeth. Harlan appeared, telling Creazzo not to tell anyone about Maloney, saying he would find her and kill her if she did. She watched helplessly as Harlan pulled Maloney from the passenger’s seat and sped off.
Creazzo would later tell the Los Angeles Times, “Being paralyzed is a small price to pay to get this person, actually if you want to call him a person, off the street.”
Creazzo provided police with a description of the perpetrator and the car, helping to generate leads. In the meantime, Darryl Harlan, Robert’s brother, had seen reports about Maloney’s murder on the news and he made a horrific realization. Robert had shown up at Darryl’s house at 8 AM the morning of the murder, wearing bloody sweatpants. Darryl asked Robert if he had vomited on himself. That morning, Robert left his bloody clothes and an unloaded gun at his brother’s house. On February 15th, Darryl approached their father, a Denver police detective, and shared his suspicions. Detective Belt Harlan Jr. bagged the items his son Robert had left at his son Darryl’s house. According to Darryl, the two of them then broke down and cried at the realization of what Robert may have done. Detective Harlan then took the bagged items directly to Denver Police Chief David Michaud, and Robert Harlan was arrested that day.
Harlan was in custody, but Maloney was still missing and Harlan provided the cops with no new information. Maloney’s purse was recovered by the side of a road. A local Aurora man who saw a news report about the recovered purse and the ongoing search believed the cops were searching in the wrong place. A San Francisco Examiner article entitled, “Amateur sleuth locates body in record time,” describes how Loyal Burner mapped out the area and initiated his own search. Although police had been searching for a week, Burner found Rhonda Maloney’s nude body in 1 ½ hours near the town of Watkins, east of Denver.
Maloney’s autopsy revealed she had been severely beaten, with several fractures to her skull, and had injuries consistent with sexual assault. Cause of death was determined to be a gunshot to the head.
The Suspect Given the similarities in M.O., law enforcement in Larimer County named Harlan a suspect in Jessica Arredondo’s abduction and murder.
At first glance, Robert Harlan may have seemed like an unlikely perpetrator. He had stable employment. He was the son of a Denver police detective and seemed to have solid family ties. Indeed, both his brother and his father testified in his defense during the sentencing phase of his trial.
But even a brief look into Harlan’s past revealed a history of harassment and violence against women. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported that Harlan was on parole and in a sex offender program at the time of the murder. Although I could not determine what precipitated this sentence, a separate article mentioned he had been arrested for using a stun gun on his then-wife. The month before he killed Rhonda Maloney, a psychologist who had been treating Harlan for a year wrote letters to Harlan’s probation officer and a judge, recommending that he be supervised more closely because he was a danger to the community. Harlan had a parole revocation hearing scheduled two days after Maloney was killed.
A second rather damning fact was that Harlan was working as an operator at U.S. West, where Jessica Arredondo had worked. In fact, he had been in that position for eight years and had worked alongside Jessica. Harlan’s history at work soon grabbed headlines, as the Maloney trial galvanized 39 women who had worked at U.S. West to hire a lawyer and seek a $22 million settlement. They claimed Harlan made lewd comments, touched them inappropriately, and harassed them, creating a hostile and un unsafe work environment. At one point, he brought a gun to work. He stalked one of his co-workers, and she obtained a restraining order against him. The women claimed their fear of Harlan escalated after Arredondo’s disappearance, yet U.S. West never took action against Harlan.
The Only Suspect? Larimer County Sheriff’s Department investigator John Toppenberg was quoted in the news during the Maloney trial. The judge excluded any evidence about the Arrendondo murder during the Maloney trial. Regarding Harlan, Toppenberg claimed “He is our only suspect. He is our prime suspect. It is our view that he killed Jessica Arrendondo.” To this day, no other suspects have been named.
If you recall, however, there were two sets of footprints where Jessica’s body was found. Another article also states that not one, but two cars were observed driving her off the road the night she went missing, and that police believed three men were involved; two composite sketches were released to the press. Harlan may be the only suspect they have identified, but it seems he is not the only suspect involved.
Harlan’s Fate On June 20, 1995, Harlan was found guilty of Maloney’s kidnapping, rape, and murder, as well as the attempted murder of Jaquie Creazzo. In September, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. At the time Harlan was sentenced, no one had been executed in Colorado since 1967, and only a couple of men were on death row. Gary Lee Davis was executed in 1997, however, and for crimes similar to Harlan’s: the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Virginia Ray. Given the governor had refused to grant Davis clemency, this likely raised Harlan’s fear that he too may be put to death. He appealed his convictions and the sentence, filing several briefs about voir dire, the suitability of various jurors, whether or not a change of venue was warranted, instructions given to jurors, and other typical appeals that were all denied.
In 2003, Harlan again appealed his death sentence. This time, the filing had teeth. Jurors had brought Bibles into the jury room while deliberating his sentence in 1995, considering passages such as the oft-quoted “eye for an eye” during the discussion. It is against state law for jurors to consider outside materials irrelevant to the case during deliberation. (Further, it seems wildly inappropriate and unconstitutional to weigh a particular religion’s belief in such a determination.) In a 3-2 decision, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled this was a violation of Harlan’s rights. Because this happened during the sentencing phase, not the guilt phase, his conviction was upheld but his sentence was overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court later refused to reinstate the death sentence for Harlan.
Other victims? One article noted that there are over 35 unsolved homicides of young women in the Denver area in between 1975 and 1995, a period which would have included Harlan’s viable killing years. There are several young women who were murdered and found nude by roadsides preceding and following Arredondo’s death. Because both Arrendondo’s and Maloney’s deaths do not adhere to a clear pattern—the first seemingly a gang rape and murder, the second interrupted by Jacquie Creazzo’s heroic act—I think it is difficult to assign a complete MO to Harlan or to know how he would have behaved without the interference of others. I assume Harlan’s DNA is in CODIS, but it is unclear whether DNA from these various cold cases (or Jessica's, for that matter) has been processed.
Do you think Harlan was involved in the killing of Jessica Arredondo?
A very long shot, but do you know of any perpetrators in the Denver area at the time that could have been involved in Jessica's disappearance (either ties to Harlan or similar MO)?
Do you think Harlan is a serial killer? Are there other cases you think Harlan is a good match for?
If you have any information on abduction and murder of Jessica Arredondo, please contact the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office at Larimer County Sheriff's Department at 1 (970) 498-5100.
Sources https://apps.colorado.gov/apps/coldcase/casedetail.html?id=1425 http://blogs.denverpost.com/coldcases/2010/07/25/killers-rammed-car-kidnapped-young-woman-and-tossed-body/1637/3/ https://www.pomc.com/mw_stories_1-19/jessica_arredondo.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-20-mn-64850-story.html https://www.denverpost.com/2005/12/19/killer-harlan-gets-life-without-parole/ https://caselaw.findlaw.com/co-supreme-court/1026772.html Newspaper sources (sorry, no links)
“Suspect has history of sex offenses,” Daily Sentinel. February 18, 1994
“Amateur sleuth locates body in record time,” San Francisco Examiner. February 21, 1994
“Kidnap-murder link strong,” Daily Sentinel. February 22, 1994
“Results of autopsy on slain waitress won’t be given until suspect’s hearing,” Daily Sentinel. February 23, 1994
“Harlan suspected in ’88 slaying,” Fort Collins Coloradoan. June 24, 1995.
“Murderer’s policeman father expected to be final witness,” Daily Sentinel. June 28, 1995
“Harlan sentenced to death in murder,” Fort Collins Coloradoan. July 2, 1995
“Killer’s former co-workers plan suit,” Daily Sentinel. July 6, 1995
EDIT: Changed spelling of Jaquie Creazzo's name. Although it also appears as "Jacquie" in several places, I switched to the spelling in the legal document.
submitted by | 2019: After the Escape From New York Searching for something else I stumbled upon this movie and of course the title caught my eye. Especially with 2019 in it. Mankind will prevail if it can survive the year 2019 https://88-films.myshopify.com/products/2019-after-the-fall-of-new-york-dvd-the-italian-collection-26 After the bomb drops, the world is divided into two fractions; on the one side are the evil Euracs, and on the other, the Pan-American Confederacy. Parsifal (Michael Sopkiw, Blastfi ghter) is sent by the President of the Confederacy (Edmund Purdom, Absurd) into the wasteland that was once New York; in an effort to rescue the last fertile female on the planet, the beautiful Giara (Valentine Monnier, Monster Shark). Extracting the key to mankind’s survival will not be easy; as they battle mutants, treacherous Confederacy personnel and the lethal Euracs that infest the barren and brutal landscape. Sergio Martino (Hands of Steel) delivers one of Italian exploitation cinema’s fi nest post-apocalyptic entries with 2019: After the Fall of New York. A gung-ho, blood-splattered tale of one man’s quest for humanity’s Holy Grail. Notice the name of the website and its logo on the top left of its page? 88 Films. This Italian film maker also created a movie called Hands of Steel. This doesn't ring any specific bells except for the Holy Grail talk. Which I believe is currently Meghan Markle. MM. Today is Marathon Monday apparently. The Boston Marathon. Well this movie is said to be influenced by another movie that seems much more related to possible future events. A movie that was made in 1981 but takes place in 1997. 22 years ago. Escape From New York https://preview.redd.it/phl6ym3dnes21.jpg?width=580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0efefff0b912cff46a91223d4e6f9554a91876fa Escape from New York is a 1981 American post-apocalyptic science-fiction action film co-written, co-scored and directed by John Carpenter. The film is set in what was then the near-future year of 1997, in a crime-ridden United States that has converted Manhattan Island in New York City into the country's maximum security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked by terrorists and crashes into New York City, ex-soldier and federal prisoner Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is given 24 hours to rescue the President of the United States. Carpenter wrote the film in the mid-1970s in reaction to the Watergate scandal. After the success of Halloween, he had enough influence to begin production and filmed it mainly in St. Louis, Missouri on an estimated budget of $6 million. Debra Hill and Larry J. Franco served as the producers. The film was co-written by Nick Castle, who had collaborated with Carpenter by portraying Michael Myers in Halloween. Escape from New York was released in the United States on July 10, 1981. The film received positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success, grossing over $25 million at the box office. The film was nominated for four Saturn Awards, including Best Science Fiction Film and Best Direction. The film became a cult classic and was followed by a sequel, Escape from L.A. (1996), which was also directed and written by Carpenter and starred Russell but was much less favorably received. Plot In 1988, following a 400% increase in crime, the United States government has turned Manhattan into a giant maximum-security prison. A 50-foot (15 m) containment wall surrounds the island, and routes out of Manhattan have been dismantled or mined, while armed helicopters patrol the rivers, and all prisoners there are sentenced to life, with no means of leaving. In 1997, NATO is engaged in an escalating war with the Soviet Union across much of Europe, which threatens to imminently become a global nuclear holocaust. While traveling to a peace summit between the United States, China and the Soviet Union, Air Force One is hijacked by a domestic terrorist posing as a stewardess. The President is given a tracking bracelet and his briefcase (containing an audiotape describing the secret to using nuclear fusion for power generation) handcuffed to his wrist — a move which could defuse hostilities and bring peace between the Superpowers. He makes it to an escape pod, and lands in Manhattan just before Air Force One crashes, killing everyone else aboard. Police are dispatched to rescue the President. However, Romero, the right-hand man of the Duke of New York (the top crime boss in the prison) warns them that the Duke has taken the President hostage, and that he will be killed if any further rescue attempts are mounted. Commissioner Bob Hauk offers a deal to Snake Plissken, a former Special Forces soldier convicted of attempting to rob the Federal Reserve in Denver, Colorado: if Snake rescues the President and retrieves the cassette tape, Hauk will arrange a presidential pardon. To ensure his compliance, Hauk has Plissken injected with micro-explosives that will rupture Snake's carotid arteries within 22 hours; if Snake returns with the President and the tape in time, Hauk will have the explosives neutralized. Snake is sent into Manhattan in a stealth glider, landing atop the World Trade Center. Snake tracks the President's life-monitor bracelet to a vaudeville theater, only to find it on the wrist of an insane old man. Convinced that the President has been killed, he radios Hauk, only to be told that he will be shot down if he tries to come back out empty-handed. Soon afterwards he meets "Cabbie," a long-serving New York taxi-driver who has been driving the streets of Manhattan for 30 years and somehow managed to remain in the city after its conversion to an open prison. Cabbie takes Snake in his armored taxi cab to Harold "Brain" Hellman, an adviser to the Duke and a former associate of Snake's, who is a brilliant engineer and has established a base in New York Central Library with an oil-pumping engine and a small refinery, which keeps the remainder of the city's cars and machinery running. Hellman betrayed Snake during a long-ago robbery plot and Snake is tempted to shoot him, but Brain tells Snake that the Duke plans to unify the gangs in a mass exodus across the heavily guarded Queensboro Bridge, using the President as a human shield and a map Brain has created to avoid the landmines. Snake backs off, but forces Brain and his girlfriend Maggie to lead him to the Duke's compound at Grand Central Terminal. He finds the President, but is captured by the Duke's men. While Snake is forced to fight in a deathmatch with Slag, a prisoner, Brain and Maggie kill Romero and flee with the President. As Snake kills Slag, the Duke learns of Brain's treachery and rallies his gang to chase them. Snake, Brain, Maggie, and the President race to the World Trade Center in an attempt to use Snake's glider to escape from Manhattan. After a group of crazies destroy it, the group returns to the street and encounters Cabbie, who offers to take them across the bridge. When Cabbie reveals that he has the secret tape (having traded it to Romero earlier for his hat), the President demands it, but Snake keeps it. The Duke pursues the group onto the bridge in his customized Cadillac, setting off mines as he tries to catch up. With Brain navigating through the minefield, Snake manages to avoid most of the explosives, but the cab hits a mine and is blown in half, killing Cabbie. As the group flees on foot, Brain is killed when he steps on another mine. Maggie refuses to leave him. She stands in the middle of the road, shooting at the Duke's car until he runs her down, killing her. Snake and the President reach the perimeter wall, and the guards raise the President on a rope. The Duke opens fire on the wall, killing the guards and forcing Snake to dive for cover, but the President shoots the Duke dead with one of the guard's machine guns. Snake is lifted to safety, and the micro-explosives in his neck are neutralized. As the President prepares for a televised speech to the leaders at the summit meeting, he thanks Snake for saving him and tells him that he can have anything he wants. All Snake asks for is how he feels about the people who died saving him, but the President only offers half-hearted regret. As Snake walks away in disgust, Hauk offers Snake a job as his Deputy — Snake demurs, neither saying yes or no. The President's speech commences, and he offers the contents of the cassette; to his embarrassment, the tape is Cabbie's cassette of the song "Bandstand Boogie". As Snake walks away, he intentionally tears the magnetic tape out of the cassette reel, with the actual message that was intended to be delivered by the President. Development Carpenter originally wrote the screenplay for Escape from New York in 1976, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. Carpenter said, "The whole feeling of the nation was one of real cynicism about the President. I wrote the screenplay and no studio wanted to make it "because, according to Carpenter, "it was too dark, too violent, too scary, and too weird."[5] He had been inspired by the film Death Wish, which was very popular at the time. He did not agree with this film's philosophy but liked how it conveyed "the sense of New York as a kind of jungle, and I wanted to make a science fiction film along these lines". Casting AVCO Embassy Pictures, the film's financial backer, preferred either Charles Bronson or Tommy Lee Jones to play the role of Snake Plissken to Carpenter's choice of Kurt Russell, who was trying to overcome the "lightweight" screen image conveyed by his roles in several Disney comedies. Carpenter refused to cast Bronson on the grounds that he was too old, and because he worried that he could lose directorial control over the picture with an experienced actor. At the time, Russell described his character as "a mercenary, and his style of fighting is a combination of Bruce Lee, The Exterminator, and Darth Vader, with Eastwood's vocal-ness." All that matters to Snake, according to the actor, is "the next 60 seconds. Living for exactly that next minute is all there is." Russell used a rigorous diet and exercise program in order to develop a lean and muscular build. He also endeavored to stay in character between takes and throughout the shooting, as he welcomed the opportunity to get away from the Disney comedies he had done previously. He did fin necessary to remove the eyepatch between takes, as wearing it constantly seriously affected his depth perception.[8] Pre-production Carpenter had just made Dark Star but no one wanted to hire him as a director, so he assumed he would make it in Hollywood as a screenwriter. The filmmaker went on to do other films with the intention of making Escape later. After the success of Halloween, Avco-Embassy signed him and producer Debra Hill to a two-picture deal. The first film from this contract was The Fog. Initially, the second film he was going to make to finish the contract was The Philadelphia Experiment, but because of script-writing problems, Carpenter rejected it in favor of this project. However, Carpenter felt something was missing and recalls, "This was basically a straight action film. And at one point, I realized it really doesn't have this kind of crazy humor that people from New York would expect to see."He brought in Nick Castle, a friend from his film school days at University of Southern California who played "The Shape" in Halloween. Castle invented the Cabbie character and came up with the film's ending. The film's setting proved to be a potential problem for Carpenter, who needed to create a decaying, semi-destroyed version of New York City on a shoe-string budget. He and the film's production designer Joe Alves rejected shooting on location in New York City because it would be too hard to make it look like a destroyed city. Carpenter suggested shooting on a movie back lot but Alves nixed that idea "because the texture of real street is not like a back lot." They sent Barry Bernardi, their location manager (and associate producer), "on a sort of all-expense-paid trip across the country looking for the worst city in America," producer Debra Hill remembers. Bernardi suggested East St. Louis, Illinois, because it was filled with old buildings "that exist in New York now, and [that] have that seedy run-down quality" that the team was looking for.[12] East St. Louis, sitting across the Mississippi River from the more prosperous St. Louis, Missouri, had entire neighborhoods burned out in 1976 during a massive urban fire. Hill said in an interview, "block after block was burnt-out rubble. In some places there was absolutely nothing, so that you could see three and four blocks away."[11] As well, Alves found an old bridge to double for the "69th St. Bridge". The filmmaker purchased the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge for one dollar from the government and then gave it back to them, for the same amount, once production was completed, "so that they wouldn't have any liability," Hill remembers. Locations across the river in St. Louis, Missouri were used, including Union Station and the Fox Theatre, both of which have since been renovated, as well as the building which would eventually become the Schlafly Tap Room microbrewery. Filming Carpenter and his crew persuaded the city to shut off the electricity to ten blocks at a time at night. The film was shot from August to November 1980. It was a tough and demanding shoot for the filmmaker as he recalls. "We'd finish shooting at about 6 am and I'd just be going to sleep at 7 when the sun would be coming up. I'd wake up around 5 or 6 pm, depending on whether or not we had dailies, and by the time I got going, the sun would be setting. So for about two and a half months I never saw daylight, which was really strange."[9] The gladiatorial fight to the death scene between Snake and Slag (played by professional wrestler Ox Baker) was filmed in the Grand Hall at St. Louis Union Station. Russell has stated, "That day was a nightmare. All I did was swing a [spiked] bat at that guy and get swung at in return. He threw a trash can in my face about five times ... I could have wound up in pretty bad shape."[14] In addition to shooting on location in St. Louis, Carpenter shot parts of the film in Los Angeles. Various interior scenes were shot on a sound stage; the final scenes were shot at the Sepulveda Dam, in Sherman Oaks. New York served as a location, as did Atlanta, to use their futuristic-looking rapid-transit system. In New York City, Carpenter persuaded federal officials to grant access to Liberty Island. "We were the first film company in history allowed to shoot on Liberty Island at the Statue of Liberty at night. They let us have the whole island to ourselves. We were lucky. It wasn't easy to get that initial permission. They'd had a bombing three months earlier and were worried about trouble". The simulated wire-frame effect Carpenter was interested in creating two distinct looks for the movie. "One is the police state, high tech, lots of neon, a United States dominated by underground computers. That was easy to shoot compared to the Manhattan Island prison sequences which had few lights, mainly torch lights, like feudal England". Certain matte paintings were rendered by James Cameron, who was at the time a special effects artist with Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Cameron was also one of the directors of photography on the film. As Snake pilots the glider into the city, there are three screens on his control panel displaying wireframe animations of the landing target on the World Trade Center and surrounding buildings. Carpenter wanted high-tech computer graphics, which were very expensive, even for such a simple animation. The effects crew filmed the miniature model set of New York City they used for other scenes under black light, with reflective tape placed along every edge of the model buildings. Only the tape is visible and appears to be a 3D wireframe animation. Reception Escape from New York opened in New York and Los Angeles July 10, 1981. The film grossed $25.2 million in American theaters in summer 1981. The film received generally positive reviews. As of March 3, 2019, it had a rating of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes from 60 reviews, with the critical consensus "Featuring an atmospherically grimy futuristic metropolis, Escape from New York is a strange, entertaining jumble of thrilling action and oddball weirdness". Newsweek magazine wrote of Carpenter "[He has a] deeply ingrained B-movie sensibility - which is both his strength and limitation. He does clean work, but settles for too little. He uses Russell well, however". In Time magazine, Richard Corliss wrote, "John Carpenter is offering this summer's moviegoers a rare opportunity: to escape from the air-conditioned torpor of ordinary entertainment into the hothouse humidity of their own paranoia. It's a trip worth taking".[20] Vincent Canby, in his review for The New York Times, wrote, "[The film] is not to be analyzed too solemnly, though. It's a toughly told, very tall tale, one of the best escape (and escapist) movies of the season."In his review for the Chicago Reader, Dave Kehr, wrote "it fails to satisfy–it gives us too little of too much". Cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson credits the film as an influence on his novel Neuromancer. "I was intrigued by the exchange in one of the opening scenes where the Warden says to Snake 'You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn't you?' It turns out to be just a throwaway line, but for a moment it worked like the best SF where a casual reference can imply a lot."[23] Popular videogame director Hideo Kojima has referred to the film frequently as an influence on his work, in particular the Metal Gear series. Solid Snake is partially influenced by Snake Plissken. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Snake uses the alias "Pliskin" to hide his real identity during most of the game.[24] J. J. Abrams, producer of the 2008 film Cloverfield, mentioned that a scene in his film, which shows the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing into a New York street, was inspired by the poster for Escape from New York. Empire magazine ranked Snake Plissken #29 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll. DVD releases Escape from New York was released on DVD twice by MGM (USA), and once by Momentum Pictures (UK). One MGM release is a barebones edition containing just the theatrical trailer. Another version is the Collector's Edition, a two-disc set featuring a High Definition remastered transfer with a 5.1 Stereo audio track, two commentaries (one by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, another by producer Debra Hill and Joe Alves), a making-of featurette, the first issue of a comic book series titled John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles, and the ten-minute Colorado bank robbery deleted opening sequence.[29] MGM's special edition of the 1981 film was not released until 2003 because the original negative had gone missing. The workprint containing deleted scenes finally turned up in the Hutchinson, Kansas salt mine film depository. The excised scenes feature Snake Plissken robbing a bank, introducing the character of Plissken and establishing a backstory. Director John Carpenter decided to add the original scenes into the special edition release as an extra only: "After we screened the rough cut, we realized that the movie didn't really start until Snake got to New York. It wasn't necessary to show what sent him there."[30] The film has been released on the UMD format for Sony's PlayStation Portable.[31] Blu-ray release On August 3, 2010, MGM Home Entertainment released Escape From New York as a bare-bones Blu-ray. Scream Factory, in association with Shout! Factory, released the film on a special edition Blu-ray on April 21, 2015. Novelization In 1981, Bantam Books published a movie tie-in novelization written by Mike McQuay that adopts a lean, humorous style reminiscent of the film. The novel is significant because it includes scenes that were cut out of the film, such as the Federal Reserve Depository robbery that results in Snake's incarceration. The novel provides motivation and backstory to Snake and Hauk — both disillusioned war veterans — deepening their relationship that was only hinted at it in the film. The novel explains how Snake lost his eye during the Battle for Leningrad in World War III, how Hauk became warden of New York, and Hauk's quest to find his crazy son who lives somewhere in the prison. The novel fleshes out the world that these characters exist in, at times presenting a future even bleaker than the one depicted in the film. The book explains that the West Coast is a no-man's land, and the country's population is gradually being driven crazy by nerve gas as a result of World War III. Comic Books Marvel Comics released the one-shot The Adventures of Snake Plissken in January 1997. The story takes place sometime between Escape from New York and before his famous Cleveland escape mentioned in Escape from L.A. Snake has robbed Atlanta's Center for Disease Control of some engineered metaviruses and is looking for buyers in Chicago. Finding himself in a deal that's really a set-up, he makes his getaway and exacts revenge on the buyer for ratting him out to the United States Police Force. In the meantime, a government lab has built a robot called A.T.A.C.S. (Autonomous Tracking And Combat System) that can catch criminals by imprinting their personalities upon its program in order to predict and anticipate a specific criminal's every move. The robot's first test subject is America's public enemy number one, Snake Plissken. After a brief battle, the tide turns when A.T.A.C.S. copies Snake to the point of fully becoming his personality. Now recognizing the government as the enemy, A.T.A.C.S. sides with Snake. Unamused, Snake sucker punches the machine and destroys it. As A.T.A.C.S. shuts down, it can only ask him, "Why?" Snake just walks off answering, "I don't need the competition". In 2003, CrossGen published John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles, a four-part comic book miniseries.[35] The story takes place a day or so after the events of Escape from New York. Snake has been given a military Humvee after his presidential pardon and makes his way to Atlantic City. Although the director's cut of Escape from New York shows Snake was caught after a bank job, this story has Snake finishing up a second heist that was pre-planned before his capture. The job entails stealing the car in which John F. Kennedy was assassinated from a casino before delivering it to a buyer in the Gulf of Mexico. Snake partners with a man named Marrs who ends up double crossing him. Left for dead in a sinking crab cage, Snake escapes and is saved by a passing fisherman named Captain Ron (an in-joke referring to Kurt Russell's 1992 comedy, Captain Ron). When Ron denies Snake's request to use his boat in order to beat Marrs to the robbery, Snake decides to kill him. When Snake ends up saving Ron from the Russian mob who wants money, Ron changes his mind and helps Snake. Once at the casino, Snake comes face-to-face with Marrs and his men, who arrive at the same time, ending in a high-speed shootout. Snake gets away with the car and its actress portraying Jackie Kennedy, leaving Marrs to be caught by the casino owner, who cuts him a deal to bring his car back and live. After some trouble, Snake manages to finally get the car to the buyer's yacht, using Ron's boat, and is then attacked by Marrs. Following the firefight, the yacht and car are destroyed, Marrs and Captain Ron are dead, and Snake makes his escape in a helicopter with the 30 million credits owed to him for the job. In 2014, BOOM! Studios began publishing an Escape From New York comic book by writer, Christopher Sebela. The first issue of the series was released on December 3, 2014 and the story picks up moments after the end of the film. BOOM! released a crossover comics miniseries between Snake and Jack Burton titled Big Trouble in Little China / Escape from New York in October 2016. Sequel Main article: Escape from L.A. A sequel, Escape from L.A., was released in 1996, with Carpenter returning along with Russell, now also acting as producer and co-writer. https://preview.redd.it/9ug8di6zpes21.png?width=1336&format=png&auto=webp&s=97ff967b208d6ea99f5e39a88597adb0f84d8f49 https://preview.redd.it/8u724ohsyfs21.jpg?width=2628&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75413600e355e29956f34c88779b8a8432b91de2 https://preview.redd.it/3fm5jtbvyfs21.jpg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7cd4b5ad87c1c7d8898618c81671b93eabcedf0 ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK REMAKE IN THE WORKS AT FOX FROM UPGRADE CREATOR LEIGH WHANNELL ESCAPE FROM NY: More Than ONE THIRD of New Yorkers Plan on Fleeing De Blasio’s Big Apple Not even death is an escape from New York’s expensive real estate submitted by Oblique9043 to TheGreatDeception [link] [comments] |
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