Horror Legend John Carpenter's Only Oscar-Winning Project Is Streaming For Free

John Carpenter is a master of horror, but he always wanted to make horse operas. Long before he changed horror forever with 1978 classic "Halloween," Carpenter co-wrote, edited, and scored "The Resurrection of Broncho Billy," an Oscar-winning short that's currently available to stream for free on YouTube.

"The Resurrection of Broncho Billy" isn't a conventional Western. It tells the story of a young man (Johnny Crawford) living in modern times who longs to be a cowboy from yesteryear. His bedroom is decorated with posters of Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster's "Vera Cruz," and he dresses like a gunslinger. The young man is out of place in modern times, but his passion for the Old West is undeniable. Carpenter was still at film school when he worked on "The Resurrection of Bronco Billy," making its Academy Award success even more impressive. Still, the filmmaker showed remarkable talent back then, as the Quentin Tarantino-approved "Dark Star" also started life as a student film.

Unfortunately, Carpenter never received his Oscar. As he told Fangoria Legends (via Justin Beahm), "One of the guys from the production, not me, got to go to the ceremony, and the next day, Bernard Canter, the head of the cinema department at that time, brought the Oscar to show the rest of us in a paper bag. That was my closest brush with [the] Oscar. In a paper bag." Carpenter went on to enjoy a successful career after "The Resurrection of Broncho Billy," but his Westerns remain largely overlooked. With that in mind, let's take a look at them.

Westerns inform many of Carpenter's movies. "Assault on Precinct 13" is essentially "Rio Bravo" set in a '70s urban police station. Meanwhile, the protagonists in "Escape from New York" and the Roddy Piper-led "They Live" are reminiscent of wandering cowboys like the characters Clint Eastwood used to play. Adding Western tropes to horror and sci-fi movies enabled Carpenter to make some original flicks, but his more straight-laced efforts deserve more recognition.

Back in the '70s, Carpenter wrote a Western for John Wayne to star in. Titled "Blood River," it tells the story of a young man who teams up with an old gunslinger while on the run. The film was eventually made as a '90s TV movie, and it's well worth your time. Elsewhere, Carpenter lent his writing talents to "El Diablo," a comedic Western about a school teacher who embarks on an adventure to rescue one of his students from an outlaw.

Carpenter has a knack for writing Westerns, as evidenced by his Oscar win — even if he doesn't have a physical prize to show for it. He might be known as a horror guy, but the director's filmography is littered with gems in all types of genres.