Horror master John Carpenter is a massive Howard Hawks fan—he essentially remade Rio Bravo into the brilliant Attack on Precinct 13, and reinterpreted Hawks’ The Thing From Another World into the masterpiece The Thing. With all that in mind, there is a classic, all-time-great noir film that Carpenter would love to remake… but it ironically isn’t Hawks’ exceptional The Big Sleep.

There are, of course, a number of great noir films to choose from. The era of classic film noir, between the early 1940s and the late 1950s, produced some of the most interesting, edgy, and coolest films in history, including the Billy Wilder classics Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, and Ace in the Hole. But, aside from the Wilder greats, there was also, The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, or Howard Hawks’ aforementioned Big Sleep. Film noir’s common combo of morally complex antiheroes, twisty plots, betrayal, and really, really bad villains makes for conflict rich, high-stakes dramatic tension.

In an interview with Criterion discussing his top 10 favorite films, Carpenter lists some of the excellent films above—Double Indemnity, Ace in the Hole, The Third Man—but also makes a nod to Robert Aldrich’s classic, Kiss Me Deadly. The film centers on private eye Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), who picks up a panicked woman named Christina (Cloris Leachman) running in the road in only a trench coat. After being stopped later on in their journey, Mike is overcome by ruffians and Christina is killed. Despite warnings to halt his investigation (would it really be a noir film if someone didn’t investigate something extremely dangerous?), Mike is compelled to get to the bottom of Christina’s murder. But, Kiss Me Deadly isn’t like any other noir classic, what makes the film stand out beyond its general greatness is its uniqueness; it’s a rare sci-fi/noir hybrid, a combo rarely seen.

Carpenter’s Talent For Genre Hybridization Makes ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ A Perfect Fit

In his Criterion list, Carpenter praises numerous aspects of the film. “I love that opening scene with Cloris Leachman running down the highway,” he says, “and Ralph Meeker’s performance. Just all of it!” In particular, he praised the film’s unique combination of noir and sci-fi elements.” Based loosely on the novel of the same name by Mickey Spillane but more of an embrace of surrealist elements, the film was recognized as a daring creative risk, being both a radioactive atomic drama and a crime thriller, separating it from the mainstream films of the genre.

But one thing Aldrich was faithful to was “the great whatsit,” which is what they call the mysterious case that the atomic particle is kept in. Expressing his love for the film, Carpenter went on to explain his desire to remake it, along with expressing a few doubts. “I’d love to remake Kiss Me Deadly in some way, but I don’t even know if that would be possible,” he clarifies, noting “it has such a contemporary energy, but it’s ultimately so tied to the time in which it was made.”

In this light, it makes sense that Kiss Me Deadly would strike Carpenter as a strong candidate for a remake, despite his love for a variety of noir outings. Like Howard Hawks (who made genres as diverse as westerns, noir films, sci-fi horror, and riotous comedies) and Billy Wilder (who made all-timer comedies, noirs, war films, and romances), John Carpenter is notable for his strong command of diverse genres. From slashers (Halloween), made-for-tv biopics (Elvis), action films of both sci-fi (Escape from New York) and fantasy (Big Trouble in Little China), John Carpenter has done it all, and we’ve barely even mentioned the entirety of his magnificent Apocalypse Trilogy. Carpenter is an all-time talent at tacking genre hybrids, and giving sci-fi flair to other genres, so Kiss Me Deadly would be a uniquely stellar choices for his oeuvre. The question then becomes if he’s indeed right, and the film couldn’t be made in our era.

Nostalgia has long sold tickets, but numerous remakes, legacy sequels, and past-set projects have had a decent track record in our era. Sci-fi-influenced and “tech noir” films (think Blade Runner and The Matrix) have proven to have an extraordinarily long cinematic shelf life, so it’s clearly a particularly ripe genre hybrid to experiment with, especially with a proper unique twist at your disposal. Carpenter himself is no stranger to a thorough reinvention either, which is why The Thing was capable of blowing a quite good original film out of the rhetorical water and into near-total irrelevance. If any noir can be remade, why not Kiss Me Deadly? And if anyone can do it, with throngs of fans lining up outside the theater door for his long-awaited return, it’s John Carpenter.