1Dark Star (1974)

The Film: Originally inspired by Forbidden Planet that an eight-year-old Carpenter watched with jaw agape, Dark Star evolved from student films and the shorts that he'd made while trying to break into the movie business.

He and writer Dan O'Bannon scrounged $60,000 to make the story of slacker astronauts and their malevolently malfunctioning bomb.

And yes, he wrote the theme song's music, with lyrics aded by Bill Taylor.
 
Carpenter Chats: Made for what Carpenter accurately points out is "what it costs a major studio to sneeze," the film wasn't easy.

"We shot with barely adequate, poorly functioning equipment because we could afford nothing better. Our cameras would rattle and purr like cocktail shakers full of glass. The Coke bottles rammed on the front of the camera were posing as lenses. They wouldn't focus," he told Photon magazine in 1975.

Remade? Fortunately, the film's limited exposure means studios haven't touched it. Yet.