Just watched JC's Masters of Horror episode "Cigarette Burns". While it's not essential Carpenter, it lands squarely in the enjoyable side of things he's done, and easily the best thing he's done since In the Mouth of Madness. This is actually pretty similar to Mouth of Madness, about how works of art can have reality altering effects.
There's a lot of bad dialogue here, some bad acting, and because it was made for TV in the 90's you don't get any of that widescreen goodness, but it's made up for by how great the concept is. It's about a guy trying to find an 'evil' film, and there's a tension and curiosity that builds up that mirrors that of the protagonist (played by a youngish Norman Reedus!), and the climax is sheer insanity that is certainly worth the wait through the pretty much entirely dialogue based scenes that precede it.