‘Everything I know about evil I learned in that small town’: John Carpenter on terrifying the world with Halloween, The Thing and The Fog

At 78, the king of horror and sci-fi movies is as much of a rebel as ever.

He talks about creativity, compromise (he’s not a fan) and how he became addicted to moviemaking In 2024, John Carpenter had a dream that sounds like one of his movies: it involved a portal to the underworld beneath a disused church, monstrous demons and people being turned inside out. “I woke up and thought: wow!

What an elaborate story,” he says. “I rarely have cinematic dreams, but this was one of them.” He liked it so much that he has turned it into a graphic novel, Cathedral, with an accompanying soundtrack. “It seemed to fit this heavy metal groove that we were starting on, and it worked out pretty well.” Most people would consider this a nightmare rather than a dream, I suggest. “No.

Nightmares, for me, are personal – something that happened to me,” he replies. “Usually my nightmares are, I’m directing a movie and no one will listen to me. No one will follow my directions.

Seriously, that’s what I wake up from.” Continue reading...

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  ‘Everything I know about evil I learned in that small town’: John Carpenter on terrifying the world with Halloween, The Thing and The Fog