The 21st-century horror movie phenomenon John Carpenter can’t stand: “I don’t know what that means”
With his filmmaking days well and truly behind him, John Carpenter has nestled into his groove as a part-time musician, part-time video game enthusiast, and full-time miserable old bastard.
The last part is intended to be semi-complimentary, since there’s always something hilarious about one of the most influential filmmakers of their generation giving absolutely no fucks about the current state of cinema, and when he does dip his toes back into those waters, he’s only doing it to get paid.
Even though his influence continues to inspire each passing wave of horror-focused auteurs, Carpenter has always been too modest to anoint himself as a pioneer. He is, though, with his signature blend of low-budget schlock, B-tier chills, and synthesised soundtracks, making him a trailblazer in his own way.
When he casts his eye across the current cinematic landscape, though, he isn’t what you’d call excited by what he sees. The Substance? Shite. Barbie? Shite. Oppenheimer? Shite. The Friday the 13th franchise? Shite. Most of the Halloween sequels? Shite. On it goes, with Carpenter refusing to pull any punches.
As he knows better than most, horror tends to work in trends. If something works once, every studio and production company and Hollywood will jump on the bandwagon as fast as possible until it creaks under its own weight, before the wheels fall off completely and the hunt for the next shiny new toy begins.
After Halloween, it was the slasher boom. After The Blair Witch Project, it was found footage. After Saw and Hostel, it was torture porn. After Scream, everything became self-aware. After 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it was remaking every recognisable title under the sun. Currently, we seem to be trapped in the age of elevated horror, and it’s a term that makes no sense to Carpenter.
“I don’t know what that means,” he matter-of-factly put it. “I can guess what it means, but I don’t really know.” It was explained to him as horror flicks that lean heavily into metaphor, and he still didn’t get it: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” As far as he’s concerned, horror is horror, and calling one film ‘elevated’ and not another makes no sense to him, since they’re all cut from the same cloth.
“They don’t have messages,” Carpenter offered. “They have themes. Thematic material, and some horror films have thematic material. The good ones do. When a scary scene comes along, we should be scary. It all depends on what we’re looking at on the screen. That balance is done by the director. We’re just carpet. We’re just carpet men here. Your hardwood floors need a carpet? We provide it.”
You say a director creates an elevated horror film, Carpenter says they’re all just carpet men. Even the people who make so-called elevated horror movies don’t care for the term, and they’ve got a point since it doesn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things, and when the guy behind The Thing suggests that it’s a nonsensical term, it’s much easier to agree.
