John Carpenter Quotes

I just aim for basketball season to start. I don't really care about anything else in life.

Remakes, in general, are a result of necessity being the mother of invention. They can't open movies consistently and break through the advertising clutter that's out there.

When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail.

I have two different categories of favorite films. One is the emotional favorites, which means these are generally films that I saw when I was a kid; anything you see in your formative years is more powerful, because it really stays with you forever. The second category is films that I saw while I was learning the craft of motion pictures.

Horror stories have always worked on film. It's where they work. That's where vampires and ghosts and UFOs are real. They're not particularly real in life, but they're real on the screen. It's the communal aspect of movie-watching.

Horror is a reaction; it's not a genre. Somebody's life would have to be in danger for it [story] to be a horror story.

In Halloween, I viewed the characters as simply normal teenagers. Laurie, Jamie Lee's character, was shy and somewhat repressed. And Michael Myers, the killer, is definitely repressed. They have certain similarities.

I think there are certain subjects I don't want to tackle, that I don't think I could do a good job with. I don't think I'd be good with ... broad comedy? I don't know. Maybe I would.

From early on, when synthesizers were first introduced into music, I liked the idea that you could get a big sound with them, electronic, but like an orchestra. And I could play it all myself. That was exciting.

Fears are all psychological. Being afraid of death, loss of a loved one and disfigurement are all powered by your mind, and that's very powerful stuff.

I never got in this business, in cinema, to make horror movies. They arrived on my doorstep and I got typecast. Which was fine, I enjoy it, but I got into this business to make westerns. And the kind of westerns I used to see, they died. So that didn't work out.

There are two different stories in horror: internal and external. In external horror films, the evil comes from the outside, the other tribe, this thing in the darkness that we don't understand. Internal is the human heart.

I made a decision back in 1978 that, in a trade off for money when I directed Halloween, I would have my name above the title in order to basically brand these movies my own.

What scares me is what scares you. We're all afraid of the same things. That's why horror is such a powerful genre. All you have to do is ask yourself what frightens you and you'll know what frightens me.

Well, 'They Live' was a primal scream against Reaganism of the '80s. And the '80s never went away. They're still with us. That's what makes 'They Live' look so fresh - it's a document of greed and insanity. It's about life in the United States then and now. If anything, things have gotten worse.

In England, I'm a horror movie director. In Germany, I'm a filmmaker. In the US, I'm a bum.

I'm pretty happy with who I am. I like myself and what I'm doing. I don't need to be the world's greatest director or the most famous
or the richest. I don't need to make a whole lot of great films. I can do my job and I can do it pretty well. This is the realization I've come to, later in life. It's called growing up.

I'm always involved with casting my movies. I have final word on it.

I enjoyed 'The Avengers.' I couldn't do that kind of movie though. Superheroes aren't my deal.

I've gone through various periods with superheroes. They work in the right hands, but they don't work in other hands. It's tricky. But any movie is tricky. It's impossible to say, 'This is what you do in any situation.'

Movies are pieces of film stuck together in a certain rhythm, an absolute beat, like a musical composition. The rhythm you create affects the audience.

I don't want to be a part of the demographics. I want to be an individual. I wear each of my films as a badge of pride. That's why I cherish all my bad reviews. If the critics start liking my movies, then I'm in deep trouble.

To make Michael Myers frightening, I had him walk like a man, not a monster.

Halloween put me on the map, and I'm very sad to hear of his death.

When somebody who makes movies for a living - either as an actor, writer, producer or director - lives to be a certain age, you have to admire them. It is an act of courage to make a film - a courage for which you are not prepared in the rest of life. It is very hard and very destructive. But we do it because we love it.

What a director does ... essentially, it's storytelling, but a director also controls the feeling and the sounds and the texture. It's an act of creation, like a symphony or a painting or a story. But with different tools.

From a will: And to my communist nephew Oswald, I leave the sum of 10,000 pounds - to be shared equally with his fellow Britishers.

Film buffs who don't live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it's like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it's not like that. It's very different. It's hard work.

I had a talent for scoring films. I just developed it.

It's a very good time for horror. This business certainly has changed, but there's still room for serious horror films. Look at 28 Days Later, that's not a tongue-in-cheek picture.

There are a lot of movies that I don't care about, especially not remakes.

Horror has been a genre since the beginning of cinema, all the way back to the days of silent films. I don't think it will ever go away because it's so universal. Humor doesn't always travel to other countries, but horror does.

You have to fight really hard for a private life, and sometimes you don't have one. It just gets to you after a while. It's tough.

One could make money and get a career going with a low-budget horror film about killers attacking on holidays. It is always flattering to have somebody copy you.

I can play just about any keyboard but I can't read or write a note.