When it comes to classic horror, it’s hard to beat John Carpenter and the original Halloween. It’s far from Carpenter’s only foray into the genre, but it set an entire sub-genre into motion by working cheap and bringing the terror to audiences. After its release in 1978, a slew of slasher films would fill theaters.
From there, series like Friday The 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street would become cultural standouts of the generation. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that the man who helped usher it all in was in love with those movies. Carpenter stopped by Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast to talk about his career and a bit of the new Halloween film, noting his distaste for the films that would follow:
“One sprints from an organic idea and has a truly artist’s eye working,” he stated. “And ‘Friday the 13th,’ I feel, affects me as very cynical. It’s very cynical moviemaking. It just doesn’t rise above its cheapness.”
“I think the reason that all these slasher movies came in the ’80s was a lot of folks said, ‘Look at that ‘Halloween’ movie. It was made for peanuts, and look at the money it’s made! We can make money like that. That’s what the teenagers want to see. So they just started making them, cranking them out… most of them were awful.”
Indiewire makes mention of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is a false idea since it technically isn’t a slasher film. It also came out in 1974, making it a forefather to Carpenter’s own work.
Carpenter is executive producing the next film in the Halloween series, the 11th one to date including Rob Zombie’s two remake efforts. There’s no guarantee that it’ll worth a look, but it does seem like Carpenter is at least keeping hopes high.
(Via Indiewire / Bret Easton Ellis)
