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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.

John Carpenter

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John Carpenter
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 16
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John Howard Carpenter
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More quotes by John Carpenter

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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.
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When you have no money, you need invention.
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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.
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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.
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I don't watch my films. I've seen 'em enough after cutting them and putting the music on. I don't ever want to see them again.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A lot of it [success] is luck. That's a huge part of it that no one wants to talk about. You just got to be in the right place at the right time.
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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.
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Way back in the '70s, I was approached to talk about the story I'd write for a Spider-Man movie. They also talked to me about Batman. I had to think about it, but that was way, way back when.
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We've got the prettiest girls in the world here in Los Angeles and there's a great music scene. And I learned what I learned about cinema here in Los Angeles so it's always been really important to me as a city to live in and I love making movies about it.
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One of my heroes is a composer named James Bernard, and oh my God... I can still listen to his music today and be stirred and moved by it. But I think that you fall in love with... Well, again, when you're young, it really is more powerful. Much more terrifying.
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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.
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It [horror genre] never dies. It just keeps getting re­invented and it always will. Horror is a universal language we're all afraid. We're born afraid, we're all afraid of things: death, disfigurement, loss of a loved one. Everything that I'm afraid of, you're afraid of and vice versa. So everybody feels fear and suspense.
John Carpenter
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Child pornography is taboo. There are really no such things as snuff films. That's a legend. But movies are like pieces of dreams, and we don't need to go into those dreams. Those dreams are beyond. Child pornography - it's horrible. Human suffering is a horrible thing in real life.
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I just aim for basketball season to start. I don't really care about anything else in life.
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As a filmmaker, it's about surviving and lasting. So many talented people that I've known in my life - directors and writers - just haven't made it and haven't had a chance.
John Carpenter