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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.

John Carpenter

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John Carpenter
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 16
Actor
Composer
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Film Score Composer
Screenwriter
Writer
Carthage
New York
John Howard Carpenter
Scare
Genre
Horror
Afraid
Asks
Powerful
Things
Frightens
Scares

More quotes by John Carpenter

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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.
John Carpenter
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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.
John Carpenter
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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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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.
John Carpenter
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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.
John Carpenter
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Evil hiding among us is an ancient theme.
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I can play just about any keyboard but I can't read or write a note.
John Carpenter
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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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I just aim for basketball season to start. I don't really care about anything else in life.
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There's nothing better than being in an asylum, if you're going to have a bunch of crazy people in an asylum, and they're all beautiful Hollywood actresses.
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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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.
John Carpenter
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To survive you have to withstand the changes in the business. This business has gone through so many changes since I was young and now it is on to something else. It is all weird today, for me, because I am from the old times. You just have to keep adapting. Isn't that Darwinism? The creature that adapts to its environment survives.
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When you have no money, you need invention.
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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.
John Carpenter
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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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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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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.
John Carpenter
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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.
John Carpenter
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There are a lot of movies that I don't care about, especially not remakes.
John Carpenter