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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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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
Work
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Ufo
Always
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Vampires
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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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I just aim for basketball season to start. I don't really care about anything else in life.
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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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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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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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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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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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I'm always involved with casting my movies. I have final word on it.
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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.
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Horror found me. I got into the movie business to make westerns.
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There are a lot of movies that I don't care about, especially not remakes.
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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.
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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.
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I can play just about any keyboard but I can't read or write a note.
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We all question our sanity. Everyone has had an experience of loss of control of something.
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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.
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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.
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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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When you have no money, you need invention.
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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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