From Halloween all the way to composing his own album, Lost Themes, John Carpenter is finally getting the press he deserves. And major outlets who normally ignore the mad scientist behind The Thing, Escape From New York, Christine, In the Mouth of Madness, and much, much more, are finally getting behind him.
Vanity Fair featured the director and surprising got him to talk (he’s a tough interview, guys).
While you can read the actual story by clicking above, what I really enjoyed was the bit about how he avoids watching his own movies. It’s torture to him.
“I don’t get goose bumps much these days, I’m an old man,” he said referring to getting scared of modern horror films. What does scare him is looking back at his own work.
“They start and I think, Why did I do that? What was I thinking?” Carpenter told VF Hollywood. “Once they are done, they are out the door and I don’t want to think about them anymore.”
That’s seriously the best mindset to have, although it’s hard to learn from your mistakes if you can’t critique yourself, let alone take criticism from others.
The article does detail the history of Carpenter vs. the film critic, where he added almost wistfully, “Every movie I’ve made has had a little dark cloud around it.”
Click the link above for this fantastic article.