‘Everything I know about evil I learned in that small town’: John Carpenter on terrifying the world with Halloween, The Thing and The Fog

At 78, the king of horror and sci-fi movies is as much of a rebel as ever. He talks about creativity, compromise (he’s not a fan) and how he became addicted to moviemaking In 2024, John Carpenter had a dream that sounds like one of his movies: it involved a portal to the underworld beneath a disused church, monstrous demons and people being turned inside out. “I woke up and thought: wow! What an elaborate story,” he says. “I rarely have cinematic dreams, but this was one of them.” He liked it...

By Steve Rose