Peacock’s upcoming anthology Suburban Screams has an episode centering on the true-crime account of a woman’s experience with a phone stalker, which was interesting enough to draw in 75-year-old legendary horror filmmaker John Carpenter to direct an episode. He also produced the series and composed its theme.
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While Carpenter is mostly retired, he looked back on his career in a conversation with the Los Angeles Times to promote Suburban Screams. “I’ve had the greatest life because all I wanted to do when I was a kid is be a movie director. And I got to be, and it was unbelievable. I prepared for it. I went to school for it. I’m lucky. A lot of people aren’t so lucky. So I have nothing to complain about,” he shared about his long career filled with inimitable genre staples like The Thing, They Live, and of course his original Halloween franchise.
Now with Suburban Screams, he adds a reality based docu-series to his legacy after last directing The Ward 13 years ago. Of being inspired to step back into the director’s chair, Carpenter said, “It was an offer from the company that produces it. They don’t want me to say ‘reality,’ but it’s true stories. These are all true stories dug up by researchers, and the one I chose was a phone stalker because I connected to it. They’re creepy stories.” The complex nature of the shoot intrigued him. “I shouldn’t say this, but they’re shot on reality show budgets, which is a challenge. I did not [conduct the interviews]. I was there, but I was watching the interview. I needed a really great actress [Julie Stevens], and I found her. That takes care of about 90% of my problem. This poor girl. Six years she’s been stalked, but they can’t find who it is. So I listened to her story. We hit the points that are going to translate into a visual story. Poor thing.”
He continued to describe how he was able to work from home, as a director at least: “I remote-directed it, which was fun. That’s the way I’m going to do it now. I’m too old to run around, stomping around,” he said. “I [directed from] a chair in the front room where I play video games, where I watch basketball and watch the news. It was all set up so the big screen TV has the [live camera feed] through the lens.”
On whether the experience has changed how active Carpenter will remain in filmmaking from this point on, well, that’s a complicated story. “Get the right one or the right budget—yeah, I’ll do it. I don’t want to work that much, though. Compared to music, it’s so different because music is the purest art form there is. You don’t have to talk about it, you don’t have to explain it. I can play it and somebody in Indonesia can just feel it,” he shared. “There’s no comparison to that in any other form. But unfortunately, I fell in love with movies, which is the craziest, silliest art form there is.” He said that his career, while now drawing close to its end, had some deeply toxic effects on his life. “…I was a chain smoker, which had a terrible effect on my health. I was too stressed. I had to stop making movies for a bit. I had to have some space. You know, I am closer to the end than I was. I think about that now. I think about nothingness; what’s next. Anyway. I’ve got to tell you, I’m lucky as hell. I’m lucky.”
Here’s hoping we’ll get more Carpenter creations in the near future in any of the mediums that interest him, like his Storm King Comics imprint he’ll be promoting at this week’s New York Comic Con—we’ll take it!
John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams streams on Peacock starting this Friday.
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