John Carpenter Quotes

What I see as the particularly exciting prospect for writing horror fiction as we go forward is setting stories in more internal landscapes than external ones, mapping out the mind as the home for scary things instead of the house at the end of the lane or lakeside campground or abandoned amusement park.

For me, it's very easy to write a horror movie that's just a succession of scary sequences, but it's hard to find horror movies that have a genuine theme to them that are really exploring some aspect of our psychology and our fears.

I like psychological thrillers but when it's demonic, there's no uplifting message.

It's real simple - we all have nightmares, and the idea you can be in real jeopardy in them is a great gimmick. It's universal.

A lot of modern horror can leave me cold, and I'm not good with blood and gore and all that stuff. It's not fun for me. There's nothing entertaining about watching a film like that.

The horror genre gets you in touch with our primal instincts as a people more than any other genre I can think of. It gives you this chance to sort of reflect on who we are and look at the sort of uglier side that we don't always look at, and have fun with that very thing.

On a deeper level, I think many stories - especially thrillers - can be a journey to the heart of darkness.

I was never a big fan of horror. I got into it making these films, but I don't ever see myself doing slasher movies. The kind of horror film I like is 'The Shining.' I don't really like slashers, but I love thrillers with tension.

I don't like the slasher stuff, myself, but I do like the psychological horror of Roman Polanski and that world. But, it's curious to me why people do like to be afraid.

I read 'The Conspiracy Against the Human Race' and found it incredibly powerful writing. For me as a reader, it was less impactful as philosophy than as one writer's ultimate confessional: an absolute horror story, where the self is the monster.

I'm not a great one for classic horror or cheap thrills.

It's the idea that anticipation is as scary as anything in a movie could be. People's imagination is the most effective tool in creating terror or dread.

What you don't see is scarier than what you do. Categorization is always kind of arbitrary, but people have called 'Preservation' a 'psychological thriller.' To me, psychological thriller basically means 'a horror movie without the blood.'

I don't watch things like 'Jeepers Creepers' or 'Final Destination 53.' I really like more of the psychological thrillers, like 'Rosemary's Baby,' 'The Shining' and 'Don't Look Now.'

I don't watch scary movies. Sometimes, even having to read the script and do an episode of 'Grimm,' I get a little tense because I know someone's going to jump out of somewhere.

Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.

My three obsessions are mental illness, horror and religion.

'The Omen,' 'The Exorcist,' those movies for me are the quintessential horror movies that still scare me as an adult.

I do like sci-fi, and I do like horror - those are my favorite genres. Good horror, though, not like slasher horror... psychological horror like 'The Shining' - really good stuff!

My first six books were horror, I think because when I was young I loved Stephen King. John Wyndham, Daphne Du Maurier, and it's natural to try and emulate the books you first loved.

I think that true horror is accomplished by slowly getting into your brain. The old way is much more scary.

It's not an easy place to be - to write a horror film. You go down the stairs to the dark to find these characters. It's not a place anyone can go, and sometimes it's not a place that you want to go.

'The Exoricist' and 'The Shining,' there is some horrific stuff, and it's mostly what you put in your own head, which I find amazing.

The best horror walks a line that's completely on a psychological level, not needing the typical tropes of traditional horror filmmaking, then also having to tease out those elements in a way that makes the audience feel like they know what they're in.

I think my favorite horror films are really grounded in human psychology, which is to say I think through sort of extreme dislocations of reality.