We love to see the classics!
John Carpenter is a pillar of the horror genre. Not only do most of us lose it for Halloween, The Thing, They Live, and so many more, but even our favorites stan the man. When a tweet called Jordan Peele the best horror director of all time, Peele responded that he would not “tolerate the John Carpenter slander.” Not only has Carpenter given us a resume of movies to get out of bed for, but he is also the celebrated composer of some of our favorite horror movies. He basically co-parented half of my generation, and we do not talk about it enough. So, of course, we were curious what kind of movies John Carpenter would list as his favorites. Luckily, Far Out Magazine had answers.
John Carpenter’s 8 Favorite Horror Films
The Thing from Another World (Christian Nyby, 1951)
X The Unknown (Leslie Norman and Joseph Losey, 1956)
The Quatermass Xperiment (Val Guest, 1955)
Horror Of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958)
Night Of The Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)
The Fly (Kurt Neumann, 1958)
The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
I’m not surprised he has taste. Or that he seems to live for the classics. However, I was surprised by how many of these I haven’t seen yet. While I look at my life choices, I thought we could catch the ones streaming on HBOMax and nerd out together.
Horror Of Dracula (1958)
We all love an old-school Dracula. This one has Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in the cast to tip the odds in its favor. I plan to watch this immediately and hope my student loan officer sends John Carpenter my next payment for this service.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
I love when favorites shout out other favorites. George A. Romero gave us one of the best zombie films ever with Night of the Living Dead. It’s a classic for a reason, and I love that it’s still making its way onto Carpenter’s favorites as it should for all of our lists, to be honest.
The Fly (1958)
I doubt this will be as gooey as the David Cronenberg remake. This means I’ll have to settle for being grossed out in a different way, and that’s okay. This one has Vincent Price, so I’m predicting a good time as I fix this giant hole in my horror film knowledge.
The Exorcist (1973)
I don’t think there is another movie about exorcisms that is quite as terrifying as this one. I am attacked by very vivid images just looking at the title. I’m very happy to see it’s also living rent-free in John Carpenter’s brain.
Four out of eight movies streaming ain’t bad. Now that we know what one of our favorite horror directors is into, we can rally some friends and rent the rest. After we spend a few nights doing the HBOMax and thrill anyways… I’ll see myself out now.
Tell me if you’re as geeked about John Carpenter’s favorite horror movies as I am at @misssharai.
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