John Carpenter Horror Quotations

We have all been beaten up in our careers, because horror is viewed as a low-rent genre, just a notch or two above pornography. And while it's true that we traffic in dark areas of violence and horror in our profession, because we get everything out on the screen and don't carry it around with us, we really are mostly nice guys.

Evil hiding among us is an ancient theme.

It [horror genre] never dies. It just keeps getting re­invented and it always will. Horror is a universal language; we're all afraid. We're born afraid, we're all afraid of things: death, disfigurement, loss of a loved one. Everything that I'm afraid of, you're afraid of and vice versa. So everybody feels fear and suspense.

What scares me is what scares you. We’re all afraid of the same things. That’s why horror is such a powerful genre. All you have to do is ask yourself what frightens you and you’ll know what frightens me.

Horror found me. I got into the movie business to make westerns.

Horror is a reaction; it's not a genre. Somebody's life would have to be in danger for it [story] to be a horror story.

Horror stories have always worked on film. It's where they work. That's where vampires and ghosts and UFOs are real. They're not particularly real in life, but they're real on the screen. It's the communal aspect of movie-watching.