The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Filmmaker & Composer John Carpenter | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Billy Corgan welcomes horror master and filmmaking icon John Carpenter for a fascinating conversation. Carpenter reflects on fighting studios to protect his vision, why he refused to change the ending of The Thing, and what it really means to be an auteur in Hollywood. He shares stories about growing up around the Nashville music scene, discovering filmmaking at age eight, composing his legendary film scores, and why Halloween works because “the less you know about Michael Myers, the scarier he becomes.” Along the way, Billy and John debate the scariest movie ever made, swap stories about professional wrestling, classic directors like Howard Hawks and John Ford, the collapse of the studio system, AI’s impact on filmmaking, and why America sometimes feels like it’s living inside one of Carpenter’s dystopian movies.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Halloween is designed to make you jump and scream. That movie scared me off the scary movies for the rest of the life. The less you know about Michael Myers, the scariest, scarier he is to you. Having been on a few sets in my life, I don't know how you do it. The thing that I love the most about movies is when they're finished, they're done. John Carpenter, thank you very much for being here today. My pleasure. Sure. When I think of you, I think of the word autore, which is a word we use in America and the arts, but I don't think we really know what it means.

No, no, we don't know what it means. How would you define autore? Just somebody in control, and that's a lot of people want to be in control. But when you're a movie director in Hollywood, in the business, you want to maintain control because that's your movie. In fact, Sergio Leone was a famous director, and he wanted to control. And he made a movie called Once Upon a Time. What was it? In the West? No, that one is, that's one of the greatest movies ever made. The New York movie with Robert De Niro.

Oh, okay, I know what you're talking about. Anyway, the studio started cutting it. He said it's no longer my film. So that's what it's a story. It's somebody who paints with movies. Yeah. So in doing my research on you, Howard Hawks came up. John Ford came up, Hitchcock, too, all great autotors.

Yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes we say something in an interview and it becomes the truth. But are men like Hawks and Ford people you really looked up to as directors or as people who are auditors? people who are autos in the sense of being able to create and control their own world? When I went to film school at USC, like a lot of guys did, and I saw all their movies, all the classic Hollywood films, and these are the guys who stood out to me. They had a vision. This is what they wanted to do. This is them on screen. Yeah. And I really responded to that. Yeah. I thought, that's something I want to do. Yeah. Yeah. Hawks, um, uh,

you know, atmosphere comes to mind for it almost like a painter. Yeah. Like these beautiful painterly scenes that he would create. So I thought, what would you describe your vision? Oh, God. It's kind of a may launch. I have no clue. I have no idea what my vision is.

I just do it. Yeah. But it certainly has a personal stamp. It does. Oh, yeah. Do you feel that? Oh, hell yeah. Okay.

And I fought my way with almost total success of having control of my own movies. Yeah. A couple of times, no. And for various reasons. Isn't it interesting that autortes, by and large, drive great commerce, but they're always the ones that are most at odds with the system that they're. Yes, it's true. It's really true.

When you entered that system, that Hollywood system, I know you kind of came in not, you know, you didn't come in full force. It took time to sort of gain your, I don't know, trust is the right word in that system. What did you, what were your first impressions of the music business that was there before you actually, I'd start the music business. I'm talking my business. Wow. What were your impressions of the movie business? Because obviously the studio system had long been sort of somewhat dismantled. Well, I will tell you about the music business. My father was a founding member of the Nashville strings. Oh. And he played sessions down. in Nashville. I even have Nashville strings albums, or am I crazy? And I would go with him when I was

young, and I saw Roy Orbison, Brenda Lee, and folks like that saying in studio. Is this RCA studio? Yeah, I think it was. The little one or the big one? I don't know. You know what to win him in the bigger one? It's almost like a big barn, if you remember. All I remember is looking at these strange people who are singing and thought, what? Roy Arbison wore sunglasses. Yes. And he had a guy who sang harmony with him who wore something left. I thought, what is going on here? It's like something out of your movie. Well, hey.

But the movie business, you want to talk about them? Yeah. The movie business I love the movie business even though I know it's a terrible business for many. Well, you know, I came in late 70s with how I got in was you have to make money. It's all the same stuff. It's all, if you make money, they love you. They think you're great. If you don't, you know. Get out. Get out. So. Um, and it's never changed. It's never changed. But was it, was there a particular? And it has changed. Sorry. I'm just, I'm babbling here. No, it has changed enormously in many ways. But the essential is exactly the same, which is what I'm describing to you. Yes.

You have to be a golden boy to really succeed. Yeah. Like Spielberg, he's kind of the golden boy. Well, he was kind of annoyeded from the beginning. He was over the universal, yeah. But the business itself has changed and a great deal. Did you find that there was a particular ethos to the 70s version of the movie business? Yeah.

Yeah, they started experimenting with the content of movies in the 60s. and that went into the 70s. A lot of rebellious going on, sorry. Easy writer was sort of the watershed. That's correct. But, you know, then it sort of went back into traditional stories and such. But it was filled with pirates who loved young filmmakers to take advantage of. them and take their money.

Yeah. And that's still true. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have a particular aspiration when you were going to film school? Like, I want to be, is there just to be a director or is there, was there a vision involved? Director. I wanted to be a professional director.

That's what I wanted to be. Since I was eight years old. It was my dream. And I got to live it. Yeah. Dude, I got him to living the American dream. You did. And then, when I slowed down, I got into music.

Well, that's, that's a mistake, you know, because when you get into music, why? No, it's a joke. It's a part of it. But let's talk about something that's really serious, and that's wrestling. Okay. Why the NWA? Well, I caught the bug for professional wrestling as a child, but then I walked away as a teen, and then I found myself in my late 20s drawn into the actual business, meaning what went on behind the curtain. Uh-huh. The idea of tinkering behind the.

curtain to what actually showed up in the ring. Really? It was very tempting to me. That's what you wanted to do. Yes. Wow. So I worked on the independent scene for a few years. I don't know how much you know about the independent scene, but there's, you know, there's hundreds and hundreds of satellite little companies.

Uh-huh. That run in towns all over America. Right. Where the, you know, weekend warriors get up and, and they hope to be the next Hulk Hogan or Rod. Sure. Sure. And some actually do make it. They'd make it, you know, like almost like a band playing in the clubs.

Who, who, for instance? Well, one of the biggest stars in the world right now is C.M. Punk from Chicago, who literally started on the independent scene and worked his way up. And now he's one of the biggest stars in the history of wrestling. Huh? I didn't know that. I don't know him. I'm not familiar with him.

But I'm saying he would be comparable to a Rick Rood or even above that level as a main event talent. Very unusual, kind of a one-of-a-kind professional wrestler. Very skilled, great talker, great professional wrestling. Ah, wow. But if you looked at him, you wouldn't necessarily assume, he doesn't sort of fit the classic role of professional wrestling. But he made his name on the independence. What's his finishing move? Go to sleep.

It's a, it's a, you kind of got a guy on your shoulders, GTS, I think they call it. And then when you pull the guy off, you hit him with your knee when he's coming down. And he takes the bump like that. I see. I see. Yeah, yeah. So I worked on the independent, kind of learned my ropes like an independent. Did you wrestle ever?

No, sir. I got involved. I just wanted to ask. No, no, you can ask me whatever you want. I did get concussed once. That's an interesting story. Did you really? Oh, yeah.

I took a guitar shot in the... Headshots are bad news. No, I remember the old brick cell phones? They were like that big. Bang? I took one of those in the back of the head. Oh. Yeah.

Ooh. Yeah. Do you see stars floating around? Oh, no, I saw the old. I saw the old. I saw the flash and the bang. Yeah, yeah, man. Yeah.

And then an hour later, I was passing out my soup like this. Yeah, yeah. So I did that, and then I ended up working for the second biggest company in America at the time, which was called TNA. I know TNA. I know who they are. Worked in the front office, was part of the booking committee, started producing segments in the corner with the town at 10 a. And when they were grumpy and they didn't want to talk. Sure. So I learned how to produce television, caught the bug, had a little bit of success, and was kind of held down by some of the

people above me. Jealous, we're there? It's, like all the arts, it's a, it's always, um,ity is, is, is, is, is, is right. Yeah, it is. And, uh, yes, it is. And, uh, at some point I ended up running the company, however, briefly. And so when I got it, I thought, great, I'm done with professional wrestling to hell with all you people. And about a month later, somebody called me, said the NWA's for sale, do you want it?

Wow. Wow. Wow. See, that's a storied, uh, franchise. Lou says, it comes to mind. He was, he used to call it a hooker, somebody who could break your leg instantly. But you know why they had the hookers? Why? Why? Okay.

So if you were a traveling champ. Yeah, yeah. John Carpenter's the traveling champ. You're the NWA champion of the world. You're going into Abilene, Texas, okay? And you're going to wrestle one of the funks. Okay. How do you know one of the funks isn't going to go into

business for themselves and decide to pin you legit in the ring. Yeah. And now you're no longer the end of the champ. Oh, you never know this. So you have to be able to protect yourself. Well, that's true. So in the 50s, 60s versions, the guys who were shooters like Fez, like Vern Gagne, he was.

I know that. They could protect themselves. Protect. I have a fantastic story for you if you want to hear it about Vern Gagne. Really? Yes. So Vern Gagne, in the 50s when wrestling was on television, mostly coming out of Chicago. Oh, I didn't know that.

Okay. The national product in the 50s was coming out of Chicago. Shut down, huh? So people started figuring out that wrestling wasn't real, right? Right? It's real to these people. They're damage for life. Well, you're talking to a life for over here.

They're putting their bodies out for this, for this art form. You understand, but here's the thing. So the fans start getting restless because they're not sure. they're watching an authentic product. So the NWA starts recruiting NCAA wrestlers with pedigrees who are real shooters. So like who? Vernegani. Him. So they bring Vern into Chicago. Okay. It's his first day in Chicago. And they said,

we have a gimmick for you. You're going to come down from the ceiling and a spaceship. Oh dear. And be a space alien. Uh-huh. And Vern said, that's not going to happen. Uh-huh. Okay. I'm going to go down to the wrestling ring. you send as many people as you want, and I will beat them legitimate there you go. There you go. What's your shooter, or hooker, whatever you are. Because see, in the business, and I think you'd respect this,

we know who the real shooters are. Yeah. There might be guys and girls who are great at their job, but we know who the real badasses are. And those are the ones that people are really good. Yeah, and you don't want to fool with them because they'll just take you right out. In front of the world.

I love this conversation. Let me get my business out of the way here. I had a dream, a really strange dream a few years ago. And I have a band and with my son and God's son. So I talked to them about it, and I said, let's do an album based on this dream. So I wrote the dream out, and then we recorded music to the dream. And then my wife owns a comic book company. So she's doing the graphic novel of my dream.

So we will release day in day an album and a graphic novel of my dream. Come on now. Come on. I'm 78 years old and I get this to happen. This is fabulous. What's the name of the? Cathedral. Cathedral.

Okay. And I'm very proud of it and working on others. So I have to get that out. You're a musician, you know. Love it. Running around pimping, pimping your next album. I have bought some of your lost themes.

Good for you. Good for you. Well, I will take pre-orders for cathedral if you want to put out some cash here. No? Okay. Oh, well. Anyway, let's get back to wrestling. You have done my job.

Okay. Back to wrestling with the film business. The last guy I saw was Brett to hit him in hard. Yeah. And what a nice human being. Yeah. Very smart guy. And he was, you know, he looked up to Roddy Piper a great deal.

And Roddy had brain damage. He had bad. Bad. He could barely show up. And poor guy. Well, that's the CT from all the head trunk. Well, you know it. And they don't forget, Roddy used to do the thing where he

would legit bust beer bottles against some problems. I do know this. Yeah. And in the 50s and 60s, they didn't play nice. They didn't do like they do today. No, it was certainly a more rough and tumble business. Man, some of that stuff was bad. Yeah.

So you seem to just accept that. I have a tough time accepting. No, we try to run as safe a product as we can. Yeah. When you say that, you sound like a businessman. No, no, no. I don't mean it that way. There's no getting around the danger. I know. No, I know. There's no getting around the danger. I mean, you've worked with professional stunt people.

I know. There's just a point where it's like what they do is incredibly dangerous. But the difference is in the movie business, they're in charge. I say, look, the scene involves you need to fall from up there down here. And they rig it and they do it. And they might come and say, you know what, this is dangerous this way. Let me do it this way. In wrestling, The promoter is the person, is the man. You get out there and take a chair shot. You don't work that way. I don't want anyone doing anything they don't feel comfortable doing. Not at all.

Chair shots? Don't do them to the head. Yeah. We don't do unprotected chair shots. You don't do that, huh? So all chair shots need to be cleared by me. And if they are they going anywhere near the head, they need to be protected. Hey, what happens if that all goes awry as things do in wrestling matches?

Well, then you have a problem. And what do you do about that? When do you find somebody? And poor guy has a concussion. And you know what that's like? Yes, sir, yeah. I'm sorry, am I jumping on you too much? No, no, not at all.

No, I guess what you have to understand is, even though I'm the boss, and even though I write the shows and produce the shows out of my own pocket, the real relationship is between the wrestlers themselves. Yeah, it has to be. And so they're a self-correcting body. So what you learn as a promoter is you have to let them sort those issues out themselves.

Yeah, that's pretty smart. That's the only thing you can do. Pretty smart. Because there has to be a level of professional courtesy and relatability between the talent, because what they're doing is so dangerous. This way, when people come up to you on the street say, oh, wrestling's fake, it's like, try it. You know it. Try it. Exactly.

But I've seen guys blow their knees out on the most simple move in the world. Nothing. You wouldn't even think twice watching it on television. Some of those holes, I don't know, the legit holes are, boy, they could cripple you if they are put on right. But that's why you see, that's why you have the shooters. Can't get anything over on them. Anyway, okay. Back to you. Oh, dear.

I saw something where you talked about how you fell in love with the movie business. Yeah. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, I fell in love with directing. Yeah. I fell in love with movies. That's my muse, is movies. Is cinema.

Having been on a few sets in my life, I don't know how you do it because it's the pace of shooting a major motion picture is so slow. As opposed to, sorry. Well, opposed to a lot of other things. I mean, in order to, I don't know, you tell me, but in order to realize your vision, which is holistic as an autour, that's a lot of patience. a lot of time. That's correct. It is. And you have to, it goes from a script to pre-production to production to editing in the end, to the music on the film. And in your case, do you even doing the music? All of that, all of that. You have to have patience. And you have to remember that vision. That's the thing. Don't lose track of it. Here we are on a set. You know, we've got people

who is putting up lights and it's taking a little time. Don't forget what we're doing. Go back in your head to that what do you need here in this scene yeah you know so is the satisfaction for you that you've been able to build your own world world's too large a word but you know what i'm saying is is the satisfaction when you sit back and it's done you think okay that's why i did it because i don't know what that feels like i know what it feels like for an album what does it feel like it's it's as close to playing god as i've ever felt there you go it is same thing same exact thing it's done all great. The thing that I love the most about movies is when they're finished. They're done. I don't have to think about them anymore. I don't have to look at them. I can see my mistakes.

I look. Occasionally, a movie of mine will be on and I'll watch it. And I'll say, what was I thinking? What is that? That's too slow. And I'll start, and it's horrible. I just, it occurred to me just in the moment. I saw a line once where Frank Kapper was talking. He said in order to film reality, it has to be faster on the screen. Did you find that as well? Yeah, well, yeah. He's right about that. He's a strange character.

I'm not sure we should trust everything he says. But he kind of waxed it. Well, he was one of those ones who kind of rewrote his history and reverse. Huge, yeah. You have to play everything a little faster. Right. Yeah, you do. You have to speed it up.

And actors don't like his telegram. than that. Oh, that's funny. They want to, well, they're coming in just like wrestlers and they've got their own thing. Don't tell me what to do. Some of them are really tough. Anyway, go ahead. When you looked at the, whatever was the system in place in the 1970s in America,

because you had a particular vision, did you think I need to figure out how to work with these people or I'm just going to figure out how to wrestle enough control so I could get my way? Well, that's a good question. Well, I never, see, in my case, I started with independent filmmaking, was that nobody else was in charge but me. So that was perfect for my first two films. And my third film, I had, I told whoever I was working for,

I want, here's what I want for my payment. I want complete creative control and my name above the title. You don't have to pay me because I had, was one to work my name and get a name. I wouldn't work my way in. But after that, when you're working for a studio, I'm in a movie called The Thing. And it had this ambiguous ending. And the students, people hate ambiguity.

Yeah. Audiences and studios especially. So they came. It was like a revolving door of executives coming in and trying to talk me out of that ending. And I just wouldn't budge. So you want. Well, I won, but, you know, they fired me from a job, and I was in the wilderness, but I won.

Yeah. And so that was the price of my art, if you want to use that word. Well, if it's any small satisfaction, one of the members of my band believes the thing is the greatest movie ever. That's very nice. She's a wonderful human being. I will let him know. Wonderful humans. He said that.

And it was one of those things where we were talking about movies one of. day sitting around the band campfire. That's great. And he said the, he said, thinks the thing is the movie. But I thought, uh, I thought it was pretty good. I did. I thought it was pretty good. Anyway.

When you were, when you were working your way up through that system doing independent, did you ever believe that you get a true big budget? Because you, you made your way by sort of figuring how to make things work for small budgets. Uh-huh. Yeah. Did you ever figure, did you get, did you guesstimate that you'd reach a point where you would get an actual happy budget? I never thought about it.

I thought, let's get this thing done. Maybe somebody will see it and appreciate who's behind the camera. Well, let's get this done. I wasn't thinking about, I had no long-term planning except that I'm going to be a director. You know, kind of this childish thing, I guess. Yeah. Because Halloween was with 300 grand?

Does that sound right? 200 grand. 200 grand. 220. We had to pay extra for normal plus. And how many shoot days generally? 20. 20.

20. 20? 20. Oh, you can't even make a music video for 20 days. Sure you can. Sure you can. You just have to plan it out, you know, figure it out ahead of time. Now, when you guys would make a music video, how long would it take?

One to three days. Yeah, okay. And I bet those are intense days, aren't they? Yeah, you just wonder about all the money you're spending. I know. Because, you know, if you shoot, in L.A. You know, you got to pay for the cop that's standing there eating the donut. Well, that's true, but, you know, it's big city. Well, we never, we never really, we

skirted around those issues when you're a low budget. You have to. So I, so I, I don't like scary movies and I blame you because, I'm sorry. No, I saw a Halloween when I was about 11 years old. Well, you're a child. You shouldn't be watching those kind of movies. Okay, but I'm saying that, that, that, that movie scared me off as scary movies for the rest of my life. Well, I'm sorry, but, You know, but I mean as a common. Who let you see that at 11? Was it your parents? Well, if you want to get in my history as most years.

Yeah. I mean, why would a young 11-year-old be allowed to see an R-rated movie? I have no idea. Okay. But all I can tell you is it scared the bejesus. Well, then it worked if I find. Yeah. But I still, to this day, and not that I'm a huge concert, I still think that's the scariest

movie in Germain. Exorcist, I'm telling you. Really? And I think so. I think so. You want to debate that? Ah, well. So tell me why you think Exorcist is scary.

Oh, my God. What that little girl turns into? And then... Is Linda Blair sat in that exact chair? Yeah. And we talked about it. No, I met Linda last year. Last year, she's a really terrific person.

Anyway, it's what she said. You're walking down that hallway towards the door. Well, you don't know what's behind there, but it's evil behind there. And, you know, the devil has been a character in our... human's history for a long time, a version of the devil, pure evil and possessing you. Little girl has a disfigured and horrid. She's turning to a monster. Yeah. Oh, that's pretty tough stuff. And it was tough stuff in that movie. I was very impressed with it.

It is a great movie. Yeah. So I'm thinking that may be the scariest. But Halloween is designed to make you jump and scream. Well, see, here's why it was scary to me because we were Lachkeke kids. So we were home alone. We were home alone a lot. Oh. So the idea of terror coming in from the outside in a way that you cannot navigate the terror. And in my particular circumstance, I was home alone with two younger children overnight, oftentimes with no adult in the house.

Ooh. Well, now. So I read. How much younger than you? What's that? How much younger? when I would have been about 10 and I would have been with a eight-year-old and a baby. So the idea...

Well, dude, I can't help you there. I can't. I think that's why it resonated so deeply with me. This idea that if this awful thing walks through the door, there's nothing you can do. I didn't design my movie with you and mine because I would have cautioned you, you know, this is all make-believe. It's not real. It won't happen to you. I saw a quote where you were talking, they were asking you about, did you know you were making a classic?

And you said all I saw was the rubber knife. Yeah. Oh, God, that thing. That thing. People asked me, well, you didn't show anything because we couldn't. It was rubber. Can you just talk a little bit? You've talked about it before, but I thought it was fascinating.

When you talk about the character of Michael Myers, this idea of the blank face and the audience, projecting onto that. Can you just talk about that a little bit? He is a character who has really no past. He is nothing. He's neither human nor supernatural. He's both. Okay. And we don't know. And that's the thing that is disturbing. We just don't know what it is that drives him. So he's blank. and he's kind of unkillable, kind of, but maybe he's not. So it's that balance between those things that made him really spooky. So the less you know about Michael Myers, the scariest, scarier he is to you.

The scene that blew my mind as a kid was, I think it's Jamie Lee Curtis's just sort of panting in foreground and he's in the back. Yeah, it sits up. It's the Undertaker spot. Yeah, yeah. Which Undertaker, I think, stole from Michael Myers. Of course it is. I want my residual for that.

It's the ultimate compliment. It is. Yeah. But that's the idea. The less you know, the scarier he is, and he is relentless. You can't stop him. It still scares me thinking about it. Well, why?

Come on. No, it's scary. I'm serious. Okay, thank you. That's good. Yes. You've got a lot of credit with the music community because of your scores.

Really? Yeah, I think your stature in the music community has grown over time as people really appreciate. Really? They see you as a pioneering synth guy. Yeah, that, that, I thought when I first heard synths, I thought, hey, you can sound like something big. Yeah. With keyboards.

You know what I'm saying? You can play violin and whatever. So that's what, that's the idea. But you had a natural knack for it. I was, I don't, oh, I played bass in a rock and roll band when I was in. Yeah. She at least had some musical theory behind what you were doing. My dad was a music teacher.

Yeah. And I knew music. Bowling Green. That's right. Do you ever hear the Everly Brothers song? I have, and it's not true. It's just not true. I wish it was.

Did you ever meet the Everly Brothers? I did not. No, no, no. But I can't remember what we were talking about. Sorry. We're all over the place today. That's okay. We're talking about synths.

I love vintage. since. So that's, that's, you do, huh? Oh, yeah. Everybody does. What does you do like to profit? I have, I have a profit 10. I bet you do. Which you know is the, I know, the double. I know. I even have a synthi 100, if you know what that is. Oh, my God. Really? Yeah. I'm one of those, yeah. Well, see, I, I worked with the synthesizer teacher at USC. Mm-hmm. It was a really great guy, and he owned like a little studio, and they're all tube-s. So he had to tune them up. Oh, yeah.

And tune probably every five minutes. And this would have been modular stuff. Yeah, that's exactly. Was it Moog or? Some, somewhere. And so I would say to him, oh, look, I need a bass sounding thing. I need a string sounding thing. He had a piano there that I would play.

So that was what it was. It was simple. I have medium chops. I don't have that good. My son has great chops. I don't. So I have to hide with sounds. Have you ever heard the stuff where Bob Moog is sort of explaining his philosophy on why people are attracted to synthesize?

No. What did you say? He believed, in essence, in the spiritual component of synthesizers, that something in the electricity moving through the wires has a spiritual component. Is that too woo-woo for you? Yeah, it is. That's ridiculous. Well, as someone, okay, but I guess what I'm argument is, it's not an argument, but there's something about synthesizer technology. Stockhausen, who is the pioneering.

I know. Stockhaus has had some great ideas. But his, Stockhausen's point about synthesizers was you cannot have sound in natural environments without the environment affecting the sound. synthesis allows you the only way to hear sound without the environment affecting sound. Stockhausen had a piece of music, he wrote, which was designed for four or five cellos being held by helicopter. Yes. Now, come on. It's such horses. Come on.

But we're still talking about stockos. I know. It's true. It's true. Do you ever hear the one where it's just people singing in weird rotation? No, I haven't. That one, I, that one, I'll set your hair. Yeah, I bet.

When you had, when you had success and now, like you said, you're making people money and you're, and you're now a darling or a genius. For 10 seconds. For 10 seconds, sure. And then you're, then you're a bum. And then you work your way back into. But just to freeze the frame for a second. All right. When you're in that golden moment when the phone is ringing and they're throwing script. at you and they... I see. Yeah. I mean, I can relate in theory. Yeah. Um, what did you, did you,

do you think great? Now I can really do what I want to do. No, no, no, no. It was very, it was worrisome because, and I'm not sure this is what I want to do this way. Not this way. Please just be cool. Let me come up with the idea here. Oh, I see. Let me work it through. I'll bring it you. The fog was sort of the next project after the success of Halloween. It was, I had to come up with something, so

my partner and I, we came up with the fog. And I was a golden boy for a bit of the time there, but, you know, it began to creak because if you don't produce genius material all the time, you're an idiot. What do you think, or what do you remember that they

wanted you to do? Make money for them. But I mean, did they see you, like, okay, now you're going to be the new Spielberger? You know what I'm saying? It was always on my own. I was always the new John Carpenter, you know, a scary guy. But were they trying to push in any particular director? Scary. Scary makes money. And all of a sudden, at this juncture of 78, 79, a lot of scary movies began to be made. So they thought, oh, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, because Jaws was sort of around that time. Yeah, yeah. It was a little earlier than that. But that's the idea. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a blurry memory in my childhood. And it's okay, and I scared you.

And I probably affected that memory. Well, you're probably to blame for something. I am. You can blame you right now. We'll go back to wrestling. It's safe. I wanted to talk to you because, like a lot of people in my generation, which is Gen X, we grew up on Saturday morning. you know, they would show like Robbie the robot, Tobor, and... Oh, they did? Yeah, so I grew up on all those types of movies.

Wow. Robbie was in one of my favorite... The movie that got me destined to direct Forbidden Planet. Right. You know that movie? Of course, yeah. Great movie. Oh, yeah.

I saw it eight years old and blew my mind. Just the colors of that movie. Ah. The story of it, yeah. Yeah. Tobor. I remember Tobor. You're trying to weigh an early pioneering synthesizer soundtrack.

You know it. But they did it with, like, all sorts of strange ways. It wasn't a synth. It was probably using oscillators. That's exactly what people. Yeah, they probably just had the old. You know. Yes, sir.

Oh, the Barons, BB and Louis Barron, they were fabulous. I still, I had that soundtrack. I listen to it occasionally. It's cool. Just to see what they were doing. Yeah. So what I'm after is It's I when I see it when I see it associate with you

It seems to diminish your work because when people call some of you work exploitation or exploitation films You know what I'm saying? It's a particular word that's thrown around with a lot of 70s movies I hear you Well there was look We showed PJ Souls breasts because it was an exploitation film at some time And that's fine with, I love exploitation films. What's wrong with them?

Because they are designed to appeal to a certain audience. Now, it's fine. Horror movies came from there. That's fine. What's wrong with all that? But the connective tissue, if you see it between, like, let's call it, the 50s kind of sci-fi, post-nuclear, 50-foot woman. Right?

That's 50s, yeah. Oh, boy. I'm saying there's a, a resonant vibe there with your work. But I always see it as a sort of a form of joy. Like, like, let's have, like, here's the premise. Let's have fun. Let's have fun.

That's right. And even Halloween, though it's scared the bejesus out of me, there's an element of fun and mirth in the whole thing. Well, good. I'm glad. But I never thought, see, critics think that horror is like pornography down there. and people who do that are ugly people, you see. I see.

But now, highbrow movies are what you should aspire to. I had all my teachers, some of my teachers in high school and college back in Bowling Green, saw Halloween and so, oh, gosh, you know, why doesn't you do something? Oh, I see. What, you know, up here, not down there. And a lot of critics believe that. They believe that I remember when. Stephen King got some award. They thought, I want to know. No, no, no. He can't be because he's a, he's a

horror writer. I see. You see, they type you. Yes. And that's, you know, it's the way it is. But do you, just the last thing on the, on the exploitation, kind of the post-nuclear thing, do you, is there a particular thread there with your generation because of the times that you huge guys grew up in? Huge. My general, I came kind of, up in the 50s. Yeah. I was born in 48, so it was right after the, I was always lived with the atomic war as a potential over my head. I thought about it a lot, too.

Yeah. Like that's the end of everything. I think where I resonate personally with your work is you're almost the exact age as my parents. No, but what I mean by that is I grew up in a household. Yes, okay. I accept that. I accept the role. Thank you.

And you must not go to see Halloween at 11. Well, they let me. But it's the idea that there's a particular, every generation has its obsessions. Sure, sure, sure. It's kind of, you know, Picasso painted the Madonna image 42 times. I know, I know. So, you know.

Badly, 42 times. Not a Picasso fan? You should have gotten a synthesizer. Exactly. Maybe things would have been different. I love Escape from New York and we don't have to go into all the same stories. But it does strike me that the movie is oddly prescient because we are kind of living in Escape from New York now in many major cities. They live. They live was the movie I made about the aliens.

Well, that too, right? Well, that's happened. It's a documentary. Yeah. And it's just my political background sneaking into a movie. I hate that. I don't like political movies. I made one and I'm ashamed now.

Sure, but let's call it just common dystopia. Okay. I mean, you must see, you must chuckle sometimes when we look at the daily obsession of the American public. What do you think about current reality in America? What do I think? Yeah. I think it's a horror show. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. It is the dystopia that we should all fear. I mean, it's unreal. Kurt Russell's trying to get away. Exactly. For a reason. Well, he doesn't give a shit about all that, but they use him and they're nefarious. Well, now, and what I can't believe, what I can't understand is why some Americans are for this.

What? What? But I'm just an old man crying in the darkness. You know, no one listens. Well, we seem to have entered. Old man crying in the darkness. No, never mind. No, but we seem to have entered.

I'll give you like a quick thing. A friend of mine was a professional photographer in Chicago. He was actually in the room during the famous Kennedy Nixon debate that emanated out of Chicago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think Nixon won? Well, what he said was he had no perception in the moment of how it was going to play over television. His perception in the moment was completely different than the telegeny. And it's oftentimes sometimes.

cited as this kind of watershed moment where U.S. politics turns into the telegenic era. So I don't know what era this is going to ultimately be called. It's certainly not going to be called the Gilded Age. But the point I'm trying to make is we're into like a level of farce and idiotocracy that's almost shocking, but somehow we're in it. Do you see that movie, idiocrycy? Yes, sir. Oh, it's fabulous. Yeah. It's fabulous.

It's a true. Mike Judge from. Yeah. Fabio. No one talks about that. I love that. That might be the ultimate. It's true.

It's all true. More so than Escape from New York. I think so. I had to ask you because I'm a huge Lee Van Cleef fan. Oh, yeah. Lee. That must have been. Lee.

This is where I envy your chair because. He's an unusual person. He was an unusual guy. He had, I would invite me over to his place to have dinner. His wife couldn't cook a lick. And it was just awful. But he had all these loaded guns on the wall. But he was very, he said, now they are loaded.

I want to just warn you, but he let me pick them up and manipulate them. And Lee, he fell, his horse fell on his leg. And he never got it attended to by doctor. So walking was tough for him. Okay. And there was a scene where we were in St. Louis and he had to walk down the street with his men. And his wife is next to me saying,

I'm watching to see if Lee can make it because he can't walk. But he projects absolute strength. I mean, he knows how to act. He knows how to steal a scene. I liked Lee a lot. He was a cool guy. What a cool. I know.

Maybe the coolest. But his wife couldn't cook, dude. I mean, going over there. She must have been beautiful. He must have had a beautiful way. She was wonderful. But, you know. Do you ever see that Sabata, that movie Sabata?

Yes. Oh, yeah. Like he carries the movie literally on charisma. Well, he shows up in a movie and he steals the scene. Unbelievable. Yeah. Because of how he looks and how he acts and he's got it. What is the, it's the, you know, the famous.

You brought up the director, the Italian director, the famous scene with... Sergio Leone. You got Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and who was the other actor? I can't think of his name. Eli Wallach. That was a great movie. However, once upon a time in the West is maybe the greatest Western. It's an opera.

But did the Leone do that movie? Yes. Okay. He had Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardonelli. Oh, my God. Claudia's left us now, unfortunately. God bless her. Yeah, I know.

What a beauty. I know. Was Fulini? Fulini saw that too, right? Oh, yeah, early. God bless. You know how Fulini directed? I do not know.

He had actors, and he would kneel down beside them, and he would, the girls, he would squeeze their legs and say, ABC, and they say it in Italian, B, C, and he'd squeeze their legs when he wanted them to recite the alphabet. And then he would dub in later whatever he wanted. I'm not kidding. I am not kidding you. Terrence Stamp did a movie with him, and his direction was, you're bisexual and you've just taken a load of LSD and go. And that was his direction. And that's what he did.

That's what he played. ABC, DEF. Is that incredible? Incredible. Do you have a favorite Fellini movie? Are you a Fellini fan? To Artie? Sort of.

Yeah, well, some of them are Artie. I'm going to, Roma for the Pope fashion show. I love the Pope fashion. The priest's fashion show. I love that. Morricone to me is such an incredible. I know you worked with them, and from what I saw, I can't tell if you enjoyed the experience or not.

Oh, yeah. A wonderful, man. Cool. We couldn't speak English. Yeah. And you couldn't speak Italian. Exactly. So we communicated.

Did you enjoy the experience you're working with him? I loved it. Can you, can you? He was ahead of me. Morricone knew the theme of my movie before I knew it. I was, I wasn't, I hadn't gotten to the heart of darkness yet, but he got there immediately. He knew this movie was about the end of everything.

It's all over. He knew it. And he put it in his music. And I remember listening when he was conducting the orchestra. And I thought, oh, he's right. He's right. There's no way out of this. If you are an imitation of an aggressive creature,

I won't be able to tell. And you can take me over. It's over. Humanity's done and I'm serious. I see. And so I had to embrace that as a director. He paves away. Yeah.

Yeah, he strikes me as such an intuitive composer for film. He was like experimental. That's where he came from. But it's almost impossible to kind of quantify how he knows what to do. Yeah, he just knows what to do. And he did it over so many different genres of film. Yeah, for different people. Exactly.

I've had 30 meetings in Hollywood begging them to let me be more coney And they won't let me through the door What? What? What? Yeah, because they basically say... Who do you mean with? All of them. I met with the... Multiple times I met with the head of every movie music.

Well, see, those are the suits. We call them suits. Okay, you tell me who I need to meet with. Well, directors, the guys who make the movie. But see, there aren't autours like you were. Or are. There may be, there may be guys. You tell me, because I don't know.

Excuse me, I don't know, but you need to investigate and find those guys. Yeah. And meet with them and tell them what you want to do. Yeah. And they'll get you in there. Okay. I like, I like you thinking. I have one quick story to share.

So I was doing a music for a film called Stigmaata, which was a 90s kind of. Sure. Oh, I know the director. Okay. Yeah, he didn't like me very much. Well, but here's the funny story, if you don't mind. Please.

So, the producer of the film was a huge fan of mine and recruited me to be involved. The director wasn't so sure. You know his name? Rupert. Wainwright. Right. So anyway, so Rupert wasn't so sold on my musical approach. He wasn't.

He was not. So they hired like a typical... Really? You know, paint by numbers. Wait a minute. In addition to you? Yes, on top of me. Did you know about it?

Oh, yeah. I had no fear because I knew I would beat the guy. Yeah. Okay. So the apocryphal scene in the movie is Gabriel Byrne, who was the lead. He goes into this courtyard and all these supernatural things are happening. and I took a very atonal atmospheric approach. And the director hated it.

I mean, he hated it. It must be good then. So he insisted that I change it. And I said, well, read my contract. I don't have to change anything. Good for you, see? I don't have to change anything, but you're more than welcome to change, replace it.

I have no control over that. So he had the other guy do exactly what you'd expect, swelling strings and and, uh, how was it? Well, they tested both scenes. Uh-huh.

And mine got the higher school. I'm sure it did. So I won. Rupert Weinwright directed the remake of the fog. Oh my goodness. Did not know that. Yeah. So that's,

now we're connected. Yep, we are. We are. I'm sure he's still cursing my name somewhere. Ha. Um, I liked what you said about, about, I guess, in a positive way that the business you were in, you were dealing with

riverboat gamblers at the studios. They were willing to take risks on someone. Some of them, yeah. Yeah. Can you at least elaborate on that a little bit? Well, this goes back to the founding of movies. The early guys were all riverboat gamblers. They would, you come in with an idea and they'd try it, you know?

And they'd do odd things. They go off in this direction. They had movies that they made. They knew would make money. Yeah. This is back in the 30s and 40s. Sure. But they tried different things.

Yeah. And go ahead. Did you respect the studio system looking back? Huge. Huge. And it worked. It worked. What an incredible trove of movies that were made.

But, yes, incredible films. But look, a movie like, they put, the Wizard of Oz, they put so much into that film. We kept recasting it and the director. would come and go, my God. I mean, it's an amazing film. So, though, those guys were fantastic. And the system they developed really works.

Yeah. But they've got into that now. Would you like to work in that system? Kind of. Right. Kind of, kind of not. But kind of not, yeah. But what I think of when I think of the studio system,

because I'm a huge fan, I mostly only watch movies from the 30s. That's kind of my thing. You're a classic? Do you watch that? No, I go. I got on my way to watch it. watch stuff that's like you can't even find anywhere.

Is that right? I like studio pictures that are, I guess you would call them programmers, but... Like... I mean, these weird musicals that are completely lost to history. Uh-huh. You know, but oftentimes there'll be a decent director attached to it. It'll be Harry Warren wrote the songs. You know, like, there's... I guess what I would say about the studio system is it's less to me about whether or not

somebody hit a home run in every movie, but the quality level is so high because the carpenters were working all the time. The character actors, the, you know, the Frank Morgans of the world. You know it, man. They were so skilled that you could plug them into a movie. You know it. You had a level of consistent quality that you cannot find in modern filmmaking. Yeah, because they gutted the system, I'm telling you.

Yeah. There are no character actors. The actors in Hollywood are in trouble. Bad now. They're definitely in trouble now. Yeah. They keep kicking the can on AI. I know.

Oh, God. You want to jump into the AI? I don't know enough about it except that's prompts, props, right? Is that the idea? Yeah. We, yeah, I don't get it. Yeah. I know, I know somebody just told me the other day that somebody's setting up a multi-billion-dollar AI production studio.

Uh-huh. So basically, if you were making a new film and you needed a scene where your character was going to walk across a desert and you don't have the $150,000 to blow on the scene. You go there, huh? And you go there and they'll put your guy or girl walking across the desert and Bob's your uncle, as they would say. Great. Well, we'll see. You know, jury's still out on that. Yeah.

But it's certainly going to wreak havoc on this town in terms of working middle class. Well, it'll change everything and, you know, the actors and the creative people are fighting against it. Yeah. Because it's, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. Do you see an autoture class in the current landscape? Not many. Few here and there, yeah, sure.

Jordan Peel, I think, is pretty great. Do some of them reach out to you for... Nah, you don't give a... That old guy, we don't want to talk to him. I'd love to talk to you. I mean, it's just like, to me, you stood in such a unique spot. I did. I had my time in it, and I'm really happy about that.

I got to live my dream. It really did. Yeah. It's an astonishing. Who would have thought this idiot for a bowling ring could be a director? For people who aren't knowledge about your work, what's the one film you would point them at to say this was the best. I'm not saying pick, because I hate when people ask me what's my favorite album. They're all my favorite album. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

And I hate them all, and I love them all. Exactly. Because I understand, but I'm saying is if you wanted to say, hey, if I want you to, if I want you to watch one film, watch this one film because I think this is the best kind of balance of what I was at. Watch the thing. Just check it out and see if it affects you emotionally. Yeah. I would say that or Halloween. I don't know. You announced it. No, no, no. But I think that's it. I'm proud of them. Yeah. Very proud of it. Yeah. Because certainly.

And I'm also proud of Cathedral. my new album, which I'm pimping here with you today. We're not sure when this is coming out, coming out, but it's going to definitely come out soon in 2026. Great. Is the cathedral thing out yet, or it's coming? Not yet. It's coming. Okay, so when's it actually coming out?

God, if I know. May sometime. I don't know. See, this is why you had trouble in Hollywood. It is. I know. You got to promote your stuff. Well, I'm all now in my memory, you know, but anyway.

Okay. Last, last silly question. Okay. How do you think the hawks is and the Hitchcox and the Hitchcox and the forwards of the world would look at our current time right now? Not just the time we're in, but the way movies are being made. Oh, they'd scratch their heads and say, what? What's happening?

It was just so alien to them, the way they worked, the way they made their movies. Nobody would care that much. That's the thing. See, that hurts, because when you say it, I feel that's true, and it hurts. It just, they don't care. care. And I'm not sure a big segment of the audience cares anymore. I'm sorry, but they don't care. There's this one thing that I'm thinking of at the end of the searchers. Oh, yeah.

There's that scene where Wayne sort of walks out the door. He holds his on a lot of character. You knowing what I'm talking about gives me chills. That sense of honor within the genre, and genre is too small a word, the nobility of the American film when it's spot on. Yeah. And Wayne's ability as an actor and as a human being to understand the symbolism of that moment. That's correct.

Where is that gone? It ain't here. That's a great scene because there's no place for this guy anymore. He needs to write it on. Yeah. Thank you, sir. You got it, man? Love talking.

company.