John Carpenter

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Carpenter has made an impact on film in two different disciplines. As a director , there's so many memorable movies in his filmography: Halloween, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, and They Live – to name a few. His work as a composer is just as iconic. Carpenter scored many of his early films – including Halloween. The music he wrote has influenced an entire generation of horror soundtracks. His latest work can be heard in Halloween Kills, the latest installment in the Halloween franchise. It's out now in theaters and the streaming platform Peacock. When Bullseye got the opportunity to talk with Carpenter, we knew just the person for the job: April Wolfe. She was previously a film critic, and former host of the Maximum Fun genre film podcast Switchblade Sisters. These days she's a screenwriter. April takes a deep dive with John Carpenter on various number of his movie projects and film scores including his Apocalypse Trilogy and Assault on Precinct 13. He also breaks down how he first composed the original Halloween theme – you might be surprised to learn bongos played an important role.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Jesse and it's Block Party time.
0:02.4	It's a virtual Block Party, not a real Block.
0:04.8	I mean, there might be a real Block Party happening where you live,
0:07.2	but Max Fun is hosting a virtual Block Party.
0:11.6	Until October 22, every Max Fun Show is going to be running episodes that are
0:17.3	welcoming, inviting to new listeners.
0:19.7	So this is the perfect time to try a new Max Fun Show.
0:22.7	It's also the perfect time to recommend one of your favorite Max Fun Show's
0:27.3	to somebody who doesn't already listen to it.
0:29.7	So if you like this episode of Bullseye, it's a perfect time to send it along to somebody,
0:33.6	and we're very grateful if you do.
0:36.9	We've also got a radio station and some music playlists for a lot of the shows, and we're doing a
0:44.0	volunteer event. Lots of different interesting social media stuff, all happening online,
0:51.2	maximumfund.org slash Block Party. You can be part of the volunteer event.
0:56.0	Maximumfund.org slash Block Party. Tell your friends.
1:00.1	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of Maximumfund.org and is distributed by NPR.
1:16.8	It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn. John Carpenter has made an impact on film
1:21.9	in two different disciplines. First of course, as a director, there are so many iconic movies
1:28.4	in his filmography, Halloween, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in New York, China,
1:33.3	the thing. All of them are brash, bold, and unquestionably the work of John Carpenter.
1:40.3	So take the movie they live, for example. That movie has a six-minute fight scene.
1:47.8	Two guys punching each other in an alley for six minutes. When you see that in a John Carpenter movie,
	...

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