Legendary director John Carpenter has helmed many iconic films in his more than fifty-year career. The director has made films such as Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, They Live, and more. Apart from being a screenwriter and a director, Carpenter is also a music composer and has scored many of his own films.
In 1978, Carpenter helmed the legendary slasher film Halloween. The film is considered to be a cult classic and began a franchise that consists of thirteen films. The iconic horror film also weirdly helped John Carpenter receive the offer to direct the first biopic of Elvis Presley with Kurt Russell called Elvis.
John Carpenter Received The Offer To Direct Elvis Because Of Halloween
John Carpenter became a legendary filmmaker after helming the cult slasher classic Halloween. The film follows a serial killer who comes back to his hometown to take revenge after he is released from a mental rehabilitation facility. The antagonist, Micheal Myers, is admitted to the facility as a kid when he is arrested for killing his teenage sister on Halloween night.
The film was a huge success at the box office, earning over $70 million globally against a budget of $325,000. The film spawned a franchise, consisting of thirteen films, none of which were as notable as Halloween. John Carpenter did not return for any of the sequels and would go on to make The Thing and other horror films.
In the director’s commentary for his film Big Trouble In Little China, John Carpenter revealed that he received the offer to direct the 1979 TV film Elvis after the producers found out that he had scored for Halloween and felt that he could be trusted to handle the biopic of the musical icon.
The film would be the first collaboration with actor Kurt Russell, with whom Carpenter has made films such as Escape from New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and Escape from LA. The film was the first biopic made on the life of Elvis Presley and was nominated for multiple Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Awards.
Also read: Halloween’s Horrific Hierarchy: A Definitive Ranking of the Myers Saga
John Carpenter’s Halloween Has A Transcending Legacy
John Carpenter’s Halloween was one of the first slasher films that was inspired by the likes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas. Clark reportedly mentioned that Carpenter sought his advice on how would a sequel to Black Christmas be and with a germ of an idea developed the premise of Halloween. The film continues to be one of the landmark films in the horror genre.
The film inspired countless troupes in the slasher sub-genre and paved the way for successful slasher franchises such as Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream to be made. Troupes such as the ‘Final Girl’ who survives the onslaught, played by Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, were made famous by the legendary film.
Many have also analyzed the film to be a statement on morality and s*xual promiscuity by the filmmakers. Critics have theorized that the film links s*xuality to danger and implies that any woman who wishes to express her s*xuality would be killed by the deranged murderer. However, Carpenter has denied this interpretation.
