John Carpenter Talks Original Friday the 13th; “Doesn’t Rise Above its Cheapness”
There’s no denying that John Carpenter’s Halloween spawned countless imitators and played a massive part in kick-starting the slasher movement, so one would have to credit it for at least paving the way for Sean Cunningham’s equally iconic Friday the 13th – a film, as it turns out, that Carpenter isn’t a fan of.
Speaking with Bret Easton Ellis this week, Carpenter had some harsh words for the 1980 classic.
“One springs from an organic idea and has a truly artist’s eye working,” he told the American Psycho author, when asked to compare The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Friday the 13th. “And Friday the 13th, I feel, affects me as very cynical. It’s very cynical moviemaking. It just doesn’t rise above its cheapness.”
“I think the reason that all these slasher movies came in the ’80s was a lot of folks said, ‘Look at that Halloween movie. It was made for peanuts, and look at the money it’s made! We can make money like that. That’s what the teenagers want to see,'” Carpenter continued. “So they just started making them, cranking them out… most of them were awful.”
Most ’80s slashers were indeed awful, so Carpenter totally has a point there.
What say you? Sound off underneath the smoky photo of the horror master!
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