Name: John Carpenter Talks "Halloween," "The Thing" and More | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-03-25T19:55:23.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Carpenter Talks "Halloween," "The Thing" and More | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-25. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Carpenter Talks "Halloween," "The Thing" and More | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-25. Transcript available.

My next guest directed a film called Halloween that became the most successful
independent production in motion picture history. His latest film about to open
is called The Thing. Please welcome John Carpenter.
Hello, John. How are you?
Good to see you.
You know, civilians all the time hear claims about motion pictures
that made more money, did more money in one weekend, did more money in a half
an hour,
but this one, the most successful independent production in history. Give us an
idea what that
means. The movie cost $300,000 to make and it made $70 million.
$300,000 to make. Yeah. You can pretty much do that in your basement.
$300,000 is a cheap, cheap film, right? Cheap movie.
And $70 million? Worldwide to date, yeah.
Good heavens. Now, do you get a lot of that? No, not a lot of it, no. A little
bit of it.
You prefer doing an independent film, I would guess, huh?
Well, I just started making films with big studios, with Universal, and I kind
of like it. It's fun.
Are they treating you well? Very well. Because I read that you mentioned that
sometimes a motion picture
company, or a big one, would be kind of not the most fun to work with.
I was worried when I went in because I thought maybe they'd take away control
of the movie from me.
I think that's what every director wants, is control of his film. They were
wonderful.
And so far, things are going well. Oh, real well.
Now, the thing, which we're going to see some footage of, this is pretty
bizarre stuff here.
Pretty strange. Now, it's different from Halloween and Halloween II, huh?
Yes. The thing is actually about a monster from outer space, and we tried to
make the king of the monster movies,
and Rob Bottin did the special effects, and I think you're going to see a scene
from that.
All right. It'll be self-explanatory.
This is pretty scary, huh? Eh, I guess so.
All right. And it's called The Thing, and we'll see a minute and a few seconds
of that.
Watch the monitors here.
Come on! Come on! Stop it!
Come on! Get your s*** over here!
Burn it!
Dammit, child! Torch it!
So then it's the story of a boy and his dog.
Oh, my! Oh, my!
Now, that...wow!
Now, first of all, you can hear the audience kind of oohing and aahing.
You know a film is good by the noises the audience makes, don't you?
Pretty much. In this kind of film, if the audience is oohing and aahing, I know
I'm all right.
For instance, when this film was completed, did you just put it in theaters or
do you screen it and test the reaction of the audience?
Part of making a film for me is when I finish my first cut, I show it to an
audience and see their reaction.
I'll go back and change it and then show it again. And the audience is a big
part of the film.
What is the reaction you're after in this particular film?
Well, it's much the same as getting on a roller coaster.
There's a big build-up to the first time you go over the edge and when you do,
there's no stopping it.
Yeah. Now, I noticed that Paul looked away and people were gasping. That's a
favorable response as far as you're concerned?
Honestly, in this kind of film, you're dealing with something that the whole
audience knows isn't real at all.
You know that there's no such thing as a monster from outer space. At least we
haven't seen one in the paper.
And I want the audience to believe it. When they see that, they say, "Oh, my
lord, look at that. That's real."
Yeah. Now, do you have children?
No.
Now, assume you did, maybe an eight-year-old child. Would you send your eight-year-old
child to see this film?
I would evaluate my eight-year-old. And I would ask myself, "Is the eight-year-old
impressionable?"
And could they realize this is a fantasy film? It's really not very harmful,
but it's frightening.
Yeah.
And if I thought so, sure. Sure. Hmm.
If I was an eight-year-old kid, I'd want to see this movie immediately.
Oh, yeah. I would imagine...
No matter what my parents said, I'd go right out and see it.
I would imagine kids will be lining up around the equator to see this one.
This is... Now, how do you do that stuff when you saw all of those gruesome
things?
What exactly were we looking at? Was it animation? Was it...
That's mechanical, special effects, makeup.
And basically, those are objects that are built and operated like puppets,
with hydraulics and people's hands moving things like this, and all done on
camera.
All done on camera.
Yeah. And so what we were looking at actually did take place.
Mm-hmm.
And do you... Now, is it... We had a gentleman on, John Dykstra, a couple of
weeks ago.
Yes.
And he said that the problem with doing special effects of any kind is once you've
done them in a film,
people get to be blasé about them.
That's right.
So you have to keep topping yourself. Is this the first time ever for some of
these effects?
I think so. I don't think you'll ever see effects like this in a movie.
I know there hasn't been a monster movie like this, where the monster
constantly changes form.
It never looks like any one thing. It's constantly in motion.
And it's pretty hard to pull off, but I think we've done all right.
You worked with Kurt Russell in this film. You've worked with him before.
And this is... He's had an interesting career going from... I guess he was with
the Disney organization as a kid,
or a younger person than he is now.
He did a lot of Disney films in the 60s, and I met him on Elvis. We did a TV
movie.
Mm-hmm.
And he played Elvis Presley, and he walked in, and he didn't look like Elvis
Presley.
I thought, "Well, if this guy can do it, hell, I can do it, too."
And we worked together on Escape from New York, and finally The Thing.
And I think he's a brilliant actor, and he's also a real close friend.
Yeah. People talk about you and compare you to Hitchcock.
Is that a legitimate comparison in your estimation?
Well, I'm very flattered by that. I really am, I think, more influenced by a
director, Howard Hawks.
I don't know if you're familiar with him. He did the first version of The Thing
from Another World.
And I admire his work a lot.
Now, The Thing itself, what are we talking about here?
What exactly is The Thing?
Well, The Thing is an alien organism that has been buried in the ice in
Antarctica for 100,000 years.
And what it does is imitate other life forms perfectly.
So that, for instance, in the audience here, the problem might be that several
of them, or all of them, could be The Thing.
Yeah.
I've had that feeling occasionally.
What are we doing? We're pausing here.
I guess we'll come back unless something catastrophic takes place here in the
studio.
We'll be right back.
Mr. John Carpenter, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good luck to you on The Thing.
I have a hunch it will do quite well.
Also, my thanks to Hank Williams, Jr., and Elaine Boosler, our announcer, Mr.
Bill Windle, Paul Schaefer, and the band.
Ladies and gentlemen, you, the studio audience.
Tomorrow night, Alan Ginsberg will be here.
Sports Specials producer Bud Greenspan will have viewer mail, plus the Bird
Lady of Queens, Arlene Thomas, and do's and don'ts with Frank and Fred.
and Fred. Good night.