John Carpenter

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

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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