Screenwriting 101: John Carpenter

“Every great work has something that’s thematic about it. Not a message, because I don’t think movies do messages very well. They fall flat. Socially, I mean, some great films were made back in the ’30s and ’40s and you can see that they were placed in the time they were made, but their themes are for all time. The biggest thing is the story, but within that you need some thematic element that gets the audience going, that reaches out to them.”

— John Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog), excerpted from “Creative Screenwriting,” Jan/Feb, 1999.

Comment Archive