Halloween director John Carpenter names his all-time favorite horror movies

Filmmaker David Gordon Green‘s horror sequel Halloween is currently scaring audiences around the country. But which movie most tingled the spine of legendary director John Carpenter who directed and cowrote the original Halloween back in 1978 and composed and performed the new film’s score with his son Cody and godson Daniel Davies?

The answer is 1951’s Arctic-set alien movie The Thing from Another World, the science fiction classic Carpenter would remake as 1982’s Kurt Russell-starring The Thing.

“Well, you have to go back to when I was little,” says Carpenter. “That’s when I got scared. The Thing, the original Thing. Popcorn flying! You’re jumping! It has some great jumps in it, surprising you.”

Carpenter reveals that he was also freaked out by 1958’s The Fly, about a scientist who winds up with an insect’s head, which itself would be remade by David Cronenberg in the mid-’80s.

“The original The Fly, you know that movie?” says Carpenter. “When the wife pulls the thing off the scientist’s head? Ah! Scared me!”

Watch the trailer for the new Halloween, above.

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