John Carpenter has "no idea" what all this elevated horror business is about
"I don’t know what that means," the master horror director tells us of the en-vogue concept. "I mean, I can guess what it means, but I don’t really know."
At a certain point in a successful entertainment career, keeping up with the lingo associated with a genre you revolutionized just isn’t the most relevant thing in the world. John Carpenter, the master of horror who provided the score for the new Halloween films, hasn’t heard of so-called “elevated horror,” he tells The A.V. Club in a new interview.
Although the term has gained prominence with the rise of meditative, clearly metaphorical horror favored by studios like A24, Carpenter still isn’t clear on what exactly makes horror “elevated.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Carpenter responds when The AVC’s William Hughes asks if he’s familiar with the phrase. “I mean, I can guess what it means, but I don’t really know.” When presented with recent examples of the en-vogue genre like Midsommar and Hereditary, Carpenter’s response is even clearer: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”