Although the man himself tends to be pretty humble, bordering on self-deprecating, about his lasting influences on horror, everybody else in the business understands the potency of John Carpenter’s name and reputation. A few years back, for instance, the Thing and Halloween director lent both his moniker, and his music, to a slightly unlikely TV project, Peacock’s John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams—by all accounts a pretty awful true-crime show whose only major distinguishing factor was Carpenter’s fairly limited involvement. (He directed a single episode of the series, with its true-crime recreations aiming to cheaply ape his style.) Now, a new horror anthology series will try to bring the legendary creator a little closer to his comfort zone.
This is per THR, which reports that Elevation Pictures has just announced John Carpenter Presents, an upcoming horror series that aims to “channel both Carpenter’s visual style and musical sensibility,” in this case through the work of showrunners Michael Amo and Will Pascoe. (Formerly of WGN’s Pure and Prime Video’s Absentia, respectively). The show’s first season is not being shy about setting people’s brains up to pull parallels with The Thing, either: It’ll take place in the wilds of Alaska, for that nice “frozen in with something very bad” sense of dread, and promises to “explore the hidden fears and social anxieties of our time.”
The obvious question here, of course, is how much impact Carpenter will actually have on any of these proceedings. Although he’s talked, semi-recently, about possibly directing again (for the first time, in any serious way, since 2012) Carpenter’s also made it very clear, in a number of interviews, that he also feels pretty content to just make music, play video games, and enjoy a hard-earned retirement. We’re guessing that what we’ll end up seeing here is an extended homage to his style and work, with maybe a new theme song from the man himself to give the whole thing an obvious endorsement. Which isn’t a condemnation or anything—you can do great work within those kinds of restraints—but it seems unlikely that anyone is going to confuse John Carpenter Presents with John Carpenter Directs.
