When it comes to horror, there’s no director as beloved as John Carpenter. Films like Halloween, The Thing, and They Live made the filmmaker a genre icon in the latter half of the 20th century, but the director hasn’t made a film in over a decade. However, Carpenter has now announced that he has returned to the director’s chair for the upcoming horror series Suburban Screams.
Carpenter recently made an appearance at Texas Frightmare where he revealed the exciting news at a Q & A panel. Via The Prague Reporter, the director told the audience, “I just finished directing, remotely, a TV series called Suburban Screams – John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams.” He finished up by saying, “It was filmed in Prague, and I sat on my couch and directed it. It was awesome.” This title drop is literally the first news of this series’ existence, and we know nothing other than that. However, given Carpenter attached his name to it, it sounds like he at least directed a majority of the series. In terms of plot, it will most likely be an anthology series in the vein of a film like John Carpenter’s Body Bags.
The Legacy of John Carpenter
Carpenter has been the biggest name in horror for almost 50 years. Of course, he helped create the greatest slasher villain of all time in Michael Myers, but his films like The Fog, The Thing, Christine, They Live, Escape From New York, Vampires and The Prince of Darkness are some of the best genre films of all time. No one directs a spine tingling film or thick atmosphere like Carpenter. This is thanks in part to the fact that Carpenter writes and composes most of the films he works on. If we put aside the visual aspect of film for second, Carpenter is one of the best film composers in history. Everyone knows his brilliant Halloween theme, but his scores for The Fog, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and Escape From New York are some of the best music you’ll ever hear.
Since his time away from the director’s chair, that has been Carpenter’s focus. He’s been working on his music and directing his own music videos. Also, even though Carpenter hasn’t directed since 2010’s The Ward, the filmmaker has kept busy returning to horror to compose David Gordon Green’s Halloween legacy trilogy which saw the return of franchise final girl Jamie Lee Curtis. Carpenter would compose the scores for Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends with his long time collaborator Daniel Davies and son Cody Carpenter. Not to sound like a literal broken record, but it’s three of the best musical scores to come out of any genre in the last half decade. The trio even composed an incredibly underrated score for the less than well received Firestarter remake in 2022.
When Does Suburban Screams Release?
That’s why it’s so exciting to hear that Carpenter has returned to the director’s chair in some capacity. We don’t know when Suburban Screams will release, but hopefully this is a sign of more things to come in Carpenter’s directing future. The filmmaker has been going to a lot of conventions over the years and meeting a lot of his passionate fan base. Maybe that has refueled his desire to direct? He even talked about the possibility of a Thing sequel happening at the same event. Whatever the case may be, you can catch up on some of Carpenter’s classics on the horror centric streaming service Shudder while horror fans anxiously wait for more news on Suburban Screams. This includes Halloween and Body Bags.
via Collider