John Carpenter isn’t just a legendary director, but he’s also an avid gamer, a fact that’s come up again as part of a new interview with AV club in which the filmmaker discussed his favorite video games of the year. Carpenter gave his thoughts on a handful of some of today’s more popular titles, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Fallout 76, which he is apparently “addicted” to, as well as the “mind-blowing” Horizon Forbidden West. The director behind Halloween, The Thing, Escape from New York, and numerous other classics also revealed what game franchise he’d like to adapt: Dead Space, EA’s sci-fi survival horror staple that is receiving a remake next year courtesy of Motive Studios.
Some highlights from the interview:
AVC: Thank you! First of all: What have you been playing lately?
JC: Oh, I got hooked on this Fallout 76 game. Been hooked for a good long time on it. You know, I know it had bugs coming out, and a lot of it was put down, but I thought it was great. It’s really fun to play. And I keep up with Borderlands and Horizon: Forbidden West. I love that game. Fantastic. What a design! Mind-blowing.
AVC: Have you tried Elden Ring?
JC: No. It sounds like a role-playing game. Is that what it is?
AVC: Are you familiar with the name Hideo Kojima?
JC: Yes.
AVC: Have you met him? He has a character named Solid Snake…
JC: I do know about Solid Snake. I know about that. No, he wrote me. I think he wrote me in lieu of the company paying me any money whatsoever.
AVC: You’ve talked a lot about the Assassin’s Creed games online. Do you have a favorite from that series?
JC: I did like Valhalla, that was pretty damn good. I like the early ones a lot, where you had to climb up the towers and synchronize. I love that. And there was Assassin’s Creed: Origins, I wasn’t as fond of that game, because it just … It seemed repetitive. Anyway, I don’t know. I don’t want to criticize.
AVC: It’s interesting, because [Naughty Dog] has gone on to do The Last Of Us games. Have you played those?
JC: I have. I got stuck on The Last Of Us 2. I couldn’t get the generator started. Got frustrated.
AVC: Have you ever thought about adapting a game?
JC: The only one I can think of, and I’ve mentioned it before, is Dead Space. That would make a real great movie. I could do that.
AVC: How many hours would you say you’ve logged with Fallout 76?
JC: I don’t know. It’s sick. Whatever it is, is really sick. I’m addicted to it. It’s too many hours, okay? That’s what it is.
From AV Club:
John Carpenter is a legend—and he’s exactly the sort likely to scoff when you tell him that fact to his face. (In his role as a co-composer on David Gordon Green’s continuations of his beloved Halloween, Carpenter is apt to refer to himself and his collaborators as “carpet men,” brought in to install a background element, rather than claiming any more obvious creative role.) A long-time outsider from the Hollywood system, Carpenter is well-known for an irascible, self-deprecating wit and a natural blunt honesty—both of which were on fine display in our recent conversation with him about scoring Green’s upcoming Halloween Ends.
Our conversation naturally drifted, though, to one of Carpenter’s other big passions: Video games, discussions of which often make up a healthy chunk of the director’s online
conversations in recent years. And so it went here, as Carpenter readily dove in to talking about all his favorite games in 2022, what game franchise he’d adapt for the screen if he had his way, and what he thinks about Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima—whose signature creation, Solid Snake, bears a slight resemblance to Carpenter’s own reptilian-named cinematic badass, Snake Plissken, from Escape From New York.
John Carpenter’s most recent project is Halloween Ends, for which he serves as composer and one of its many executive producers. “The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode comes to a spine-chilling climax in this final installment of this trilogy,” reads a synopsis for the film that releases this Friday, October 14.