Filmmaker and composer John Carpenter has been dubbed a ‘master of the horror genre’, having written both Halloween and Halloween II, also serving as director on the first of these. He has also directed a number of other horror favourites, including The Thing, Vampires, and a 1983 adaptation of Stephen King’s Christine.
Like many filmmakers and writers, John is also a fan of reading and back in 2015 he shared his four favourite horror books in an interview with the New York Post. Among his favourites was a Stephen King novel (although not the one he has adapted for the big screen) and stories from the legendary H.P. Lovecraft. The horror maestro revealed that these four books scared even him.
Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural edited by P.C. Wagner and H. Wise
This collection of scary stories contains writings by Edgar Allen Poe, Henry James, and H.P. Lovecraft. John first read this selection as a teenager after his father bought him a copy.
Recommending these stories to the New York Post, John revealed that his favourite in the collection was H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Rats in the Walls.’
The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft
“It’s a very early, almost science-fiction tale,” said John. “A meteor lands on this farmer’s property, and it begins to change everybody. Lovecraft wrote some really terrifying stuff.
“He has a lot of flaws as a writer, but he invented ethos, an inversion of Christianity: that the old ones lived on the earth before we did, were expelled, and are waiting to take over.”
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
John described this novel, which tells the tale of a family’s encounter with a mysterious graveyard with the ability to bring back the dead, as one of King’s “scariest books ever.”
And he’s not alone in this, though, with a Goodreads ranking of Stephen King’s scariest books placing Pet Sematary in third place, coming in behind The Shining and It.
Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss
Recommending this 1983 true crime book, penned by journalist Joe McGinniss, John said: ” This is a true-crime story about the Green Beret, Jeffrey MacDonald, who was convicted of killing his wife and kids.
“It’s a celebrated book, and it was one that had me up at night walking around, because it’s so disturbing. Awful, awful, awful! It’s about the darkness in humanity. All I can do is to suggest that you read it.”