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Horror icon John Carpenter on being a college dropout, 'Barbie' and telling true scary stories

While John Carpenter has become synonymous with fictional horror storytelling, the 75-year-old director is dipping his toe into true life terrors with his new show, “John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — While John Carpenter has become synonymous with fictional horror storytelling, the 75-year-old director and composer is dipping his toe into true life terrors with his new show, “John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams.”

The legendary director, known for genre-defining classics including “Halloween” and “The Thing,” sat down with The Associated Press for a wide-ranging interview ahead of the release of the unscripted anthology series, which fittingly hits Peacock on Friday, Oct. 13. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: I know you’ve talked about how film school helped you understand the plumbing of making movies. But it’s interesting because now with education we have so much more access to information thanks to the internet.

CARPENTER: Tell me about it. It’s all different now. Oh, everything is different. The technology of the business is different. The business is different. I would be starting over completely green if I had to right now. I learned everything about the camera and editing and sound and all that stuff. All that stuff has changed. It’s all different. The sound now is like, ‘What the hell is that? Where’s the NAGRA?’ At USC, we had a lab where you could do processing. We don’t process any more. It’s all digital.