John Carpenter to Be Honored at Cannes With Golden Coach Award

Due to the most popular horror films from any given year often appealing to the lowest common denominator in regards to its viewers, genre fare rarely receives the same acclaim from prestigious organizations that dramatic films earn. Films like Get Out, The Babadook, and Hereditary have helped turn the tide in recent years, earning praise for their accomplishments within horrifying narratives, while the monstrous romance The Shape of Water took home the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2018. At this year's Cannes Film Festival, the organization is honoring seminal horror director John Carpenter with their 2019 Golden Coach Award (Carrosse d'Or) at the Directors' Fortnight sidebar.

Variety reports that the French Directors' Guild referred to Carpenter as "a creative genius of raw, fantastic and spectacular emotions." Carpenter cemented himself as a genre pioneer in 1978 with Halloween, bouncing all over the map of subgenres with films like The Fog, Prince of Darkness, Escape from New York, and They Live. Throughout the '80s, few filmmakers accomplished as much as Carpenter, regardless of genre.

The Directors' Guild noted that the filmmaker "enhances the irresistible delight of staging. In each of them, the work on space, on what is off-screen, on the visible and on the invisible, is constantly renewed and regenerated in order to redefine fear – a fear that is always prone to trigger emotions in characters and actors who have now become iconic."

Carpenter regularly collaborated with Kurt Russell and Adrienne Barbeau, as well as helping launch the career of Jamie Lee Curtis.

In addition to writing and directing many of his films, Carpenter also crafted many of their scores. The Guild noted that the filmmaker's "great soundtracks keep inspiring the French electronic music scene."

Carpenter's most recent project was serving as an executive producer on last year's Halloween, which he also crafted the score for. A sequel has yet to be confirmed, but Carpenter already expressed his interest in returning to the franchise.

"We'll be ready," Carpenter confirmed to Consequence of Sound when asked about potentially composing the sequel's score. "We've all talked about it. We'll be ready."

Stay tuned for details on the future of Carpenter's many projects.

Are you glad to see the organization honor the filmmaker? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!

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