John Carpenter Almost 'Quit The Business' After Awful Experience Directing Chevy Chase In 1992

Anyone who loves horror movies knows John Carpenter is one of the fathers of the genre.

He directed many iconic horror movies such as Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, Christine and They Live just to name a few. And Carpenter also had some classic films outside the horror genre, like Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China, Assault On Precinct 13 and Starman.

But imagine a world where the beloved horror director quit part way through his career. Imagine missing out on amazing movies such as Escape from L.A, Ghosts of Mars, Vampires, and Vampires Los Muertos among others.

Even further, imagine if the movie that almost took out the king of horror was a science fiction romantic comedy.

That horrifying thought almost became a reality.

After working with Chevy Chase in the 1992 movie Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Carpenter had such a bad experience he almost quit the directing business.

Carpenter told Variety:

“But Chevy Chase and Sam Neill—who I love and had a longtime friendship with—and Warner Bros. … I worked for them, and it was pleasant."

"No, it wasn’t pleasant at all. I’m lying to you. It was a horror show."

"I really wanted to quit the business after that movie."

"God, I don’t want to talk about why, but let’s just say there were personalities on that film … he shall not be named who needs to be killed. No, no, no, that’s terrible. He needs to be set on fire. No, no, no."

"Anyway, it’s all fine. I survived it.”

While Carpenter didn't exactly name who he had such an awful experience with, he didnt exactly hide it either.

In his quote he stated he loved Sam Neill and had a longtime friendship with him. He continued to make movies with Neill and he never made another movie with Chase.

As expected social media had a lot to say about this.

Most people were not at all surprised by this news.

At the end of the day, if Carpenter had quit, it would have been a huge loss to film fans everywhere.

Moviegoers are beyond happy Carpenter survived it.