The film is based on the John Steakley novel Vampire. Carpenter says he was attracted to the project because it was set in the American Southwest. When I started out to be a filmmaker, it was with the intention of directing westerns. Halloween changed all that for me. Its unprecedented success turned me into a thriller director.
Carpenter is the first to admit that making a vampire film is getting trickier.
The vampire movie started out as a gothic romance. Bela Lugosi terrified audiences in the 1930s, but today his vampire has become a friendly uncle and, worse still, we have cute little Buffy and her fanged friends in our living rooms each week. Carpenter knew he also had to dispel the beautiful, almost effeminate vampires created by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire. My vampires are savage creatures. There isn't a second of brooding loneliness in their existence.