In an interview with Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast (via Vulture), John Carpenter had some harsh words for the Friday the 13th franchise and the slasher boom of the 80s.

When comparing his own film Halloween to Friday the 13th, he said: “One sprints from an organic idea and has a truly artist’s eye working. And Friday the 13th, I feel, affects me as very cynical. It’s very cynical moviemaking. It just doesn’t rise above its cheapness. That’s what the teenagers want to see. So they just started making them, cranking them out … most of them were awful. I think the reason that all these slasher movies came in the ’80s was a lot of folks said, ‘Look at that Halloween movie.’ It was made for peanuts, and look at the money it’s made! We can make money like that.”