The Seventies ended with the launching of the first of the ground-breaking series of Halloween pictures masterminded by John Carpenter (1951-) which produced two sequels in the Eighties and played a major part in establishing him as a highly influential figure in the ghost and horror story film genre. Carpenter actually began shooting 8mm science fiction short films at the age of eight, and while at the University of Southern California gave an early indication of his prodigious talent when another of his shorts, The Resurrection of Bronco Billy, won an Oscar in 1970. Four years later he made his feature-film debut with Dark Star, a black comedy about some astronauts high on drugs journeying through space. It was quite clearly inspired by Stanley Kubrick's extravaganza 2001: A Space Odyssey - although Dark Star was made on a budget of just $60,000 and Carpenter's alien was a beacball with legs! The critical acclaim which greeted this picture, and his next movie, a police thriller, Assault on Precinct 13, made him a name to watch - and in 1978 he fulfilled all his early promise with Halloween. It had all th hallmarks which have since become associated with Carpenter, according to cinema historian Mark Adams, and is a textbook example of how to manipulat an audience while retaining inelligence and humour. Mark adds, "Halloween - with its knowing Psycho references and Carpenter's Bernard Hermann-like theme - put all of the 'stalk-n-slash' imitators to shame as he cleverly used the darkened corners of an ordinary house to conceal the manic killer. It set a standard not often lived up to in this genre." Aside from the two hugely successful sequels in 1980 and 1983, with the late British master of terror Donald Pleasance starring in both with Jamie Lee Curtis, Carpenter has furter enriched the horror genre with The Thing (1982), a re-make of the 1951 black-and-white classic, The Thing From Another World about a shape-changing alien in the Antarctic; Christine (1983) based on Stephen King's best-selling novel about a demonic car; and Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) an up-date of the H.G. Wells' SF masterpiece.

John Carpenter brings intelligence, humour and passion to all his picures and has shown himself to be a fierce defender of the ghost and horror story genre against attacks over its excesses. Aside from directing, he has written the script for many of his films and often reveals his in-depth knowledge of the genre in some of the lines spoken by his characters. His delight in the printed word has, in fac, been around as long as his lover affair with the camera - as the following spooky short story, written by him for The Continent, a student magazine of Bowling Green College, Kentucky, in 1969, demonstrates. It marks another landmark in the career of this incredibly versatile director...

The night air was cool; he didn't mind the darkness and could hear the east wind stir the spruces along the beach. The ocean was beryl black and alive. It spoke to him in sibilant whispers as gull shapes whisked across a cloud-moon. He sat very still, listenng, and found himself swallowing as the water rushed and bled into the sand. His fingers flicked at his collar, loosening his tie.

Too long, he thought, opening the door of the car. Ten years. He started walking, and the bushes and tree branches around the car willowed and softly pulled against him. Fingers of grass rippled on his socks. Ten years. His mouth was dry, and he swallowed, rubbing his lips with the back of his hand. Finally his feet touched the chalky sand; there were no trees around him, only the open air smell of the sea.

Ten years. He bent near the shore and scooped wet sand. His fist tightened, and it mushed between his fingers.

Suddenly there was no wind. he was standing at the edge of the shore, unbuttoning three buttons on his shirt, listening to the distant sound of carousel music. It was too late now, he thought as he put his tie in his pocket. Too late.

The music was drifting from a faint light across a dark field of grass. He squinted at the sound. It sounded like a harpsichord, with a black clown sitting at the keyboard, smearing colored grease on the keys. He turned back to the sea as the night wind picked up again, splashing against the inside of his coat.

He took off his coat and let it drop to the sand.

There was Karen. He smiled and touched the soft flesh of his neck. Tall, auburn-dust hair, eyes that always stayed on his face. In darkness, when his ears were ringing from the stillness, she would trace over the glassy smoothness of his neck and tell him his flesh was marble. She was warm and moist, but the sea was wet-cold.

When he turned, after he had taken the ring off his left hand, he couldn't see his car. It was just hidden by the trees above the beach, two hundred yards behind him, its chrome teeth faintly luminescent, its eyes dead.

The carousel music had increased, and the water at his feet screamed quietly. He leaned down and touched the liquid with his hads. Cold, splash-black, ice-green. He shivered.

Ten years. Too long. It couldn't wait.

With a twist he pulled off his coat. Buttons zipped throught their holes; his pants fell to the sand, and he stepped out of them.

In a moment he was naked and soft white, and his mind was spinning with music.

He touched the top of his forehead, his fingers pushing into the flesh at his hairline. No pain. He fingers shook. He pulled the flesh forward, and the skin of his face lifted and pulled away. It shred off in rubbery layers as he stripped it down his neck. The black hair from the top of his head lifted and synthetic flesh flopped and crumbled on the sand.

Just slightly the music had become faster. He touched his face, along the high mound of his lips, in the deep craters around his eyes. The tips of his fingers brushed each scale as he caressed the gills of his neck.

Quickly he pulled off the rest of the flesh from his body, and instead of white there was silver-green. He stood naked in a moonburst as the clouds parted for a moment.

Then he heard a sound behind him, a rustle. He crouched. The music from the harpsichord-carousel was loud; it deafened him. It's been too long, he thought. Too long.

The tees moved. A wind. Then a clown stepped from behind a tree and stood watching him. His face was paste white, with a red slash of an insane grin around the lips.

"You," said the clown, laughing. "You," again, softly.

"No," he said. "I'm returning. I"m going back."

There was a movement. The clown was grinning. "You," he whispered.

"No. Please..."

The clown lifted a cluster of opal wind chimes on a string. The glitterng pieces were making the sound of the harpsichord, coliding, driven together by the wind, smashing, clanging.

"I'm a fish."

The clown grinned. "You're a clown."

Ten years, thought the fish. It's been too long.

His hands moved to his forehead and began puling away the strips of green, scaly flesh. they peeled off his face and hung down around his chest. Underneath the synthetic gills was a white, painted face, with a grease-slashed smile.