John Carpenter’s first graphic novel comes with a heavy metal soundtrack, and a terrifying new single.
What do you get when one of horror’s greatest filmmakers decides his next project shouldn’t just be watched, but read and listened to?
If you’re John Carpenter, the answer is Cathedral.
The legendary director behind Halloween, The Thing and The Fog has unveiled ‘The Ferryman’, the second single from his ambitious upcoming multimedia project. Created alongside longtime collaborators Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies.
Following the release of ‘Lord of the Underground’, the new track arrives with a haunting visualiser featuring never-before-seen artwork. Carpenter has built Cathedral as a fully interconnected experience.
The graphic novel arrives on August 4 via Storm King Comics, while the companion album follows three days later on August 7 through Sacred Bones Records.
The project began with a dream Carpenter couldn’t ignore.
“It was so cinematic and vivid,” he said when announcing Cathedral. “I have to score this.”
That dream eventually snowballed into something even more unexpected.
“It’s our first heavy metal album,” Carpenter revealed.
Daniel Davies says the music grew organically from the story itself rather than the other way around.
“The story informed everything,” he explained. “John would describe a scene and say, ‘We need a heavy riff here.’ We didn’t set out to make a metal record, but it evolved that way.”
Despite leaning harder into metal than previous Carpenter releases, the filmmaker says his creative philosophy hasn’t changed.
“It’s about making the music work,” he said. “Put this thing on and imagine you’re watching a movie. That’s what we want you to do.”
More than four decades after redefining horror cinema, Carpenter is once again experimenting with how audiences experience a story, this time blending comics and heavy metal.
