Is the ludicrously entertaining John Carpenter Letterboxd account real?

Cinephiles were in for a surprise this week when they saw horror legend John Carpenter pop up in their notifications on Letterboxd. To all appearances it seemed the cinematic icon behind The Thing, They Live, Prince of Darkness, and Halloween was giving candid reviews of his own movies and not holding back.

Reviews posted on an account with The Thing director’s full name began rating Carpenter’s movies five stars, and interacted with users who logged his films – even offering some harsh rebuttals of any criticisms of his films. The account even seemingly offered insight into Carpenter’s opinions on other films that he wasn’t involved in, such as the recent Ronald Reagan biopic and…..Space Jam???

Is the humorous account the real John Carpenter scoping out the online film enthusiast community, or is it a classic case of too good to be true, and it’s just a parody account?

Does John Carpenter actually run that Letterboxd account?

After a day of speculation, a simple, one-sentence tweet from the 76-year-old master of horror put the speculation to rest.

“What the hell is a Letterboxd!??” Carpenter wrote in a post to his 444,000 followers on Twitter/X. As the director and composer doesn’t even know what the movie-logging app is, it’s safe to say it’s not him making jokes on there.

Carpenter is not the first star to be suspected of having a Letterboxd account. During the production of Barbie (2023) in the summer of 2022, a now-deleted account named MaggieAckerley logged films that were thematically on par with the film, which wouldn’t be released for another year.

The account included a watchlist titled “Watch for Barbie”, with films including The Truman Show, Splash, and The Young Girls of Rochefort. The film’s star, Margot Robbie, is married to fellow film producer Tom Ackerley, so all signs seemed to point to the Australian actor.

A person working in Hollywood probably doesn’t want their film viewing habits and opinions logged for all the world to see, so Carpenter (and Robbie) could be forgiven for not wanting a public Letterboxd account. Earlier this year, Emmy-winning actress Ayo Edebiri clarified that her Letterboxd reviews that received a lot of online attention were “jokes,” and were not meant to be taken seriously.

“I’m a comedian. Anything I say online, I think I would say to somebody’s face,” Ayo clarified in an Emmys interview. “I have a Letterboxd [account] because I love movies, I love TV, I love this industry. I know how hard it is to make something. I respect everything that’s ever been made.”