John Carpenter, the director behind horror classics such as Halloween and The Thing, has revealed that his earliest memory of cinema came from watching The African Queen as a very young child in the early 1950s. He recalled being confused not by the plot, but by the mechanics of the medium itself, unsure whether what he was seeing was projected or happening live in front of him. This formative moment of bewilderment, later resolved by his father, appears to have shaped his lifelong fascination with the technical craft of filmmaking.

Carpenter shared the story in a 2014 interview, explaining that as a toddler he could not comprehend how the images on screen were being produced. His father took him to see the projection booth and explained how the picture was "coming from behind", after which Carpenter recalled thinking "OK, I got it now". That early curiosity about the nuts and bolts of cinema is said to echo through his later work, including the practical effects used in the opening of The Thing, where he created smoke effects using a fishbowl and a burning bin bag.