In Karnick's eyes, contemporary critics have failed to see how the film has affected audiences and subsequently branded the film series as "both irresponsible (for numbing audiences to violence) and puritanical (for showing the murders of sexually active teens)". Quoting director John Carpenter, Karnick emphasized that "teens thus dispatched became victims not as punishment for sexual activity but simply because they were too preoccupied to notice the presence of a murderer". Pointing to Roger Ebert as a prime example of how critics have misunderstood the films (Ebert wrote that during a screening of "Friday the 13th Part 2", he noticed that the audience had no sympathy for the victims and cheered during death scenes), Karnick explains that Ebert's remarks show how the film series forces "audiences to experience the very thing that motivates the murders: a lack of compassion". In closing, Karnick suggested that these films were not puritanical, but proved that audiences "could be just as indifferent and callous as the characters in the films".