(Sound) It's the 40th anniversary of Halloween, and with the release of the new
sequel, it's time to look back at the film that launched Jamie Lee Curtis's career.
Here are seven things you didn't know about Halloween, probably.
(Sound) Halloween was co-written by John Carpenter
and Debra Hill, and damned near everything in the movie was named after something
from their personal lives.
For instance, Haddonfield, Illinois was named after Haddonfield, New Jersey,
Debra Hill's hometown.
And Smith's Grove was named after a town near where Carpenter grew up.
Lauri Strode was named after Carpenter's first girlfriend and
Michael Meyers was named after the European distributor of Assault on
Precinct 13 as a sort of weird thank you.
Sheriff Lee Bracket is a reference to writer Lee Bracket,
who wrote Rio Bravo, a film that inspired Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13.
Laurie and Tommy watched The Thing From Another World, one of Carpenter's
favorite movies, and didn't he remake that movie a few years later?
One of the best sci-fi movies ever or something like that?
(Sound) I don't know.
Moving on.
(Sound) Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho plays a major influence on Halloween.
From the camera movements to creative bloodless murders.
The homage doesn't stop there, though.
Carpenter went so far as to cast his own Hitchcock blonde, Jamie Lee Curtis,
who's mother Janet Lee played the iconic Marian Crane in Psycho.
Casting Jamie not only paid tribute to Hitchcock's famous muses, but
also launched the era of scream queens and final girls in the process.
While Psycho redefined the horror genre for
an entire generation, it seems only fitting that 18 years later the next
generation to influence horror movies was literally the next generation of Lees.
And how's this for another Psycho reference?
Donald Pleasence's Dr. Sam Loomis is named after John Gavin's character in the film.
Bonus Hitchcock thing.
(Sound) Now you may already
know that the infamous Michael Myers mask is actually a transformed $2
Captain Kirk Halloween mask.
What you may not know is that there were other options for
the famous facade such as President Richard Nixon, Mr.
Spock and the Emmett Kelly's Weary Willie clown mask.
The script specifically called for the pale neutral features of a man, weirdly
distorted by the rubber, and Captain Kirk's expressionless face fit the bill.
Production gave the mask a make-over by teasing the hair,
ripping off the sideburns, widening the eye holes and spray painting it
white to create one of the most iconic horror figures in movie history.
And while William Shatner had no say in his contribution to the film,
he has admitted that he's actually gone trick or
treating with the infamous Michael Myers mask on, segue.
(Sound) Speaking of transformations,
at the time of filming the Myer's House was literally an abandoned house.
With the film's small budget, finding the house was a Halloween miracle by
providing a proper spooky production value that the film literally could not afford.
However, that meant that the opening tracking shot of the house had to
be filmed on the last day.
It took the crew all day to clean and paint the exterior of the house.
Production could only afford to decorate what would be shown in the frame,
meaning that the Panaglide operator had to precise or
else any movement in any other direction would show a dusty, broken-down corner.
Or a ghost of the last low-budget film that used the house.
(Music)
Everybody knows the score.
It's one of the most iconic pieces of music in movie history and
it'd be hard to imagine the film without it.
However, you may not know it came after Carpenter screened the film
to an executive who was not impressed with the film and said that it wasn't scary.
So Carpenter played octaves on a piano using a five four time signature his
father taught him as a child and wrote the score in just three days.
And later, the same executive told Carpenter the film was terrifying.
In the credits, Carpenter lists himself as the Bowling Green Philharmonic Orchestra,
a reference to his hometown in Kentucky.
That's not the only place you can hear Carpenter's musical prowess
in the film, though.
The band playing in the car in this scene is his band, The Coup De Villes, composed
of himself, Nick Castle, and Tommy Lee Wallace, which is boom, a two part segue.
(Sound) Part one of the segue is about Carpenter's
band mate Tommy Lee Wallace, who was also the production designer on the film.
(Music)
With a $300,000 budget and a 21-day shoot,
the filmmakers had to find creative ways to sell the story of a Halloween haunting.
It meant a lot of usual budget shortcuts like John Carpenter's own car doubling as
the Strode's car here.
Maybe the biggest for
Wallace was that production took place in March in California.
You can see green trees and palm trees in some of the shots.
Wallace had to paint three trash bags worth of leaves brown and
reuse them throughout the film.
With crews scrambling to collect leaves after each cut.
And, I bet, Wallace let Carpenter hear about what a pain in the ass that was
at the Coupe De Ville's next rehearsal.
Here comes part two of that segue.
(Sound) Five different people played the Shape in the film.
Two thirds of the Coupe De Villes, including Nick Castle and
Tommy Lee Wallace pulling double duty.
Stuntman James Winburn, co-writer Debra Hill and actual actor Tony Moran,
and all for different practical reasons.
Nick Castle played the role for most of the film and had that specific body
language that's made the Shape so terrifying even all these years later.
Tommy Lee Wallace, the production designer/editor, by the way,
he edited the film too, stepped in during scenes where the Shape had to break
stuff because he was good at breaking stuff correctly on the first take.
Cheap movies can only afford to break stuff once, after all.
James Winburn was the stuntman who literally took the fall off the balcony
after being shot by Dr. Loomis in this scene.
Debra Hill not only stood in for the shape in this shot, but she also
lent a hand playing young Michael's, well, the hand in the opening sequence POV shot.
And Tony Moran took the honor of being the face of Michael Myers for
the few split seconds you can actually see it.
This all just reinforces the idea that Michael is not a normal man.
He's actually four men, and one woman.
Or an editor, a production designer, a cowriter, a bandmate who went on to direct
The Last Starfighter, a stuntman and briefly an actor's face.
Why he's inspired nightmares for 40 years.
That's all we have for this episode of Things You Didn't Know, but
tell us what you're dressing up as for Halloween.
Nah, don't do that.
I was just kidding.
And, as always, be sure to subscribe to Cinefix for more truish things about
movies and sometimes Tommy Lee Wallace right here on Things You Didn't Know.