Original subtitles

spring 1978

two young filmmakers john carpenter and

deborah hill

began shooting a film about a babysitter

being stalked by evil incarnate

shot in 20 days on a budget of just over

300 000

the film went on to make over 50 million

and until recently was the highest

grossing independent movie

ever it's influenced a generation of

filmmakers and

film goers and its title has become

synonymous with movie horror

halloween

today deborah hill is a player one of

the

busiest producers in la but she

remembers halloween

what i like about horror films is the

fact that they really

get you to react for me the films were a

way to kind of

leap from reality into some sort of

great fantasy we're all afraid of the

same things

we're all born afraid of death

loss of loved ones loss of abandonment

from our parents

pain injury all of it is the same we're

all afraid of the same things

which makes a movie that deals in our

fears

uh universal one of my first jobs was a

script supervisor

working on a movie called goodbye norma

jean and then i met john carpenter

when he directed assault on precinct 13

and i was his script supervisor and

assistant editor

and then we decided to collaborate on

halloween irwin yablons actually came up

with the idea of setting it in halloween

and we were searching for a story you

know what could the story be

and and because we were very limited in

fact they wanted babysitters so

and i'd been a babysitter and i had all

these great stories um but when he

called and came up with a brilliant idea

of using the themes of halloween

to tell our story it was like a gold

mine

i thought what if we made a film in one

night we could probably do it real cheap

because we do

one set we'd do it all in a couple of

days or a couple of weeks

and i thought about the most horrific

night of the year halloween no one had

ever made a movie about halloween

and i picked up a telephone and called

john carpenter with whom

who was in my mind at the time because

of assault on pc13

and i said what do you think of the

title halloween expecting him to perhaps

walk he got it right away and he told me

right off the bat that he could make the

picture for four weeks for three hundred

thousand dollars

i said john let me see what i can do

i wasn't in this horror films until

john carpenter came to me with this film

and and he said i have a film and

a low budget and he said three hundred

thousand dollars

i said three hundred thousand dollars he

said well yeah i said what's the stories

about

he said is about a babysitter to be

killed by the boogeyman

the word babysitter clicked with me

because

every kid in america knows what a

babysitter is

we went to a list of scares you know

like imagine

if you know you're in bed with your

boyfriend and he goes down to get some

water or coke or something

and comes back with a sheep trying to

pretend he's a ghost

but it's not him it's all these kinds of

things that we wrote down all these

scares

and then we decided to weave the scares

into the story

basically it was a complete 50 50

collaboration i wrote the first draft

laying in the kids the teenagers the

teenage talk the girl talk amongst each

other

and john came back with a pass for the

sam loomis character which was played by

donald pleasance

so all the stuff about evil and

everything is really jon's

i met this six-year-old child

with this blank pale

emotionless face and

[Applause]

the blackest eyes the devil's eyes

the opening shot of the picture um took

an entire day to film it's actually two

shots

we took it from touch of evil one of our

favorite orson welles

films we set up so that we would start

in the front of the house and we would

actually go all the way through

creep in the window see them kissing go

through the back of the house

open up the drawer pick out the knife

and by the way those are my hands

and then we would go in through the

living room and up the steps and into

the bedroom

and while we were up there shooting that

scene

um downstairs all the electricians and

grips were running around

crazy trying to reset the lights from

when we turned around and came back

through the house

the fact that we had a new tool at the

time to to

kind of help us with that the steadicam

it was pretty ambitious because

most of the time on low budget shows you

didn't really spend

a lot of time with the look

every town has a haunted house and in

haddonfield it belongs to the myers

family

we slept up there anybody who's a fan of

the film remembers nancy loomis

wow i'd like to tell you that a lot of

mysterious weird things happened or that

we had this big passionate love scene

but

in fact as soon as everybody was gone

and we got up there we just sort of

looked at each other and

we're so tired we just conked out the

end

not quite the halloween crew used other

locations in and around pasadena

all right what you're looking at is the

original halloween street

and i felt like this had the look we

needed

overhanging trees could be anywhere and

yet on film they don't look like rich

people live here they just like

beaver cleaver lives here the filmmakers

also use the stately homes of west

hollywood

hi i'm brian anders tommy doyle from

halloween

over there was lindsey's house that was

the house where i first saw the

boogeyman

and i gotta tell you that really scared

me

[Music]

over here we have the doyle house i'd

like to apologize to everyone for taking

so long to get to the door

and leaving poor jamie lee curtis

stranded out there possibly in fear for

her life

a lot of halloween success was due to

the creative partnership between its

director and cinematographer

dean and i sat down and watched

chinatown there is a real creepy feeling

to chinatown and the way it's shot it's

beautiful it's sunlit it's california

but on the other hand there's something

really off about it

as we talked about this being a small

town that's something strange

here he did a whole lot of blue

backlight okay

creepy creepy lighting and it was really

effective became a kind of cliche after

he used it

jamie lee has been chased in the house

and she's hiding in the corner

and the uh the shape as we called him

uh gradually sort of materializes

in the shadows behind her using a

light on the dimmer i brought it brought

it up so that it just

barely began to expose the white face of

the uh

the shape the killer hiding in the

background there

i always remembered john carpenter and

deborah hill seemed

always you know very preoccupied with

getting everything perfect

they seemed like the ultimate incredible

down-home filmmakers because they had

hands on everything

and john carpenter just seemed like a

genius to me because he really knew

so so much about what he wanted from

every single

second of the film veteran actor donald

pleasence came in for

five shooting days to portray the

shape's nemesis dr

sam loomis donald pleasants was just an

amazing actor he

he really he's the kind of guy who just

knew the character

we only had five days with him he was

just really great he gave 150 percent

and he was like the elder on the set

those days

kids making movies was rare

and so i think he was just astonished at

our ages

and the excitement and the freshness

that we brought to the process

john and debra colby one day and said to

me that they were all set

on offering christopher lee the part of

dr loomis

i said what do you want to do make

another hammer movie christopher lee

turned us down peter cushing turned us

down

and donald uh agreed to my shock

and we sat down to have lunch and he

says i don't understand this script i

don't like the script i don't know who

my character is the only reason i'm

doing this

is because my daughter thought your

first movie was cool

so tell me why i'm doing this i'm scared

to death

oh my god i only realized later when we

became friends that what donald likes to

do is he wants to be

he wants to find out how much you want

to do the movie he wants to find out how

you how

passionate i am you are the director so

that's his little trick

donald his action is he runs and he

shoots the shape blows him out of a

window

on the set i was shooting his reaction

so he says i can play this what do you

want me to

play this two ways i can play this

oh my god he's gone

or i knew this would happen

i thought boy that's interesting i don't

know can you play it do it both ways for

me

and clearly he knew what he should have

done

he knew how he should have played it

ahead of time it which it was i knew

this would happen

because oh my god he's gone was way too

too much

but i realized that donald actually gave

me the choice

you see he left the decision in my hands

which is the

i don't know the mark of a great actor

while halloween was pleasance's 108th

film or tv appearance

it was his co-star's first movie role i

remember that

the first day we shot i remember exactly

what we shot and

i remember going home and thinking i was

going to be fired i just thought i

sucked and

that you know

and i remember being at home and my

roommate said jamie the phone's for you

it's john carpenter and i thought oh man

this is it and he called to say how

happy he was with the day's work and i

just thought that was great

it's never happened to me again we saw a

lot of girls to play the loy strode

character

and jamie was just so vulnerable and so

real and so fresh so she really didn't

come with sort of the acting chops

that most of the young girls were

portraying at the time

she just was real and fresh and she so

wanted the role

and debra came up with the idea of jamie

jamie was in a little tv show i think

she was under contract at universal

and uh deborah thought it'd be a great

idea to cast her plus the fact that she

was janet lee's

daughter which kind of connected back to

psycho so i have to give deborah all the

credit in the world for that

and the fact that we had named the

donald pleasant character after sam

loomis

who was you know her boyfriend in psycho

for those reasons jamie got the part i

remember the feeling about it more than

anything it wasn't

like something happened on the set you

know working hard

everybody was very young we were

shooting an incredibly

fast pace the entire makeup wardrobe

prop department was in a tiny winnebago

here i was with these 18

19 20 22 year old guys primarily

and a lot of people's girlfriends and

friends and family

all creating this this movie so

that remains the thing that was special

about it for me

whenever you make a horror movie you

have a great deal of fun

if you make a drama or a comedy it's

it's a nightmare it's ugly it's horrible

okay because the subject matter

everybody gets very serious

especially comedies boy are they tough

but a horror movie everybody starts

loosening up

and the more blood you bring out the

more fun it is the more people get

killed every the crew is laughing and

joking

it's like a picnic and so that whole

feeling

was kind of rolling through halloween

halloween's villain was more than just a

killer

it was a supernatural hurricane

what i thought about doing was not

giving the antagonist michael myers

really much of a back story but kind of

kicking him up into a

legendary kind of situation where he's

much more like an element of nature

because i thought that would be more

frightening rather than personifying

make him almost a force so then the mask

which ties in between halloween would

blank out his human features for most of

the film

making him then just some some sort of

force of evil that is

irrational unstoppable but the shape had

to be more than just some

guy in a fright mask nick castle had

been a schoolmate of john's

at usc nick had a wife and and i believe

two babies i know there was at least one

it may have been two

and they came by every day at lunch and

you know here's this guy

with this over suit on and you know the

mask was just always lying next to me

put it on and go do the work

his portrayal shape now remember the

shape has no lines in the movie

none whatsoever it's just sort of a you

know a mask

and it's a presence that we wanted on

halloween two

we had a stuntman play the role and

even though he studied the the new

castle

kind of feeling he could never quite get

it i think they're trying to make it

more important than it really is

i actually just walked john actually did

say something you know

i like the way you walk i think it'll be

good now maybe john thinks of me as a

serial killer i don't know

i remember i'm about to walk across the

street in the first shot

and i realize he has not told me

anything

about what i'm supposed to do as this

character

so i came up to him and basically asked

him what's my motivation

you know as the shape walking across how

do you want me to walk you know how do

you want me to

am i supposed to be this or that and he

said nick

just walk nick was suggesting all sorts

of

of attributes that he could play to this

character

thinking okay is is he really a psychic

is he really crazy

is he somebody who's insane does he have

any of the

the kind of schizophrenic movements that

we we kind of associate with mental

illness

and i just told him to be simple with it

basically when he's watching

something or someone uh stand still

just move very gracefully because nick

can do that

make this this killer almost a blank

slate that we can project

everything into and make it much more

horrifying i am actually in this movie

without the mask on uh

early on when the michael myers escapes

from the hospital uh he jumps on a car

right and he smashes the car window

it was raining that night it's supposed

to be raining that night it was very

cold that night

and all i had on was my underwear and

this um hospital gown and

i didn't know they were it was supposed

to rain this is three in the morning you

know maybe 40-something degrees and all

of a sudden

someone yells dean cundy that little rat

probably

yelled turn on the hoses and they turned

on the hoses you know they didn't bother

to warm up the water or anything like

that

and i remember the feeling of ice cold

water hitting my body

through the hospital gown and then they

had to do

take after take and i'm sure there was

no film in the camera i'm sure the first

stake was

perfect and they were just doing it to

torture me i think he really gave the

movie something

i think there's little moments that he

does in the movie that are really

special that

you know take it away from being just

some sort of

thug in a suit he really kind of at one

point he tips his head and kind of looks

at his handiwork

when i remember when i when i stabbed

the kid up against the refrigerators and

boom you know uh

stabbed the kid and uh i remember that

direction

john said tilt your head this way tilt

your head that way

like you're looking at him and everyone

loves that well he was so agile

and subtle and he made a great shape

because of that well i needed to go pick

up some trick-or-treat shots second unit

and so and i wanted them more

trick-or-treaters went by and suddenly

their stance to shape

so not only was i going to direct the

second unit but i brought the costume

and i was going to be the shape

i put this shape costume on and of

course i'm so much tinier than

the nick and in daley's it was so

hilarious because the shape had shrunk

one of the most famous faces in horror

almost had a completely different look

john assigned me the task of finding

some choices

for the halloween mask and i picked up

two that looked like really good legit

choices one was an emmett kelly mask

emmett kelly was a classic clown with a

big red nose

stupid hair and a big smile big blue

smile on his face and i thought how

frightening how grotesque

the first michael myers mask was

actually

a william shatner from star trek

masks that we kind of changed a lot we

opened up the eye sockets

we changed the hair we did something to

the skin tones to make it this white

pasty

kind of mask and it was kind of scary

because it was sort of featureless

and that's what we were just what we're

going for and uh

first it was the kelly mask and

he came out of the bathroom wearing it

and everyone agreed it was pretty eerie

it was strange it was weird

made you uncomfortable and you knew that

was the scary situation

went back came out with the other mask

and a cold chill ran up everybody's

spine it was so scary looking it was so

demented it was so sick

that we knew we had it i wasn't

impressed with the mask at first i

thought the mask was fake i thought it

was phony i didn't like it i thought the

mask wouldn't work

but i was wrong

[Music]

for the only time in the series

michael's face is revealed for a split

second on camera

for that one shot we brought in an actor

imported

you know a guy who hadn't been part of

it uh and did the reveal

to uh as i remember he was sort of a

blonde um

you know nondescript sort of face uh

almost

uh sort of the other side of the captain

kirk mask was

you know a nondescript face but this kid

had

had a youngish looking face okay

and i don't even remember who he is now

but

what he had to do was take the mask off

and react i think he'd been

stabbed or something in the face and

people read into that

his face much more horror than is there

it really

isn't much to it it's just a kid

[Music]

the film's lack of blood was offset by

one of its most distinguishing features

carpenter's brilliantly menacing score

i had to do the music to halloween in

about

three days i had to do the whole score

so i could go in and perform it and get

out

my dad had taught me

uh 5'4 time on on a set of bongos when i

was young

so just to teach me some rhythms they're

not four or four time it's off one

and so i decided just to do that as an

octave on a piano

i've never seen a movie completely

transform i learned a great lesson about

the power of music and sound effects

and sound on that picture i know it's

true of every picture but in this film

it made a quantum leap there's no way to

describe the difference between

in fact if you want to explain it to

yourself try watching the movie one time

with the sound off

and later on by the way when i watched

this picture with audiences

and we watched it i watched it many many

times i used to see

young people at the most horrific times

in the film

watch the screen but

clamp their hands over the ears and i

never understood that i asked my son

about that one day he said that's

what we always said because the sound is

too scary when the film was finished

no one expected what happened next the

first

theatrical engagement of halloween was

in kansas city

in four theaters and

we had a very modest campaign i remember

getting the first phone call on friday

night about midnight

and finding out that we've done 200 of

theater

and i went to bed that night thinking

well it'll get distributed we'll do all

right

the next night we'd gone to 800 theater

the following night we gone to sixteen

hundred dollars theater

and by the end of the week we're doing

1500 to 2000

theater i've never seen word of mouth

spread like it did in kansas city it was

the most exhilarating experience

everybody was surprised by its success

and it didn't succeed right away it was

something that

built over you know three or four months

um

and even then it wasn't it wasn't like i

walked down the street and people were

going hey

lori strode all right i mean again 1978

you know it just it certainly did very

very well

and and it made you know a lot of other

people a lot of money

um uh and for me it gave me a movie

career

most pictures you know they open and

they go down

and this picture was just the opposite

it opened and went up

there were two exhibitors in boston that

i used to sell pictures to and i they

had made me some money on halloween they

called me up and they asked me

erwin how did you make the picture how

much did it cost how do you do it what

do you do

the next thing i know they hired a they

heard a young filmmaker

and they took the picture and

practically shot it frame for frame

another man came along and hired jamie

lee curtis and made a picture called

terra train

which just about duplicated halloween on

a train

and so it went finally i i turned to my

partners and i said you know this is

nuts

we've got to make another halloween the

first time i saw the film with an

audience it was uh i think it's called

the egyptian theaters in hollywood the

kind of seedy part of hollywood

hollywood and vine wasn't fixed up then

and i had i was with dennis and

sitting in like third or fourth row and

just wanted to see it with a regular

kind of audience

and there was this really big guy

sitting behind me

and when that scene came up where i say

see anything you like like this the guy

behind me goes

hot damn you bet your ass i do

one person i'll forget in boston we

screened the film one time

and it was a it was a large audience and

by the by the by the fourth resurrection

somebody yelled out you dumb [�__�] you

deserve to die

i think the simplicity of the story and

the way it was told

is what made the movie really unique how

many 20 year old pictures do you have

that keep their popularity halloween is

the gone with the wind of the horror

movies

the last shot of the film looking down

at the great the empty grass there

and then a little montage of all the

places we've been

evil never dies you can't kill it

he has no uh morality you don't know

where it's coming from it's just so it's

just uh

it's it's it's your deepest darkest fear

sadly michael myers passed away this

week the real michael myers

he was the distributor in london who had

distributed assault on precinct 13. he

was very sweet endearing

he was confused he said what do you see

about my personality

why did you why did you do this but i

told him that it was a tribute

because he basically started my career

he may be the only mass murderer who's

on a first name basis with movie

audiences around the world

i couldn't believe the the the fans that

are

really so addicted to these

halloweens they know so much about it

more than i do as far as details and the

family relationship in the story and the

the cast and the costumes and they want

to know who is playing michael myers the

one

next i get letters from people that

still

that that what they say is mr castle we

love your work we love your

uh direction on the last starfighter boy

major pain was really funny can you sign

this picture of the shape please i get

at least four or five letters a week

and carrie halloween

stripes rock and roll high school but

they always talk about

halloween i wear my halloween

pin with great pride you know i i

tried very hard through 22 now years of

making movies

to always hold up halloween and say you

know hey it was best experience i ever

had it was by far

up until true lies the best part i ever

had

um you know i tried to point out the

irony

that in those exploitation movies i was

intelligent

forthright fought back against adversity

um and was the lead in those movies for

that role

halloween redefined the horror film and

opened the doors for two decades worth

of imitators

but none have had the impact or the

nail-biting effectiveness of michael

myers

because real terror stands the test of

time you know in every script they want

to

kill him they want to destroy him i tell

them

wait a minute michael myers i love this

guy

because i was on some tour for something

and they showed it to a bunch of college

kids

i've never heard anything like it the

place was going

nuts it was ate [�__�] and i'm outside the

door

thinking this is fantastic how great

uh it was made it all worthwhile that

was what they were supposed to do

scream there scream your lungs out

[Music]

you