.gif)
Halloween (1978 film)
Encyclopedia
Halloween is a 1978 American independent
horror film
directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter
, co-written with Debra Hill
, and starring Donald Pleasence
and Jamie Lee Curtis
in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise
. The film is set in the fictional midwestern
town of Haddonfield, Illinois. On Halloween
1963, six year old Michael Myers
murders his older sister by stabbing her with a kitchen knife. Fifteen years later, he escapes from a psychiatric hospital
, returns home, and stalks teenager Laurie Strode
and her friends. Michael's psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis
suspects Michael's intentions, and follows him to Haddonfield to try to prevent him from killing.
Halloween was produced on a budget of $325,000 and grossed $47 million at the box office in the United States, and $60 million worldwide, equivalent to over $203 million as of 2010, becoming one of the most profitable independent films. Many critics credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher film
s inspired by Alfred Hitchcock
's Psycho
(1960). Halloween had many imitators and originated several clichés found in low-budget horror films of the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike many of its imitators, Halloween contains little graphic violence and gore. In 2006, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Some critics have suggested that Halloween may encourage sadism
and misogyny
by identifying audiences with its villain. Other critics have suggested the film is a social critique of the immorality of youth
and teenagers in 1970s America, with many of Myers's victims being sexually promiscuous substance abusers, while the lone heroine is depicted as chaste and innocent hence her survival (the lone survivor is seen smoking marijuana in one scene). Carpenter dismisses such analyses. Several of Halloweens techniques and plot elements, although not founded in this film, have nonetheless become a standard slasher movie trope.
(Will Sandin) murders his fifteen-year old sister Judith (Sandy Johnson
) in their home in Haddonfield, Illinois. Following the murder, Michael is sent to Smith's Grove Sanitarium where he is placed under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasance). Michael enters a state of catatonia
and remains that way for fifteen years. Loomis arrives at the sanitarium on October 30, 1978 to bring Michael to a court hearing, but Michael escapes, stealing Loomis's car and makes his way back to Haddonfield. Loomis follows him there, attempting to prevent Michael from murdering again.
The following day—Halloween—Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis
) continually sees Michael, now wearing a blue jump suit and white mask at various locations: first at her school, and then on the street. Laurie's friends, Annie Brackett (Nancy Kyes
) and Lynda Van Der Klok (P.J. Soles), dismiss Laurie's concerns. Meanwhile, Annie's father, Sheriff Lee Brackett (Charles Cyphers
) is approached by Loomis, and the two quietly look for Michael.
That night, Laurie babysits Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews
) while Annie babysits Lindsay (Kyle Richards
) across the street from the Doyle house. Michael methodically stalks Annie, killing Lindsay's dog. When Annie gets a call from her boyfriend Paul to pick him up, she takes Lindsay to the Doyle house. Annie gets in her car to pick up Paul but she is strangled by Michael, who also slits her throat. Tommy spots Michael carrying Annie's body back into the house, but his claims of a "Boogieman" are dismissed by Laurie and Lindsay as attempts to scare them. Later, Linda and her boyfriend Bob enter the house unaware that Michael is inside. Michael impales Bob with a kitchen knife, then strangles Linda with a telephone cord as she talks on the phone with Laurie. The disturbing disruption to the phone call concerns Laurie even further.
Feeling unsettled, Laurie enters the Wallace house after the murders, is attacked by Michael and flees back to the Doyle house. Laurie instructs the children to hide and makes her way to an upstairs bedroom. Michael finds her, but she is saved by Dr. Loomis. Loomis shoots Michael and he falls from the second-story window onto the lawn below. However, when Loomis looks over the balcony, Michael's body is missing.
(1976) at the Milan
Film Festival, independent film producer Irwin Yablans
and financier
Moustapha Akkad
sought out Carpenter to direct a film for them about a psychotic killer that stalked babysitters. In an interview with Fangoria
magazine, Yablans stated, "I was thinking what would make sense in the horror genre, and what I wanted to do was make a picture that had the same impact as The Exorcist
." Carpenter and his then-girlfriend Debra Hill
began drafting a story originally titled The Babysitter Murders, but, as Carpenter told Entertainment Weekly
, Yablans suggested setting the movie on Halloween night and naming it Halloween instead.
Akkad fronted the $320,000 for the film's budget, considered low at the time (Carpenter's previous film, Assault on Precinct 13, had an estimated budget of $100,000). Akkad worried over the tight, four-week schedule, low budget, and Carpenter's limited experience as a filmmaker, but told Fangoria, "Two things made me decide. One, Carpenter told me the story verbally and in a suspenseful way, almost frame for frame. Second, he told me he didn't want to take any fees, and that showed he had confidence in the project". Carpenter received $10,000 for directing, writing, and composing the music, retaining rights to 10 percent of the film's profits.
Because of the low budget, wardrobe and props were often crafted from items on hand or that could be purchased inexpensively. Carpenter hired Tommy Lee Wallace
as production designer
, art director, location scout
and co-editor. Wallace created the trademark mask worn by Michael Myers throughout the film from a Captain Kirk
mask purchased for $1.98. Carpenter recalled how Wallace "widened the eye holes and spray-painted the flesh a bluish white. In the script it said Michael Myers's mask had 'the pale features of a human face' and it truly was spooky looking. It didn't look anything like William Shatner
after Tommy got through with it." Hill adds that the "idea was to make him almost humorless, faceless — this sort of pale visage that could resemble a human or not." Many of the actors wore their own clothes, and Curtis' wardrobe was purchased at J. C. Penney
for around a hundred dollars.
The limited budget also dictated the filming location and time schedule. Halloween was filmed in 21 days in the spring of 1978 in South Pasadena, California and Sierra Madre, California (cemetery). An abandoned house owned by a church stood in as the Myers house. Two homes on Orange Grove Avenue (near Sunset Boulevard) in Hollywood were used for the film's climax. The crew had difficulty finding pumpkins in the spring, and artificial fall leaves had to be reused for multiple scenes. Local families dressed their children in Halloween costumes for trick-or-treat scenes.
In August 2006, Fangoria reported that Synapse Films
had discovered boxes of negatives containing footage cut from the film. One was labeled "1981" suggesting that it was additional footage for the television version of the film. Synapse owner Don May, Jr. said, "What we've got is pretty much all the unused original camera negative from Carpenter's original Halloween. Luckily, Billy [Kirkus] was able to find this material before it was destroyed. The story on how we got the negative is a long one, but we'll save it for when we're able to showcase the materials in some way. Kirkus should be commended for pretty much saving the Holy Grail of horror films." It was later reported, "We just learned from Sean Clark, long time Halloween genius, that the footage found is just that: footage. There is no sound in any of the reels so far, since none of it was used in the final edit."
traditions of Halloween such as the festival of Samhain
. Although Samhain is not mentioned in the plot of the first film, Hill asserts that:
Hill wrote most of the female characters' dialogue, while Carpenter drafted Loomis' speeches on the evilness of Michael Myers. Many script details were drawn from Carpenter's and Hill's adolescence and early careers. The fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois was derived from Haddonfield, New Jersey, where Hill grew up, and most of the street names were taken from Carpenter's hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Laurie Strode was the name of one of Carpenter's old girlfriends and Michael Myers was the name of an English producer who had previously entered, with Yablans, Assault on Precinct 13 in various European film festivals. In Halloween, Carpenter pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock with two characters' names; Tommy Doyle is named after Lt. Det. Thomas J. Doyle (Wendell Corey
) of Rear Window
(1954), and Dr. Loomis' name was taken from Sam Loomis (John Gavin
) of Psycho, the boyfriend of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh
, who is the real-life mother of Jamie Lee Curtis). Sheriff Leigh Brackett shared the name of a film screenwriter.
The cast of Halloween included veteran actor Donald Pleasence
and then-unknown actress Jamie Lee Curtis
. The low budget limited the number of big names that Carpenter could attract, and most of the actors received very little compensation for their roles. Pleasence was paid the highest amount at $20,000, Curtis received $8,000, and Nick Castle earned $25 a day. The role of Dr. Sam Loomis was offered to Peter Cushing
and Christopher Lee
; both declined the part due to the low pay (though Lee would later tell Carpenter that declining the role was his biggest career mistake). English actor Pleasence — Carpenter's third choice — agreed to star. Pleasence has been called "John Carpenter's big landing." Americans were already acquainted with Pleasence as the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld
in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice
(1967).
In an interview, Carpenter admits that "Jamie Lee wasn't the first choice for Laurie. I had no idea who she was. She was 19 and in a TV show at the time, but I didn't watch TV." He originally wanted to cast Anne Lockhart, the daughter of June Lockhart
from Lassie
, as Laurie Strode. However, Lockhart had commitments to several other film and television projects. Hill says of learning that Jamie Lee was the daughter of Psycho actress Janet Leigh, "I knew casting Jamie Lee would be great publicity for the film because her mother was in Psycho." Halloween was Curtis' feature film debut and launched her career as a "scream queen
" horror star. Another relatively unknown actress, Nancy Kyes
(credited in the film as Nancy Loomis) was cast as Laurie's friend Annie Brackett, daughter of Haddonfield sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers
). Kyes had previously starred in Assault on Precinct 13 (as had Cyphers) and happened to be dating Halloweens art director Tommy Lee Wallace when filming began. Carpenter chose P. J. Soles to play Lynda Van Der Klok, another friend of Laurie's, best remembered in the film for dialogue peppered with the word "totally." Soles was an actress known for her supporting role in Carrie (1976) and her minor part in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
(1976). According to one source, "Carpenter realized she had captured the aura of a happy go lucky teenage girl in the 70s."
The role of "The Shape" — as the masked Michael Myers character was billed in the end credits — was played by Nick Castle, who befriended Carpenter while they attended the University of Southern California
. After Halloween, Castle became a director, taking the helm of films such as The Last Starfighter
(1984), The Boy Who Could Fly
(1986), Dennis the Menace
(1993) and Major Payne
(1995).
remarks, "It's easy to create violence on the screen, but it's hard to do it well. Carpenter is uncannily skilled, for example, at the use of foregrounds in his compositions, and everyone who likes thrillers knows that foregrounds are crucial ...."
The opening title, featuring a jack-o'-lantern
placed against a black backdrop, sets the mood for the entire movie. The camera slowly moves toward the jack-o'-lantern's left eye as the main title theme plays. After the camera fully closes in, the jack-o'-lantern's light dims and goes out. Film historian J.P. Telotte says that this scene "clearly announces that [the film's] primary concern will be with the way in which we see ourselves and others and the consequences that often attend our usual manner of perception". During the conception of the plot, Yablans instructed "that the audience shouldn't see anything. It should be what they thought they saw that frightens them". Carpenter seemingly took Yablans' advice literally, filming many of the scenes from Michael Myers's point-of-view that allowed audience participation. Carpenter is not the first director to employ this method or use of a steadicam
; for instance, the first scene of Psycho offers a voyeuristic look at lovers in a seedy hotel. Telotte argues, "As a result of this shift in perspective from a disembodied, narrative camera to an actual character's eye ... we are forced into a deeper sense of participation in the ensuing action". Along with the 1974 Canadian horror film Black Christmas
, Halloween made use of seeing events through the killer's eyes.
The first scene of the young Michael's voyeurism is followed by the murder of Judith Myers seen through the eye holes of Michael's clown costume mask. According to one commentator, Carpenter's "frequent use of the unmounted first-person camera to represent the killer's point of view ... invited [viewers] to adopt the murderer's assaultive gaze and to hear his heavy breathing and plodding footsteps as he stalked his prey". Another technique that Carpenter adapted from Alfred Hitchcock
's Psycho
(1960) was suspense with minimal blood and gore. Hill comments, "We didn't want it to be gory. We wanted it to be like a jack-in-the box." Film analysts refer to this as the "false startle" or "the old tap-on-the-shoulder routine" in which the stalkers, murderers, or monsters "lunge into our field of vision or creep up on a person." Carpenter worked with the cast to create the desired effect of terror and suspense. According to Curtis, Carpenter created a "fear meter" because the film was shot out-of-sequence and she was not sure what her character's level of terror should be in certain scenes. "Here's about a 7, here's about a 6, and the scene we're going to shoot tonight is about a 9½", remembered Curtis. She had different facial expressions and scream volumes for each level on the meter.
Carpenter's direction for Nick Castle in his role as Myers was minimal. For example, when Castle asked what Myers' motivation was for a particular scene, Carpenter replied that his motivation was to walk from one set marker to another. The documentary titled Halloween Un-masked, featured in the 22nd anniversary DVD of Halloween, John Carpenter states he also instructed Castle to tilt his head a couple of times as if he was observing the corpse, particularly in the scene when Myers impaled one of his victims against a wall. It was also said that the lighting of that scene (as well as all the scenes shot inside a house) was all inspired from the lighting from the movie Chinatown (1974).
or "complex 5/4" meter
composed by director John Carpenter. Critic James Berardinelli
calls the score "relatively simple and unsophisticated", but admits that "Halloweens music is one of its strongest assets". Carpenter stated in an interview, "I can play just about any keyboard, but I can't read or write a note." In the end credits, Carpenter bills himself as the "Bowling Green Philharmonic Orchestra" for performing the film's score, but he did receive assistance from composer Dan Wyman, a music professor at San José State University
.
Some songs can be heard in the film, one being an untitled song performed by Carpenter and a group of his friends who formed a band called The Coupe DeVilles. The song is heard as Laurie steps into Annie's car on her way to babysit Tommy Doyle. Another song, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper
" by classic rock band Blue Öyster Cult
, appears in the film.
The soundtrack was first released in the United States in October 1983, by Varese Sarabande. It was subsequently released on compact disc in 1985, re-released in 1990, and again in 2000.
The film grossed $47.3 million in the United States and an additional $13 million internationally, making the theatrical total around $60 million. While most of the film's success came from American movie-goers, Halloween premiered in several international locations after 1979 with moderate results. The film was shown mostly in the Europe
an countries of France
, the United Kingdom
, West Germany
, Italy
, Sweden
, Ireland
, the Netherlands
, Norway
, Portugal
, Yugoslavia
, and Iceland
. Admissions in West Germany totaled around 750,000 and 118,606 in Sweden, earning SEK
2,298,579 there. The film was also shown at theaters in Canada
, Australia
, Japan
, Mexico
, Singapore
, Peru
, the Philippines
, Argentina
and Chile
. Halloween grossed A$
900,000 in Australia, which was a large and impressive amount of money for a film to gross at the box office in Australia at the time, and HKD 450,139 in Hong Kong
.
were sold to NBC
for $4 million. After a debate among Carpenter, Hill and NBC's Standards & Practices
over censoring of certain scenes, Halloween
appeared on television for the first time in October 1981. To fill the two-hour time slot, Carpenter filmed twelve minutes of additional material during the production of Halloween II
. The newly filmed scenes include Dr. Loomis at a hospital board review of Michael Myers
and Dr. Loomis talking to a then 6-year-old Michael at Smith's Grove, telling him, "You've fooled them, haven't you Michael? But not me." Another extra scene features Dr. Loomis at Smith's Grove examining Michael's abandoned cell after his escape and seeing the word "Sister" scratched into the door. Finally, a scene was added in which Linda comes over to Laurie's house to borrow a silk blouse before Laurie leaves to babysit, just as Annie telephones asking to borrow the same blouse. The new scene had Laurie's hair hidden by a towel, since Curtis was by then wearing a much shorter hairstyle than she had worn in 1978.
and Blu-ray HD format. In its first year of release on VHS, the film earned $18.5 million in the United States from rentals. Early VHS versions were released by Media Home Entertainment
and Blockbuster Video issued a commemorative edition in 1995. Anchor Bay Entertainment has released several restored
editions of Halloween on VHS and DVD, with the most recent being the 2007 single-disc restored version, with improved picture and sound quality.
In 2007, the movie was released on Blu-ray
as well, marking the film's first ever Blu-ray release. The Blu-ray features a commentary track by Carpenter, Hill and Curtis and the documentary Halloween: A Cut Above the Rest.
wrote a scathing review in The New Yorker
suggesting that "Carpenter doesn't seem to have had any life outside the movies: one can trace almost every idea on the screen to directors such as Hitchcock and Brian De Palma
and to the Val Lewton
productions" and claiming that "Maybe when a horror film is stripped of everything but dumb scariness — when it isn't ashamed to revive the stalest device of the genre (the escaped lunatic) — it satisfies part of the audience in a more basic, childish way than sophisticated horror pictures do." The first glowing review by a prominent film critic came from Tom Allen of The Village Voice
in November 1978, Allen noted that the film was sociologically irrelevant but applauded Carpenter's camera work as "duplicitous hype" and "the most honest way to make a good schlock film". Allen pointed out the stylistic similarities to Psycho and George A. Romero
's Night of the Living Dead
(1968). The following month, Voice lead critic Andrew Sarris
wrote a follow-up feature on cult films, citing Allen's appraisal of Halloween and saying in the lead sentence that the film "bids fair to become the cult discovery of 1978. Audiences have been heard screaming at its horrifying climaxes". Renowned American critic Roger Ebert gave the film similar praise in his 1979 review in the Chicago Sun-Times
, and selected it as one of his top ten films of 1978. Once-dismissive critics were impressed by Carpenter's choice of camera angles and simple music, and surprised by the lack of blood, gore, and graphic violence. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes
reports 93% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based on 42 reviews, with a rating of 8.4 out of 10.
Many compared the film with the work of Alfred Hitchcock, although TV Guide
calls comparisons made to Psycho "silly and groundless" and critics in the late 1980s and early 1990s blame the film for spawning the slasher sub genre, which they felt had rapidly descended into sadism and misogyny. Almost a decade after its premiere, Mick Martin and Marsha Porter critiqued the first-person camera shots that earlier film reviewers had praised and later slasher-film directors utilized for their own films (for example, Friday the 13th (1980)). Claiming it encouraged audience identification with the killer, Martin and Porter pointed to the way "the camera moves in on the screaming, pleading, victim, 'looks down' at the knife, and then plunges it into chest, ear, or eyeball. Now that's sick."
More than 30 years after its debut, Halloween enjoys a reputation as a classic and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1978.
academia. Some feminist critics, according to historian Nicholas Rogers, "have seen the slasher movies since Halloween as debasing women in as decisive a manner as hard-core pornography." Critics such as John Kenneth Muir point out that female characters such as Laurie Strode survive not because of "any good planning" or their own resourcefulness, but sheer luck. Although she manages to repel the killer several times, in the end, Strode is rescued in Halloween and Halloween II only when Dr. Loomis arrives to shoot Myers.
On the other hand, other feminist scholars such as Carol J. Clover
argue that despite the violence against women, slasher films turned women into heroines. In many pre-Halloween horror films, women are depicted as helpless victims and are not safe until they are rescued by a strong masculine hero. Despite the fact that Loomis saves Strode, Clover asserts that Halloween initiates the role of the "final girl
" who ultimately triumphs in the end. Strode herself fought back against Myers and severely wounds him. Had Myers been a normal man, Strode's attacks would have killed him; even Loomis, the male hero of the story, who shoots Michael repeatedly at near point blank range with a large caliber handgun, cannot kill him.
Other critics have seen a deeper social critique present in Halloween and subsequent slasher films. According to Vera Dika, the films of the 1980s spoke to the conservative
family values advocates of Reagan
America. Tony Williams says Myers and other slashers were "patriarchal avengers" who "slaughtered the youthful children of the 1960s generation
, especially when they engaged in illicit activities involving sex and drugs." Other critics tend to downplay this interpretation, arguing that the portrayal of Myers as a demonic, superhuman monster inhibited his influence among conservatives. Still others have read deeper into the social significance of this and other slasher films as critiquing the supposed safety recently found by middle class
individuals in the 1950s suburb
.W. Scott Poole. Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting (Waco, Texas: Baylor, 2011). ISBN 978-1-60258-314-6
Carpenter himself dismisses the notion that Halloween is a morality play
, regarding it as merely a horror movie. According to Carpenter, critics "completely missed the point there." He explains, "The one girl who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing this guy with a long knife. She's the most sexually frustrated. She's the one that's killed him. Not because she's a virgin but because all that sexually repressed energy starts coming out. She uses all those phallic symbols on the guy."
The usage of Michael Myers' white mask also poses analytical thought on several levels. For one, the mask (actually a debased William Shatner mask) is used as a concealing agent for Michael that helps keep his identity and mystery alive and fearful to others. Furthermore, the white blank austerity of the mask helps personify Michael as an emotionless, sociopathic killer who is incapable of feeling remorse for his actions, and therefore, does not exhibit such on his face. In a way, the lifelessness of the mask (it being a mere object that is devoid of human qualities) mirrors Michael's personality, in that, he too is blank, emotionless and ultimately cold to life or death. Also, the white mask characterizes Michael as a universal character, with anyone's face being transplantable onto it. The mask is merely an open canvas that Carpenter uses to invite viewers to paint their own killer on to make Michael's character more personal, and scarier, to each viewer.
by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1979, but lost to The Wicker Man (1973). In 2001, Halloween ranked #68 on the American Film Institute
TV program 100 Years...100 Thrills
. The film was #14 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004). Similarly, the Chicago Film Critics Association
named it the 3rd scariest film ever made. In 2006, Halloween was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2007, the AOL
31 Days of Horror countdown named Halloween the greatest horror movie. In 2008, the film was selected by Empire magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. In 2010, Total Film
selected the film as one of The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.
American Film Institute
Lists
(1974), directed by Bob Clark
, preceded the stylistic techniques and several plot elements that were made famous in Halloween, the latter is generally credited by film historians, genre fans and critics for initiating the slasher film craze of the 1980s. Halloween made significant use of first-person camera perspectives, unexceptional settings, and female heroines, all of which now define the slasher film genre. These heroines were almost always depicted as being the only chaste, innocent and virginal character in the films onslaught of victims, while the others are depicted as being sexually promiscuous substance abusers.
Tobe Hooper
's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(1974) is sometimes given the distinction of also starting the slasher craze and preceding Halloween in originating the stylistic techniques as well as the usual plot devices. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, released five years prior to Halloween, has several things in common with the film: a group of free-spirited teenagers falling into the clutches of a sadistic, weapon-wielding masked villain
(Leatherface
) with a lone heroine. The film has also gone onto significantly influence the horror genre, much like Halloween.
Several subsequent films with similar stylistic elements and themes became popular with audiences, including Friday the 13th, beginning in 1980, and later, A Nightmare on Elm Street
(1984-onwards). Countless other slasher films owe some of their success and inspiration to Halloween. The survival of the chaste
and temperate
character became a common device in subsequent slasher films. The 1981 horror movie spoof Student Bodies
parodied this plot device; characters are slain when about to engage in sex. Director Wes Craven
's Scream
(1996) details the "rules" for surviving a horror movie, even using Halloween as the primary example: no sex
, no alcohol
or illicit drugs, and never say "I'll be right back".
by Curtis Richards, titled Halloween
, was published by Bantam Books
in 1979. It was reissued in 1982; it later went out of print. The novel elaborates on aspects not featured in the film such as the origins of the curse of Samhain and Michael Myers's life in Smith's Grove Sanitarium. For example, the opening reads:
In 1983, Halloween was adapted as a video game for the Atari 2600
by Wizard Video
. None of the main characters in the game were named. Players take on the role of a teenage babysitter who tries to save as many children from an unnamed, knife-wielding killer as possible. The game was not popular with parents or players and the graphics were simple, as was typical in Atari 2600 games. In another effort to save money, most versions of the game did not even have a label on the cartridge. It was simply a piece of tape with "Halloween" written in marker. The game contained more gore than the film, however. When the babysitter is killed, her head disappears and is replaced by blood pulsating from the neck. The game's primary similarity to the film is the theme music that plays when the killer appears onscreen.
s, a 2007 remake
of the same name
and directed by Rob Zombie
— and a 2009 sequel to the remake, Halloween II
, which is unrelated to the sequel of the original. Of these films, only Halloween II (1981) was written by Carpenter and Hill. Halloween II
begins exactly where Halloween ends and was intended to finish the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. Halloween II was hugely successful, becoming the highest grossing horror film of 1981. Carpenter did not direct any of the subsequent films in the Halloween series, although he did produce Halloween III: Season of the Witch
(1982), the plot of which is unrelated to the other films in the series. He also composed the music for the second and third films, along with Alan Howarth.
The sequels feature more explicit violence and gore, and are generally dismissed by mainstream film critics. They were filmed on larger budgets than the original: In contrast to Halloween' s modest budget of $320,000, Halloween IIs budget was around $2.5 million, while the final sequel to the original, Halloween: Resurrection
(2002), boasted a budget of $15 million. Financier Moustapha Akkad continued to work closely with the Halloween franchise, acting as executive producer of every sequel until his death in the 2005 Amman bombings
.
With the exception of Halloween III, the sequels further develop the character of Michael Myers and the Samhain theme. Even without considering the third film, the Halloween series contains continuity
issues, which some sources attribute to the different writers and directors involved in each film. The 10 Halloween films, including the 2007 remake and its sequel, have had eight directors. Only Rick Rosenthal
and Rob Zombie
directed more than one Halloween film: Rosenthal directed Halloween II
and Halloween: Resurrection
, while Zombie directed the remake
and its sequel
.
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
, co-written with Debra Hill
Debra Hill
Debra Hill was an American screenwriter and film producer, who co-wrote the horror film Halloween, its first sequel Halloween II, and The Fog.-Early life:...
, and starring Donald Pleasence
Donald Pleasence
Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...
and Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis is an American actress and author. Although she was initially known as a "scream queen" because of her starring roles in several horror films early in her career, such as Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train, Curtis has since compiled a body of work that spans many...
in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise
Halloween (franchise)
Halloween is an American horror franchise that consists of ten slasher films, novels, and comic books. The franchise focuses on the fictional character of Michael Myers who was committed to a sanitarium as a child for the murder of his older sister, Judith Myers...
. The film is set in the fictional midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
town of Haddonfield, Illinois. On Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
1963, six year old Michael Myers
Michael Myers (Halloween)
Michael Myers is a fictional character from the Halloween series of slasher films. He first appears in John Carpenter's Halloween as a young boy who murders his older sister, then fifteen years later returns home to murder more teenagers...
murders his older sister by stabbing her with a kitchen knife. Fifteen years later, he escapes from a psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
, returns home, and stalks teenager Laurie Strode
Laurie Strode
Laurie Strode is a fictional character in the Halloween horror film series, portrayed by actresses Jamie Lee Curtis and Scout Taylor-Compton. She appears in six of the present ten Halloween installments, first appearing in John Carpenter's original 1978 film...
and her friends. Michael's psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis
Samuel Loomis
Samuel Loomis was a Connecticut furniture maker and the most celebrated maker of Colchester/Norwich style furniture.-External links:* ]]* ]]...
suspects Michael's intentions, and follows him to Haddonfield to try to prevent him from killing.
Halloween was produced on a budget of $325,000 and grossed $47 million at the box office in the United States, and $60 million worldwide, equivalent to over $203 million as of 2010, becoming one of the most profitable independent films. Many critics credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher film
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
s inspired by Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
(1960). Halloween had many imitators and originated several clichés found in low-budget horror films of the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike many of its imitators, Halloween contains little graphic violence and gore. In 2006, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Some critics have suggested that Halloween may encourage sadism
Sadism and masochism as medical terms
In psychiatry, the terms sadism and masochism describe a personality type characterized by the actor or actrix deriving pleasure and gratification from inflicting physical pain and humiliation ; and from suffering pain and humiliation upon the self ; such pleasure often is sexual, but not...
and misogyny
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
by identifying audiences with its villain. Other critics have suggested the film is a social critique of the immorality of youth
Youth
Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood . Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.-Usage:Around the world, the terms "youth",...
and teenagers in 1970s America, with many of Myers's victims being sexually promiscuous substance abusers, while the lone heroine is depicted as chaste and innocent hence her survival (the lone survivor is seen smoking marijuana in one scene). Carpenter dismisses such analyses. Several of Halloweens techniques and plot elements, although not founded in this film, have nonetheless become a standard slasher movie trope.
Plot
On October 31, 1963, 6-year old Michael MyersMichael Myers (Halloween)
Michael Myers is a fictional character from the Halloween series of slasher films. He first appears in John Carpenter's Halloween as a young boy who murders his older sister, then fifteen years later returns home to murder more teenagers...
(Will Sandin) murders his fifteen-year old sister Judith (Sandy Johnson
Sandy Johnson
Sandy Johnson is an American model and actress. She was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for the June 1974 issue. Her centerfold was photographed by Mario Casilli....
) in their home in Haddonfield, Illinois. Following the murder, Michael is sent to Smith's Grove Sanitarium where he is placed under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasance). Michael enters a state of catatonia
Catatonia
Catatonia is a state of neurogenic motor immobility, and behavioral abnormality manifested by stupor. It was first described in 1874: Die Katatonie oder das Spannungsirresein ....
and remains that way for fifteen years. Loomis arrives at the sanitarium on October 30, 1978 to bring Michael to a court hearing, but Michael escapes, stealing Loomis's car and makes his way back to Haddonfield. Loomis follows him there, attempting to prevent Michael from murdering again.
The following day—Halloween—Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis is an American actress and author. Although she was initially known as a "scream queen" because of her starring roles in several horror films early in her career, such as Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train, Curtis has since compiled a body of work that spans many...
) continually sees Michael, now wearing a blue jump suit and white mask at various locations: first at her school, and then on the street. Laurie's friends, Annie Brackett (Nancy Kyes
Nancy Kyes
Nancy Louise Kyes is an American film and television actress. In most of her film appearances, she is credited under her stage name Nancy Loomis. She is known for her role as the teenage babysitter, Annie Brackett, in John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic slasher film Halloween.-Early life:Kyes was...
) and Lynda Van Der Klok (P.J. Soles), dismiss Laurie's concerns. Meanwhile, Annie's father, Sheriff Lee Brackett (Charles Cyphers
Charles Cyphers
Charles Cyphers is an American actor who has starred in many films and on television. He is known in the horror movie community for his work in the films of John Carpenter, especially his role as Sheriff Leigh Brackett in Carpenter's 1978 hit horror movie Halloween. He reprised this role in the...
) is approached by Loomis, and the two quietly look for Michael.
That night, Laurie babysits Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews
Brian Andrews (actor)
Brian Andrews is an American actor who has starred in movies and on television. He is best known for his role as Tommy Doyle in the classic John Carpenter horror movie Halloween, and reprised this role in Halloween II in a small appearance...
) while Annie babysits Lindsay (Kyle Richards
Kyle Richards
Kyle Egan Richards is an American actress and television personality. She is known for returning to television with her sister, Kim Richards, on Bravo's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.-Early life:...
) across the street from the Doyle house. Michael methodically stalks Annie, killing Lindsay's dog. When Annie gets a call from her boyfriend Paul to pick him up, she takes Lindsay to the Doyle house. Annie gets in her car to pick up Paul but she is strangled by Michael, who also slits her throat. Tommy spots Michael carrying Annie's body back into the house, but his claims of a "Boogieman" are dismissed by Laurie and Lindsay as attempts to scare them. Later, Linda and her boyfriend Bob enter the house unaware that Michael is inside. Michael impales Bob with a kitchen knife, then strangles Linda with a telephone cord as she talks on the phone with Laurie. The disturbing disruption to the phone call concerns Laurie even further.
Feeling unsettled, Laurie enters the Wallace house after the murders, is attacked by Michael and flees back to the Doyle house. Laurie instructs the children to hide and makes her way to an upstairs bedroom. Michael finds her, but she is saved by Dr. Loomis. Loomis shoots Michael and he falls from the second-story window onto the lawn below. However, when Loomis looks over the balcony, Michael's body is missing.
Production
After viewing Carpenter's film Assault on Precinct 13Assault on Precinct 13 (1976 film)
Assault on Precinct 13 is a 1976 American action-thriller film written and directed by John Carpenter. It stars Austin Stoker as a police officer who defends a defunct precinct against an attack by a relentless criminal gang, along with Darwin Joston as a convicted murderer who helps him. Laurie...
(1976) at the Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
Film Festival, independent film producer Irwin Yablans
Irwin Yablans
Irwin Yablans is an American independent film producer and distributor known for his work in the horror film industry.-Biography:...
and financier
Film finance
Film finance is an aspect of film production that occurs during the development stage prior to pre-production, and is concerned with determining the potential value of a proposed film...
Moustapha Akkad
Moustapha Akkad
Moustapha Akkad was a Syrian American film producer and director, best known for producing the series of Halloween films and directing Mohammad, Messenger of God and Lion of the Desert. He was killed along with his daughter Rima Akkad Monla in 2005 in Amman, Jordan by a suicide bomber.-Early life...
sought out Carpenter to direct a film for them about a psychotic killer that stalked babysitters. In an interview with Fangoria
Fangoria (magazine)
Fangoria is an internationally-distributed US film fan magazine specializing in the genres of horror, slasher, splatter and exploitation films, in regular publication since 1979.-Planning:...
magazine, Yablans stated, "I was thinking what would make sense in the horror genre, and what I wanted to do was make a picture that had the same impact as The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
." Carpenter and his then-girlfriend Debra Hill
Debra Hill
Debra Hill was an American screenwriter and film producer, who co-wrote the horror film Halloween, its first sequel Halloween II, and The Fog.-Early life:...
began drafting a story originally titled The Babysitter Murders, but, as Carpenter told Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
, Yablans suggested setting the movie on Halloween night and naming it Halloween instead.
Akkad fronted the $320,000 for the film's budget, considered low at the time (Carpenter's previous film, Assault on Precinct 13, had an estimated budget of $100,000). Akkad worried over the tight, four-week schedule, low budget, and Carpenter's limited experience as a filmmaker, but told Fangoria, "Two things made me decide. One, Carpenter told me the story verbally and in a suspenseful way, almost frame for frame. Second, he told me he didn't want to take any fees, and that showed he had confidence in the project". Carpenter received $10,000 for directing, writing, and composing the music, retaining rights to 10 percent of the film's profits.
Because of the low budget, wardrobe and props were often crafted from items on hand or that could be purchased inexpensively. Carpenter hired Tommy Lee Wallace
Tommy Lee Wallace
Tommy Lee Wallace is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.He is best known for directing Halloween III: Season of the Witch and It.-Early life:...
as production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
, art director, location scout
Location scouting
Location scouting is a vital process in the pre-production stage of filmmaking and commercial photography. Once scriptwriters, producers or directors have decided what general kind of scenery they require for the various parts of their work that is shot outside of the studio, the search for a...
and co-editor. Wallace created the trademark mask worn by Michael Myers throughout the film from a Captain Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
mask purchased for $1.98. Carpenter recalled how Wallace "widened the eye holes and spray-painted the flesh a bluish white. In the script it said Michael Myers's mask had 'the pale features of a human face' and it truly was spooky looking. It didn't look anything like William Shatner
William Shatner
William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...
after Tommy got through with it." Hill adds that the "idea was to make him almost humorless, faceless — this sort of pale visage that could resemble a human or not." Many of the actors wore their own clothes, and Curtis' wardrobe was purchased at J. C. Penney
J. C. Penney
-External links:*...
for around a hundred dollars.
The limited budget also dictated the filming location and time schedule. Halloween was filmed in 21 days in the spring of 1978 in South Pasadena, California and Sierra Madre, California (cemetery). An abandoned house owned by a church stood in as the Myers house. Two homes on Orange Grove Avenue (near Sunset Boulevard) in Hollywood were used for the film's climax. The crew had difficulty finding pumpkins in the spring, and artificial fall leaves had to be reused for multiple scenes. Local families dressed their children in Halloween costumes for trick-or-treat scenes.
In August 2006, Fangoria reported that Synapse Films
Synapse Films
Synapse Films is a DVD/Blu-ray label owned and operated by Don May, Jr. and his business partners Jerry Chandler and Charles Fiedler. The company specializes in cult horror, science fiction, and exploitation films....
had discovered boxes of negatives containing footage cut from the film. One was labeled "1981" suggesting that it was additional footage for the television version of the film. Synapse owner Don May, Jr. said, "What we've got is pretty much all the unused original camera negative from Carpenter's original Halloween. Luckily, Billy [Kirkus] was able to find this material before it was destroyed. The story on how we got the negative is a long one, but we'll save it for when we're able to showcase the materials in some way. Kirkus should be commended for pretty much saving the Holy Grail of horror films." It was later reported, "We just learned from Sean Clark, long time Halloween genius, that the footage found is just that: footage. There is no sound in any of the reels so far, since none of it was used in the final edit."
Writing
Yablans and Akkad ceded most of the creative control to writers Carpenter and Hill (whom Carpenter wanted as producer), but Yablans did offer several suggestions. According to a Fangoria interview with Hill, "Yablans wanted the script written like a radio show, with 'boos' every 10 minutes." Hill explained that the script took three weeks to write and much of the inspiration behind the plot came from CelticCeltic polytheism
Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era, and in the case of the Insular Celts...
traditions of Halloween such as the festival of Samhain
Samhain
Samhain is a Gaelic harvest festival held on October 31–November 1. It was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and was popularised as the "Celtic New Year" from the late 19th century, following Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer...
. Although Samhain is not mentioned in the plot of the first film, Hill asserts that:
Hill wrote most of the female characters' dialogue, while Carpenter drafted Loomis' speeches on the evilness of Michael Myers. Many script details were drawn from Carpenter's and Hill's adolescence and early careers. The fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois was derived from Haddonfield, New Jersey, where Hill grew up, and most of the street names were taken from Carpenter's hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Laurie Strode was the name of one of Carpenter's old girlfriends and Michael Myers was the name of an English producer who had previously entered, with Yablans, Assault on Precinct 13 in various European film festivals. In Halloween, Carpenter pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock with two characters' names; Tommy Doyle is named after Lt. Det. Thomas J. Doyle (Wendell Corey
Wendell Corey
Wendell Reid Corey was an American actor and politician.He was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, the son of Milton Rothwell Corey and Julia Etta McKenney . His father was a Congregationalist clergyman...
) of Rear Window
Rear Window
Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder"...
(1954), and Dr. Loomis' name was taken from Sam Loomis (John Gavin
John Gavin
John Gavin is an American film actor and a former United States Ambassador to Mexico. Gavin is half Mexican and fluent in Spanish....
) of Psycho, the boyfriend of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh , born Jeanette Helen Morrison, was an American actress. She was the wife of actor Tony Curtis from June 1951 to September 1962 and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis....
, who is the real-life mother of Jamie Lee Curtis). Sheriff Leigh Brackett shared the name of a film screenwriter.
Casting
Donald Pleasence
Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...
and then-unknown actress Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis is an American actress and author. Although she was initially known as a "scream queen" because of her starring roles in several horror films early in her career, such as Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train, Curtis has since compiled a body of work that spans many...
. The low budget limited the number of big names that Carpenter could attract, and most of the actors received very little compensation for their roles. Pleasence was paid the highest amount at $20,000, Curtis received $8,000, and Nick Castle earned $25 a day. The role of Dr. Sam Loomis was offered to Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
and Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
; both declined the part due to the low pay (though Lee would later tell Carpenter that declining the role was his biggest career mistake). English actor Pleasence — Carpenter's third choice — agreed to star. Pleasence has been called "John Carpenter's big landing." Americans were already acquainted with Pleasence as the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character and a supervillain from the James Bond series of novels and films, who was created by Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory. An evil genius with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond and is arguably...
in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice
You Only Live Twice (film)
You Only Live Twice is the fifth spy film in the James Bond series, and the fifth to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film's screenplay was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name...
(1967).
In an interview, Carpenter admits that "Jamie Lee wasn't the first choice for Laurie. I had no idea who she was. She was 19 and in a TV show at the time, but I didn't watch TV." He originally wanted to cast Anne Lockhart, the daughter of June Lockhart
June Lockhart
June Lockhart is an American actress, primarily in 1950s and 1960s television, but with memorable performances on stage and in film too. She is remembered as the mother in two TV series, Lassie and Lost in Space. She also portrayed Dr...
from Lassie
Lassie (1954 TV series)
Lassie is an American television series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie named Lassie and her companions, human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 24, 1973...
, as Laurie Strode. However, Lockhart had commitments to several other film and television projects. Hill says of learning that Jamie Lee was the daughter of Psycho actress Janet Leigh, "I knew casting Jamie Lee would be great publicity for the film because her mother was in Psycho." Halloween was Curtis' feature film debut and launched her career as a "scream queen
Scream queen
A scream queen is an actress who has become associated with horror films, either through an appearance in a notable entry in the genre as a frequent victim or through constant appearances as the female protagonist...
" horror star. Another relatively unknown actress, Nancy Kyes
Nancy Kyes
Nancy Louise Kyes is an American film and television actress. In most of her film appearances, she is credited under her stage name Nancy Loomis. She is known for her role as the teenage babysitter, Annie Brackett, in John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic slasher film Halloween.-Early life:Kyes was...
(credited in the film as Nancy Loomis) was cast as Laurie's friend Annie Brackett, daughter of Haddonfield sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers
Charles Cyphers
Charles Cyphers is an American actor who has starred in many films and on television. He is known in the horror movie community for his work in the films of John Carpenter, especially his role as Sheriff Leigh Brackett in Carpenter's 1978 hit horror movie Halloween. He reprised this role in the...
). Kyes had previously starred in Assault on Precinct 13 (as had Cyphers) and happened to be dating Halloweens art director Tommy Lee Wallace when filming began. Carpenter chose P. J. Soles to play Lynda Van Der Klok, another friend of Laurie's, best remembered in the film for dialogue peppered with the word "totally." Soles was an actress known for her supporting role in Carrie (1976) and her minor part in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble is a 1976 made-for-TV movie inspired by the lives of David Vetter and Ted DeVita, who lacked effective immune systems. It stars John Travolta, Glynnis O'Connor, Diana Hyland, Robert Reed, and P.J. Soles...
(1976). According to one source, "Carpenter realized she had captured the aura of a happy go lucky teenage girl in the 70s."
The role of "The Shape" — as the masked Michael Myers character was billed in the end credits — was played by Nick Castle, who befriended Carpenter while they attended the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
. After Halloween, Castle became a director, taking the helm of films such as The Last Starfighter
The Last Starfighter
The Last Starfighter is a 1984 science fiction adventure film directed by Nick Castle. The film tells the story of Alex Rogan , an average teenage boy recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war. It also featured Dan O'Herlihy, Catherine Mary Stewart, Robert Preston, Norman...
(1984), The Boy Who Could Fly
The Boy Who Could Fly
The Boy Who Could Fly is a 1986 film written and directed by Nick Castle. It was produced by Lorimar Productions for 20th Century Fox and released to movie theatres on August 14, 1986....
(1986), Dennis the Menace
Dennis the Menace (film)
Dennis the Menace is a 1993 live-action American family film based on the Hank Ketcham comic strip of the same name....
(1993) and Major Payne
Major Payne
Major Payne is a 1995 comedy film, starring Damon Wayans. The film is a loose remake of the 1955 film The Private War of Major Benson, starring Charlton Heston....
(1995).
Direction
Historian Nicholas Rogers notes that film critics contend that Carpenter's direction and camera work made Halloween a "resounding success". Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
remarks, "It's easy to create violence on the screen, but it's hard to do it well. Carpenter is uncannily skilled, for example, at the use of foregrounds in his compositions, and everyone who likes thrillers knows that foregrounds are crucial ...."
The opening title, featuring a jack-o'-lantern
Jack-o'-lantern
A jack-o'-lantern is typically a carved pumpkin. It is associated chiefly with the holiday of Halloween and was named after the phenomenon of strange light flickering over peat bogs, called ignis fatuus or jack-o'-lantern...
placed against a black backdrop, sets the mood for the entire movie. The camera slowly moves toward the jack-o'-lantern's left eye as the main title theme plays. After the camera fully closes in, the jack-o'-lantern's light dims and goes out. Film historian J.P. Telotte says that this scene "clearly announces that [the film's] primary concern will be with the way in which we see ourselves and others and the consequences that often attend our usual manner of perception". During the conception of the plot, Yablans instructed "that the audience shouldn't see anything. It should be what they thought they saw that frightens them". Carpenter seemingly took Yablans' advice literally, filming many of the scenes from Michael Myers's point-of-view that allowed audience participation. Carpenter is not the first director to employ this method or use of a steadicam
Steadicam
A Steadicam is a stabilizing mount for a motion picture camera that mechanically isolates it from the operator's movement, allowing a smooth shot even when moving quickly over an uneven surface...
; for instance, the first scene of Psycho offers a voyeuristic look at lovers in a seedy hotel. Telotte argues, "As a result of this shift in perspective from a disembodied, narrative camera to an actual character's eye ... we are forced into a deeper sense of participation in the ensuing action". Along with the 1974 Canadian horror film Black Christmas
Black Christmas (1974 film)
Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian slasher film directed by Bob Clark and written by A. Roy Moore, and largely based on a series of murders that took place in Quebec, Canada around Christmas time. The film's score is by Carl Zittrer. It was distributed by Ambassador Film Distributors in Canada and...
, Halloween made use of seeing events through the killer's eyes.
The first scene of the young Michael's voyeurism is followed by the murder of Judith Myers seen through the eye holes of Michael's clown costume mask. According to one commentator, Carpenter's "frequent use of the unmounted first-person camera to represent the killer's point of view ... invited [viewers] to adopt the murderer's assaultive gaze and to hear his heavy breathing and plodding footsteps as he stalked his prey". Another technique that Carpenter adapted from Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
(1960) was suspense with minimal blood and gore. Hill comments, "We didn't want it to be gory. We wanted it to be like a jack-in-the box." Film analysts refer to this as the "false startle" or "the old tap-on-the-shoulder routine" in which the stalkers, murderers, or monsters "lunge into our field of vision or creep up on a person." Carpenter worked with the cast to create the desired effect of terror and suspense. According to Curtis, Carpenter created a "fear meter" because the film was shot out-of-sequence and she was not sure what her character's level of terror should be in certain scenes. "Here's about a 7, here's about a 6, and the scene we're going to shoot tonight is about a 9½", remembered Curtis. She had different facial expressions and scream volumes for each level on the meter.
Carpenter's direction for Nick Castle in his role as Myers was minimal. For example, when Castle asked what Myers' motivation was for a particular scene, Carpenter replied that his motivation was to walk from one set marker to another. The documentary titled Halloween Un-masked, featured in the 22nd anniversary DVD of Halloween, John Carpenter states he also instructed Castle to tilt his head a couple of times as if he was observing the corpse, particularly in the scene when Myers impaled one of his victims against a wall. It was also said that the lighting of that scene (as well as all the scenes shot inside a house) was all inspired from the lighting from the movie Chinatown (1974).
Music
Another major reason for the success of Halloween is the moody musical score, particularly the main theme. Lacking a symphonic soundtrack, the film's score consists of a piano melody played in a 10/8Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
or "complex 5/4" meter
Meter (music)
Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
composed by director John Carpenter. Critic James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
calls the score "relatively simple and unsophisticated", but admits that "Halloweens music is one of its strongest assets". Carpenter stated in an interview, "I can play just about any keyboard, but I can't read or write a note." In the end credits, Carpenter bills himself as the "Bowling Green Philharmonic Orchestra" for performing the film's score, but he did receive assistance from composer Dan Wyman, a music professor at San José State University
San José State University
San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...
.
Some songs can be heard in the film, one being an untitled song performed by Carpenter and a group of his friends who formed a band called The Coupe DeVilles. The song is heard as Laurie steps into Annie's car on her way to babysit Tommy Doyle. Another song, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper
(Don't Fear) The Reaper
" The Reaper" is a song by the rock band Blue Öyster Cult from their 1976 album, Agents of Fortune. It was written and sung by the band's lead guitarist, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser and was produced by David Lucas, Murray Krugman, and Sandy Pearlman. It is built around Dharma's guitar riff that...
" by classic rock band Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult, often abbreviated BÖC, is an American rock band, most of whose members first came together in Long Island, NY in 1967 as the band Soft White Underbelly...
, appears in the film.
The soundtrack was first released in the United States in October 1983, by Varese Sarabande. It was subsequently released on compact disc in 1985, re-released in 1990, and again in 2000.
Release
Theatrical run
Halloween premiered on October 25, 1978 in Kansas City, Missouri (at the AMC Midland/Empire) and sometime afterward in Chicago, Illinois, and in New York City. It opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 22, 1978.The film grossed $47.3 million in the United States and an additional $13 million internationally, making the theatrical total around $60 million. While most of the film's success came from American movie-goers, Halloween premiered in several international locations after 1979 with moderate results. The film was shown mostly in the Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an countries of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, and Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
. Admissions in West Germany totaled around 750,000 and 118,606 in Sweden, earning SEK
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
2,298,579 there. The film was also shown at theaters in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
and Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
. Halloween grossed A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
900,000 in Australia, which was a large and impressive amount of money for a film to gross at the box office in Australia at the time, and HKD 450,139 in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
.
Television rights
In 1980, the television rights to HalloweenHalloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
were sold to NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
for $4 million. After a debate among Carpenter, Hill and NBC's Standards & Practices
Standards & Practices
In the United States, Standards and Practices is the name traditionally given to the department at a television network which is responsible for the moral, ethical, and legal implications of the program that network airs...
over censoring of certain scenes, Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
appeared on television for the first time in October 1981. To fill the two-hour time slot, Carpenter filmed twelve minutes of additional material during the production of Halloween II
Halloween II
Halloween II is a 1981 slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal, and written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It is the second installment in the Halloween series and is a direct sequel to the Halloween set on the same night of October 31, 1978 as the seemingly unkillable Michael Myers continues to...
. The newly filmed scenes include Dr. Loomis at a hospital board review of Michael Myers
Michael Myers (Halloween)
Michael Myers is a fictional character from the Halloween series of slasher films. He first appears in John Carpenter's Halloween as a young boy who murders his older sister, then fifteen years later returns home to murder more teenagers...
and Dr. Loomis talking to a then 6-year-old Michael at Smith's Grove, telling him, "You've fooled them, haven't you Michael? But not me." Another extra scene features Dr. Loomis at Smith's Grove examining Michael's abandoned cell after his escape and seeing the word "Sister" scratched into the door. Finally, a scene was added in which Linda comes over to Laurie's house to borrow a silk blouse before Laurie leaves to babysit, just as Annie telephones asking to borrow the same blouse. The new scene had Laurie's hair hidden by a towel, since Curtis was by then wearing a much shorter hairstyle than she had worn in 1978.
Home video release
Since Halloweens premiere, it has been released on VHS, laserdisc, DVD, UMDUniversal Media Disc
The Universal Media Disc is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on their PlayStation Portable handheld gaming and multimedia platform...
and Blu-ray HD format. In its first year of release on VHS, the film earned $18.5 million in the United States from rentals. Early VHS versions were released by Media Home Entertainment
Media Home Entertainment
Media Home Entertainment Inc. was a home video company headquartered in Culver City, California, originally established in 1978 by filmmaker Charles Band....
and Blockbuster Video issued a commemorative edition in 1995. Anchor Bay Entertainment has released several restored
Film preservation
thumb|300px|Stacked containers filled with reels of [[film stock]]The film preservation, or film restoration, movement is an ongoing project among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images which they contain...
editions of Halloween on VHS and DVD, with the most recent being the 2007 single-disc restored version, with improved picture and sound quality.
In 2007, the movie was released on Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
as well, marking the film's first ever Blu-ray release. The Blu-ray features a commentary track by Carpenter, Hill and Curtis and the documentary Halloween: A Cut Above the Rest.
Critical reception
Critical response to the film was mostly positive. Although Halloween performed well with little advertising — relying mostly on word-of-mouth — many critics seemed uninterested or dismissive of the film. Pauline KaelPauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
wrote a scathing review in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
suggesting that "Carpenter doesn't seem to have had any life outside the movies: one can trace almost every idea on the screen to directors such as Hitchcock and Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
and to the Val Lewton
Val Lewton
Val Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s.-Early life:...
productions" and claiming that "Maybe when a horror film is stripped of everything but dumb scariness — when it isn't ashamed to revive the stalest device of the genre (the escaped lunatic) — it satisfies part of the audience in a more basic, childish way than sophisticated horror pictures do." The first glowing review by a prominent film critic came from Tom Allen of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
in November 1978, Allen noted that the film was sociologically irrelevant but applauded Carpenter's camera work as "duplicitous hype" and "the most honest way to make a good schlock film". Allen pointed out the stylistic similarities to Psycho and George A. Romero
George A. Romero
George Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...
's Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent black-and-white zombie film and cult film directed by George A. Romero, starring Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea and Karl Hardman. It premiered on October 1, 1968, and was completed on a USD$114,000 budget. After decades of cinematic re-releases, it...
(1968). The following month, Voice lead critic Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
wrote a follow-up feature on cult films, citing Allen's appraisal of Halloween and saying in the lead sentence that the film "bids fair to become the cult discovery of 1978. Audiences have been heard screaming at its horrifying climaxes". Renowned American critic Roger Ebert gave the film similar praise in his 1979 review in the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, and selected it as one of his top ten films of 1978. Once-dismissive critics were impressed by Carpenter's choice of camera angles and simple music, and surprised by the lack of blood, gore, and graphic violence. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports 93% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based on 42 reviews, with a rating of 8.4 out of 10.
Many compared the film with the work of Alfred Hitchcock, although TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
calls comparisons made to Psycho "silly and groundless" and critics in the late 1980s and early 1990s blame the film for spawning the slasher sub genre, which they felt had rapidly descended into sadism and misogyny. Almost a decade after its premiere, Mick Martin and Marsha Porter critiqued the first-person camera shots that earlier film reviewers had praised and later slasher-film directors utilized for their own films (for example, Friday the 13th (1980)). Claiming it encouraged audience identification with the killer, Martin and Porter pointed to the way "the camera moves in on the screaming, pleading, victim, 'looks down' at the knife, and then plunges it into chest, ear, or eyeball. Now that's sick."
More than 30 years after its debut, Halloween enjoys a reputation as a classic and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1978.
Themes and analysis
Many criticisms of Halloween and other slasher films come from postmodernPostmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
academia. Some feminist critics, according to historian Nicholas Rogers, "have seen the slasher movies since Halloween as debasing women in as decisive a manner as hard-core pornography." Critics such as John Kenneth Muir point out that female characters such as Laurie Strode survive not because of "any good planning" or their own resourcefulness, but sheer luck. Although she manages to repel the killer several times, in the end, Strode is rescued in Halloween and Halloween II only when Dr. Loomis arrives to shoot Myers.
On the other hand, other feminist scholars such as Carol J. Clover
Carol J. Clover
Carol J. Clover is an American professor of film studies, rhetoric language and Scandinavian mythology. She has been widely published in her areas of expertise...
argue that despite the violence against women, slasher films turned women into heroines. In many pre-Halloween horror films, women are depicted as helpless victims and are not safe until they are rescued by a strong masculine hero. Despite the fact that Loomis saves Strode, Clover asserts that Halloween initiates the role of the "final girl
Final girl
The final girl is a trope in thriller and horror films that specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story...
" who ultimately triumphs in the end. Strode herself fought back against Myers and severely wounds him. Had Myers been a normal man, Strode's attacks would have killed him; even Loomis, the male hero of the story, who shoots Michael repeatedly at near point blank range with a large caliber handgun, cannot kill him.
Other critics have seen a deeper social critique present in Halloween and subsequent slasher films. According to Vera Dika, the films of the 1980s spoke to the conservative
American conservatism
Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...
family values advocates of Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
America. Tony Williams says Myers and other slashers were "patriarchal avengers" who "slaughtered the youthful children of the 1960s generation
Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
, especially when they engaged in illicit activities involving sex and drugs." Other critics tend to downplay this interpretation, arguing that the portrayal of Myers as a demonic, superhuman monster inhibited his influence among conservatives. Still others have read deeper into the social significance of this and other slasher films as critiquing the supposed safety recently found by middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
individuals in the 1950s suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
.W. Scott Poole. Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting (Waco, Texas: Baylor, 2011). ISBN 978-1-60258-314-6
Carpenter himself dismisses the notion that Halloween is a morality play
Morality play
The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes", a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of...
, regarding it as merely a horror movie. According to Carpenter, critics "completely missed the point there." He explains, "The one girl who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing this guy with a long knife. She's the most sexually frustrated. She's the one that's killed him. Not because she's a virgin but because all that sexually repressed energy starts coming out. She uses all those phallic symbols on the guy."
The usage of Michael Myers' white mask also poses analytical thought on several levels. For one, the mask (actually a debased William Shatner mask) is used as a concealing agent for Michael that helps keep his identity and mystery alive and fearful to others. Furthermore, the white blank austerity of the mask helps personify Michael as an emotionless, sociopathic killer who is incapable of feeling remorse for his actions, and therefore, does not exhibit such on his face. In a way, the lifelessness of the mask (it being a mere object that is devoid of human qualities) mirrors Michael's personality, in that, he too is blank, emotionless and ultimately cold to life or death. Also, the white mask characterizes Michael as a universal character, with anyone's face being transplantable onto it. The mask is merely an open canvas that Carpenter uses to invite viewers to paint their own killer on to make Michael's character more personal, and scarier, to each viewer.
Awards
Halloween was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Horror FilmSaturn Award for Best Horror Film
The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Horror Film:-References:...
by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1979, but lost to The Wicker Man (1973). In 2001, Halloween ranked #68 on the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
TV program 100 Years...100 Thrills
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills is a list of the top 100 heart-pounding movies in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 12, 2001, during a CBS special hosted by Harrison Ford....
. The film was #14 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004). Similarly, the Chicago Film Critics Association
Chicago Film Critics Association
The Chicago Film Critics Association is an American film critic association.-Members:Current members include:*Sarah Knight Adamson*Zbigniew Banas*Shelley Cameron*Dave Canfield*Vittorio Carli*Erik Childress*Camerin Courtney*Bonnie DeShong...
named it the 3rd scariest film ever made. In 2006, Halloween was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2007, the AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
31 Days of Horror countdown named Halloween the greatest horror movie. In 2008, the film was selected by Empire magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. In 2010, Total Film
Total Film
Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
selected the film as one of The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.
American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
Lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #68
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
- Michael Myers – Nominated Villain
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated
Influence
Halloween has influenced countless horror films, particularly during the early to mid 1980s. While Canadian horror film Black ChristmasBlack Christmas (1974 film)
Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian slasher film directed by Bob Clark and written by A. Roy Moore, and largely based on a series of murders that took place in Quebec, Canada around Christmas time. The film's score is by Carl Zittrer. It was distributed by Ambassador Film Distributors in Canada and...
(1974), directed by Bob Clark
Bob Clark
Benjamin "Bob" Clark was an American actor, director, screenwriter and producer best known for directing and writing the script with Jean Shepherd to the 1983 Christmas film A Christmas Story...
, preceded the stylistic techniques and several plot elements that were made famous in Halloween, the latter is generally credited by film historians, genre fans and critics for initiating the slasher film craze of the 1980s. Halloween made significant use of first-person camera perspectives, unexceptional settings, and female heroines, all of which now define the slasher film genre. These heroines were almost always depicted as being the only chaste, innocent and virginal character in the films onslaught of victims, while the others are depicted as being sexually promiscuous substance abusers.
Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper is an American film director and screenwriter, best known for his work in the horror film genre. His works include the cult classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , along with its first sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ; the three-time Emmy-nominated Stephen King film adaptation...
's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American independent horror film directed and produced by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the...
(1974) is sometimes given the distinction of also starting the slasher craze and preceding Halloween in originating the stylistic techniques as well as the usual plot devices. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, released five years prior to Halloween, has several things in common with the film: a group of free-spirited teenagers falling into the clutches of a sadistic, weapon-wielding masked villain
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
(Leatherface
Leatherface
Leatherface is the main antagonist in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror-film series and its spin-offs. He wears masks made of human skin and engages in murder and cannibalism alongside his inbred family. He is considered by many to be one of the first major slasher film villains alongside Michael...
) with a lone heroine. The film has also gone onto significantly influence the horror genre, much like Halloween.
Several subsequent films with similar stylistic elements and themes became popular with audiences, including Friday the 13th, beginning in 1980, and later, A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American horror franchise that consists of nine slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. The franchise began with the film series created by Wes Craven. The franchise is based on the fictional character Freddy Krueger, introduced in A Nightmare on...
(1984-onwards). Countless other slasher films owe some of their success and inspiration to Halloween. The survival of the chaste
Chastity
Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....
and temperate
Temperance (virtue)
Temperance has been studied by religious thinkers, philosophers, and more recently, psychologists, particularly in the positive psychology movement. It is considered a virtue, a core value that can be seen consistently across time and cultures...
character became a common device in subsequent slasher films. The 1981 horror movie spoof Student Bodies
Student Bodies
Student Bodies is a 1981 comedy film written and directed by Mickey Rose, with an uncredited Michael Ritchie co-directing. The film stars Kristen Ritter, Matthew Goldsby, and Cullen Chambers....
parodied this plot device; characters are slain when about to engage in sex. Director Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the...
's Scream
Scream (film)
Scream is a 1996 American slasher film written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven. The film stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Drew Barrymore, and David Arquette...
(1996) details the "rules" for surviving a horror movie, even using Halloween as the primary example: no sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
, no alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
or illicit drugs, and never say "I'll be right back".
Adaptations
A mass market paperback novelizationNovelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
by Curtis Richards, titled Halloween
Halloween (novel)
Halloween is a 1979 novelization by Curtis Richards of the horror film Halloween which has been out of print since the late 1980s...
, was published by Bantam Books
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
in 1979. It was reissued in 1982; it later went out of print. The novel elaborates on aspects not featured in the film such as the origins of the curse of Samhain and Michael Myers's life in Smith's Grove Sanitarium. For example, the opening reads:
The horror started on the eve of Samhain, in a foggy vale in northern Ireland, at the dawn of the Celtic race. And once started, it trod the earth forevermore, wreaking its savagery suddenly, swiftly, and with incredible ferocity.
In 1983, Halloween was adapted as a video game for the Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
by Wizard Video
Wizard Video
Wizard Video was a motion picture distribution company created by B movie veteran Charles Band, who would later go on to found Full Moon Features. They were best known for their VHS releases of Zombie 2, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I Spit on Your Grave...
. None of the main characters in the game were named. Players take on the role of a teenage babysitter who tries to save as many children from an unnamed, knife-wielding killer as possible. The game was not popular with parents or players and the graphics were simple, as was typical in Atari 2600 games. In another effort to save money, most versions of the game did not even have a label on the cartridge. It was simply a piece of tape with "Halloween" written in marker. The game contained more gore than the film, however. When the babysitter is killed, her head disappears and is replaced by blood pulsating from the neck. The game's primary similarity to the film is the theme music that plays when the killer appears onscreen.
Sequels and remake
Halloween spawned seven sequelSequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
s, a 2007 remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of the same name
Halloween (2007 film)
Halloween is a 2007 American slasher film written, directed, and produced by Rob Zombie. The film is a remake/reimagining of the 1978 horror film of the same name, the first in the rebooted Halloween film series and the ninth Halloween film in total. The film stars Tyler Mane as the adult Michael...
and directed by Rob Zombie
Rob Zombie
Rob Zombie is an American musician, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie and has been nominated three times as a solo artist for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.Zombie has also established a career as a film director, creating the...
— and a 2009 sequel to the remake, Halloween II
Halloween II (2009 film)
Halloween II is a 2009 American horror film written, directed, and produced by Rob Zombie. The film is a sequel to Zombie's 2007 remake of Halloween , and the second film in the rebooted Halloween film series and the tenth Halloween film in total...
, which is unrelated to the sequel of the original. Of these films, only Halloween II (1981) was written by Carpenter and Hill. Halloween II
Halloween II
Halloween II is a 1981 slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal, and written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It is the second installment in the Halloween series and is a direct sequel to the Halloween set on the same night of October 31, 1978 as the seemingly unkillable Michael Myers continues to...
begins exactly where Halloween ends and was intended to finish the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. Halloween II was hugely successful, becoming the highest grossing horror film of 1981. Carpenter did not direct any of the subsequent films in the Halloween series, although he did produce Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a 1982 science fiction horror film and the third installment in the Halloween film series. It is the only Halloween where the story does not revolve around Michael Myers. Directed and written by Tommy Lee Wallace, the film stars Tom Atkins as Dr. Dan Challis,...
(1982), the plot of which is unrelated to the other films in the series. He also composed the music for the second and third films, along with Alan Howarth.
The sequels feature more explicit violence and gore, and are generally dismissed by mainstream film critics. They were filmed on larger budgets than the original: In contrast to Halloween
Halloween: Resurrection
Halloween: Resurrection is a 2002 American horror film and eighth installment in the Halloween film series. Directed by Rick Rosenthal, who had also directed Halloween II, the film builds upon the continuity of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later...
(2002), boasted a budget of $15 million. Financier Moustapha Akkad continued to work closely with the Halloween franchise, acting as executive producer of every sequel until his death in the 2005 Amman bombings
2005 Amman bombings
The 2005 Amman bombings were a series of coordinated bomb attacks on three hotels in Amman, Jordan, on 9 November 2005. The attacks killed 60 people and injured 115 others. The explosions—at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Radisson SAS Hotel, and the Days Inn—started at around 20:50 local time at the...
.
With the exception of Halloween III, the sequels further develop the character of Michael Myers and the Samhain theme. Even without considering the third film, the Halloween series contains continuity
Continuity (fiction)
In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time...
issues, which some sources attribute to the different writers and directors involved in each film. The 10 Halloween films, including the 2007 remake and its sequel, have had eight directors. Only Rick Rosenthal
Rick Rosenthal
Richard L. "Rick" Rosenthal, Jr. is an American film and television director. He is also a producer, actor, and writer.-Biography:...
and Rob Zombie
Rob Zombie
Rob Zombie is an American musician, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie and has been nominated three times as a solo artist for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.Zombie has also established a career as a film director, creating the...
directed more than one Halloween film: Rosenthal directed Halloween II
Halloween II
Halloween II is a 1981 slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal, and written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It is the second installment in the Halloween series and is a direct sequel to the Halloween set on the same night of October 31, 1978 as the seemingly unkillable Michael Myers continues to...
and Halloween: Resurrection
Halloween: Resurrection
Halloween: Resurrection is a 2002 American horror film and eighth installment in the Halloween film series. Directed by Rick Rosenthal, who had also directed Halloween II, the film builds upon the continuity of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later...
, while Zombie directed the remake
Halloween (2007 film)
Halloween is a 2007 American slasher film written, directed, and produced by Rob Zombie. The film is a remake/reimagining of the 1978 horror film of the same name, the first in the rebooted Halloween film series and the ninth Halloween film in total. The film stars Tyler Mane as the adult Michael...
and its sequel
Halloween II (2009 film)
Halloween II is a 2009 American horror film written, directed, and produced by Rob Zombie. The film is a sequel to Zombie's 2007 remake of Halloween , and the second film in the rebooted Halloween film series and the tenth Halloween film in total...
.
External links
of the Halloween series of John Carpenter- Halloween at FEARnetFEARnetFearnet is a cable channel, website and Video on Demand television service owned by Horror Entertainment LLC, a joint venture between Comcast, Lions Gate Entertainment, and Sony Pictures Entertainment...
- Filming locations and photos by director David WinningDavid WinningDavid Winning is a Canadian and American dual Citizen film and television director, screenwriter, producer, editor, and occasional actor. Although Winning has worked in numerous film and TV genres, his name is most commonly associated with science fiction, thrillers and drama.-Biography:Winning...
- CineMassacre.com's Review of Halloween (by James Rolfe)