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The Halloween episode of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? was Written by Eric Walkuski, Narrated and Edited by Tyler Nichols, Produced by Lance Vlcek and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

In 1978, the landscape of horror changed forever with the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween (watch it HERE). Carpenter created a vision of horror unlike anything else that had ever been seen. Though there were movies not unlike it prior to its release, Halloween‘s success would inspire a brand new subgenre: the slasher film, and while there have been many imitations – not to mention sequels and remakes – few horror movies have achieved the kind of glowing praise and reverence that the original Halloween has. Not to mention the fact that it introduced us to one of the most infamous screen villains of all time, Michael Myers, the unstoppable killer without a conscience.

The fact that this hugely successful thriller was made by a group of 20-something newcomers to the business further underlines how much of a once-in-a-lifetime sensation it was. How did the boogeyman become real? Grab some candy – or a knife, whatever’s closest – because we’re about to tell you WTF Happened to John Carpenter’s Halloween.

Though Halloween is indeed the brainchild of John Carpenter and his co-writer/producer Debra Hill, the project didn’t originate with them. Irwin Yablans was the man who set things in motion. He was an independent producer at the time and co-founder of Compass International Pictures. Irwin Yablans, then an independent producer and co-founder of Compass International Pictures, was impressed by Carpenter’s hard boiled siege flick Assault On Precinct 131001010; he even agreed to help distribute the film. He also decided to work for John Carpenter and pitched him an idea he had been mulling over, about a psychopath stalking a group babysitters. Carpenter had just finished shooting Someone Is Watching Me for TV and had no plans beyond that. He said “why not?”. The title of the project was The Babysitter Murders although Yablans has denied that this was the title. He was surprised to find that few horror movies had been made during Halloween, the supposedly scariest night of year. He was further surprised to find the title Halloween

had never been used. Carpenter asked him, “Why don’t you set it on Halloween? In fact, why don’t we just call it Halloween?” The rest is history.Both Carpenter and Yablans were in agreement that the film should be suspenseful, not gory. Yablans was inspired by the old horror shows he used to listen to as a child on radio. He thought they were scary because you could imagine them vividly, rather than seeing everything. He wanted to scare the audience, not make them feel repulsed. Carpenter was inspired by the cheap but effective frights that you would get as a child, either at a haunted house or in the movies. Carpenter was inspired by William Castle’s House On Haunted Hill

which used the gimmick of a flying skeleton scaring the pants off the audience. Carpenter wanted to give his audience a similar experience. But as a filmmaker, he was influenced by some of the greatest to ever do it: Hitchcock, Ford, Hawkes and Welles, all of whom he’d borrow liberally from throughout his career.Carpenter had a few stipulations: he wanted to be paid $10,000 to write, direct and compose the music, he wanted final cut, and he wanted his name above the title. While the latter was an unusual request for a relatively new director, Yablans told him that if he could make the film for $300,000, he could have anything he wanted.Carpenter brought aboard his then-girlfriend Debra Hill, who he’d met during the making of

Precinct 13

, to be his co-writer and producer. Hill was integral in the creation of the screenplay. It was her job to make the teenage girls who were at the center sound authentic. Carpenter, on his part, focused on the darker aspects of the story, using the idea that an unstoppable villain was the hook. Carpenter had also been inspired by Michael Crichton’s Westworld, specifically the villainous robot played by Yul Brenner, who simply cannot be stopped no matter how many times he’s shot or burned. This vision helped – pun intended! – shape what would become the film’s antagonist, Michael Myers. Carpenter and Hill cranked out the script in two-to-three weeks, and with the help of financier Moustapha Akkad, the film was greenlit with that 300K budget.However, they had a tight schedule to work with. The film was supposed to be in theaters by Halloween 1978. It was spring 1978. Carpenter and Hill were in their late 20s at the time, and were among the oldest crew members. In their late 20s at the time, Carpenter and Hill were just about the oldest people on the crew.Pasadena, California was going to stand in for Anytown, U.S.A, and one of the main challenges for Carpenter and company was cropping out the palm trees, which would certainly look out of place in the midwest. The lush greenery in the surrounding area was another challenge, as it was spring in California and not autumn in Illinois. According to the popular story, the production used the same bags of leaves repeatedly, scattering them on the sidewalks and streets right before the shooting began, then collecting them for the next shot. Carpenter wanted three American girls who were wholesome to play his babysitters. Carpenter had originally chosen Anne Lockhart to play Laurie Strode but Debra Hill convinced him to cast Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis, the daughter of Tony Curtis, and Janet Leigh was Hollywood royalty. However, at the time, she had only appeared in a few television shows. She was far from a name that would be above the title. But Hill saw the potential in the backstory: here was the daughter of

Psycho

‘s Marion Crane starring in a horror movie about a maniac with a knife. The headlines would write themselves.

For her part, Curtis was unsure if she was right for the role. Personality-wise she was closer to the Annie character, sardonic, cynical and unreliable than the chaste Laurie. Curtis thought she would be fired after her first day of filming. She was prepared to hear Carpenter tell her that she was done. Instead, Curtis heard praise from the director, which gave her the boost to rise to the occasion for the rest of the production.Casting Annie was fairly easy: Nancy Loomis was the wife of Carpenter’s colleague Tommy Lee Wallace, and had a supporting role in Assault on Precinct 13

. She was even in the costume department… Carpenter wrote the role of vapid Lynda with P.J. Soles in mind, since she’d played a similar part in Brian De Palma’s

Carrie. Carpenter asked Soles’ then-husband Dennis Quaid to play Bob, Lynda’s boyfriend. But he wasn’t available so John Michael Graham was chosen. Carpenter asked Soles’ then-husband Dennis Quaid to play Lynda’s boyfriend Bob. But he was not available, so John Michael Graham took the role. Carpenter told Castle, “Yeah, I’m sure you can be the killer.” Carpenter did not give Castle any direction other than to “just walk.” Castle added one of Myers signature moments when he looked at his victim like a curious dog might look at a treat. Castle was paid $25 per day for his work. Carpenter knew that he had to find a name who would be recognizable and give Loomis gravitas, so he could sell the idea that Michael’s former patient was the walking embodiment evil. Carpenter approached Peter Cushing first, the legendary British actor best known for his roles in Hammer horror films as Van Helsing or Dr. Frankenstein. But Cushing had just made Star Wars, the biggest movie of all time, and had no time for Halloween

and its small salary. Carpenter then turned to Cushing’s longtime collaborator Christopher Lee. Lee flatly refused him. Debra Hill would later say that she bumped into Lee at a convention years later, where he confessed to her that turning down

Halloween was the biggest mistake of his career. If this is true, then we would argue that Howling 2: Your Sister is Werewolf comes in second.Irwin Yblans suggested Donald Pleasence who had made a name for himself playing villains in You only Live Twice, and in particular the Charlton Heston Western Will Penney. But he’d also played heroes in films like

The Great Escape, so he could lend Halloween a character who seemed believably intense and ready for action. Pleasence was paid $20,000 for just five days’ work, but he took it because his daughter, who loved Assault On Precinct 13011001010, encouraged him. Pleasence did not understand the script and even infamously criticised it in a film featurette. Pleasence refused to speak Carpenter’s lines in one instance. Loomis was supposed to call his wife in order to reassure her that he is okay when he calls Haddonfield, just before he finds an abandoned truck, to warn them Michael will be coming. Pleasence, however, rejected this idea and insisted that Loomis have no past or personal life. Carpenter, who was too insecure to disagree with the veteran actor on this point, agreed and cut the dialogue. Pleasence was a wine lover, and he would often be found in his trailer (which was allegedly a Winnebago) drinking copious amounts. You can’t tell from the final product but he had reportedly drunk a few bottles of wine before filming the scene where Michael escapes the hospital in the rain. Carpenter knew that the film had to look good to compensate for its low budget. He used Panaglide cameras to give it an elegant, professional look. The Panaglide, also known as a Stedicam, allowed the camera department to move around freely for long takes. It was much easier than using dollys with their cumbersome tracks. Halloween would use the Panaglide to great effect throughout, but its biggest contribution came during the terrific opening sequence of the film, which looks for all the world like one unbroken take of our villain preparing to kill. It’s actually two separate takes because they could only shoot for about 4 minutes at a time, but the effect is still brilliant.Incidentally, that sequence was the last to be filmed during principal photography, because the house itself had to be dressed and painted to look like a normal suburban home. The filmmakers chose it because it was in a state that was disrepair. The scene where Laurie approaches the house and we meet her is how it actually looked. This was perfect for the film to show the Myers home as being completely dilapidated. When it was time to shoot the scene in which a young Michael stalks her sister, the team needed to make it look like a normal house. They waited until the end of the shoot before filming this crucial sequence. The script described the mask as made of rubber with “grotesque facial features of a male” but there was a lot of freedom in how it could look. Tommy Lee Wallace, who was the film’s production design and editor, had to find the right mask. Wallace bought two masks at a magic store on Hollywood Boulevard, a Captain Kirk and a sad clown. Wallace modified the Kirk mask slightly: he shaved his eyebrows and sideburns. He also widened the eyeholes, painted it white, and dyed his hair darker. Carpenter was inspired by the Georges Franju thriller Eyes Without a Face, which has one of the creepiest masks in movie history. One of Carpenter’s inspirations for such a blank palate was the Georges Franju thriller Eyes Without a Face

, which definitely has one of the creepier masks in movie history.

Carpenter would later say that, despite the low budget, the shoot was a relatively easy one. There was still a lot to do before the film’s release, which is presumably in October. The score was crucial to the film. While the story says Carpenter wrote it in three days, Debra Hills has confirmed that he had the theme in mind during the writing phase. Carpenter would play an ominous piece of music for Hill to inspire her while they worked. In the film’s credits, the music is credited to the Bowling Green Philharmonic Orchestra, a shoutout to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he grew up.When Halloween

was complete, Irwin Yablans held a screening for all the major studios in the hopes of getting one of them interested in distributing it. The problem was that none of the major studios showed up. Yablans would rely on his experience as a distributor and marketer to get the film into theaters. He would start in Kansas City, Missouri where the film was well received, allowing him take it elsewhere. Fortunately for Yablans, his business partner Joe Wolf had a relationship with MGM Studios, who was willing to make around 400 prints of

Halloween, allowing the distributors to start going a little wider with their little movie.Initially, the reviews were not kind, with most critics dismissing the film as artless and shallow. The tide soon began to change. First a glowing review from the NY Village Voice, then a couple from famed Chicago critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, the latter of whom compared it to – you guessed it – Alfred Hitchcock’s

Psycho

. Soon enough, critics who waved the movie away at first began to reevaluate Halloween, happily coinciding with the movie taking off at theaters and racking up big returns.Ultimately, the movie ended its theatrical run with over $70 million worldwide, making it the most successful independent feature of all time at that point.Of course, you know the rest.

Halloween spawned a plethora of imitators, and the early 80s saw a horror boom unlike any that had come before. Naturally, the massive success of Halloween necessitated that a sequel be made; Carpenter and Hill grudgingly wrote it after realizing it would be made with or without them, also letting the substantial paycheck help convince them. Carpenter is on record saying Budweiser got him through the writing of that script, as they struggled to find reasons to justify its existence.With the completion of David Gordon Green’s recent

Halloween

trilogy, there are currently 13 movies in the franchise, though of course making sense of the timeline can be a bit tricky. What’s obvious is, there’s money to be made off that blank-faced unkillable monster, and when a new Halloween film is inevitably announced, none of us should be surprised.After all, you can’t kill the boogeyman.A couple of the previous episodes of

WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GANkHMYq42Ahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7H8o9T-tAU

Entertainment - Media News Watch originally published at Entertainment - Media News Watch