Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, who co-wrote it with producer Debra Hill. It stars Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis (in her film debut), P. J. Soles, and Nancy Loomis. Set mostly in the fictional Illinois town of Haddonfield, the film follows mental patient Michael Myers, who was committed to a mental institution for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween night during his childhood; he escapes 15 years later and returns to Haddonfield, where he stalks teenage babysitter Laurie Strode and her friends while his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis pursues him.
Film producer and financier Moustapha al Akkad agreed to put up $300,000 ($1.5 million in today) for the film's budget, which was considered low at the time. 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 from a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard. Carpenter recalled how Wallace “widened the eye holes and spray-painted the flesh a bluish white. In the script it said Michael Myers’ mask had ‘the pale features of a human face’ and it truly was spooky looking. I can only imagine the result if they hadn’t painted the mask white. Children would be checking their closet for William Shatner after Tommy got through with it.”
Many of the actors wore their own clothes, and Curtis’ wardrobe was purchased at J.C. Penney for around $100. Wallace described the filming process as uniquely collaborative, with cast members often helping move equipment, cameras, and helping facilitate set-ups.
The vehicle stolen by Michael Myers from Dr Loomis and Nurse Marion Chambers at the Smith Grove Sanitarium was an Illinois government-owned 1978 Ford LTD station wagon rented for two weeks of filming. When filming was complete, the car was returned to the rental company who put it up for auction. Its next owner left it in a barn for decades until selling it to its new owner who has completely restored both its interior and exterior.
Halloween was filmed in 20 days over a four-week period in May 1978. Much of the filming was completed using a Panaglide, a clone of the Steadicam, the then-new camera that allowed the filmmakers to move around spaces smoothly. Filming locations included South Pasadena, California; Garfield Elementary School in Alhambra, California; and the cemetery at Sierra Madre, California. An abandoned house owned by a church stood in as the Myers house. Two homes on Orange Grove Avenue (near Sunset Boulevard) in the Spaulding Square neighborhood of Hollywood were used for the film’s climax, as the street had few palm trees, and thus closely resembled a Midwestern street. Some palm trees, however, are visible in the film’s earlier establishing scenes. 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.
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. She had different facial expressions and scream volumes for each level on the meter.
Carpenter’s direction for 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 and “not act.” By Carpenter's account the only direction he gave Castle was during the murder sequence of Bob, in which he told Castle to tilt his head and examine the corpse as if it “were a butterfly collection.”
Halloween premiered on October 24, 1978, in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, at the AMC Empire theatre. Regional distribution in the Philadelphia and New York City metropolitan areas was acquired by Aquarius Releasing. It grossed $1,270,000 from 198 theaters across the U.S in its opening week. The film grossed $47 million in the United States and an additional $23 million internationally, making the theatrical total $70 million, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time; the film sold approximately 20,153,846 tickets during its initial theatrical release, and remains the most successful release of any Halloween film and the third most successful film in the slasher genre behind Scream (1996) and Scream 2 (1997).
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