A Look Back at a Halloween Horror Treat
John Carpenter had only shot and scored two semi- obscure features when the executive producer Irwin Yablans came to him with a proposal: make a low-budget movie about babysitters being murdered.
“It was a horrible idea,” Mr. Carpenter said recently. “But I wanted to make more movies, so I said, ‘Great!’ ”
Forty years later, that film, “Halloween,” continues to spawn sequels, remakes and reboots. The latest, also titled “Halloween,” brings back Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the sole survivor of the masked psycho Michael Myers’s initial rampage. A gun-toting grandma, she’s out to kill Myers.
“The thing that really moves me about coming back all these years later is the fans’ deep love and reverence,” Ms. Curtis said. “The passion for this movie is very powerful.”
Mr. Carpenter, Ms. Curtis and some of her co- stars spoke about making the original film. “It’s the greatest experience I’ve ever had professionally,” Ms. Curtis said. “It gave me everything in my creative life.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
I can’t believe nobody else had called their movie “Halloween” before.
My mother was protecting me from being a child in the movie business. Later, I got a part on the ABC sitcom “Operation Petticoat.” I was fired, and I was devastated. Had I not been fired, I wouldn’t have been available for “Halloween.” I didn’t give it a second thought that it was a horror movie, and my mom had been in a horror movie.
Nick’s dad was a choreographer, and Nick has a grace to his movements.
It didn’t take going to Juilliard to be able to do this, but people seem to like the movements I did.
Tommy came in with the clown mask on, and we went, “Ooh, that’s kind of scary.” Then he put on the Shatner mask, and we stopped dead and said, “It’s perfect.”
Tommy had spray-painted it white and cut the eyeholes bigger. It was chilling.
I was initially terrified because he said to me, “I don’t know why I’m doing this movie. The only reason is my daughter liked the music you wrote in your other movie, ‘Assault on Precinct 13.’ ” But we became fast friends.
My job, plain and simple, was to scare the audience. It didn’t need to be anything more than that. The movie was a thrill ride.
I remember going to see it in Hollywood, and in the middle of the movie, when Laurie is walking across the street to the house where P. J. Soles’s character has just been strangled, this woman stood up and screamed, “Don’t go in there!” In that second, I understood what John intended. The audience cared about Laurie.
(the babysitter Lynda) That criticism is ridiculous … totally ridiculous!
Debra helped many women gain access to positions that were otherwise unavailable to them.
Michael’s disappearance at the end of the first film makes you gasp, and I wanted to leave the audience that way. I didn’t want any sequels. Boy, was I wrong, huh?