"HALLOWEEN" movie trivia

The movie"Halloween" is thought of as one of the scariest motion pictures ever made. The story centers around a homicidal maniac that escaped from a mental institution and begins stalking a teenaged girl while he goes on a murder spree on Halloween night.
"Halloween" is credited with being the first, and by far the best, of the "slasher films". But what isn't known by many is some of the amazing facts behind the film.

Halloween was shot in only 22 days in April of 1978. This was an extremely short time seeing that your average movie is shot in about a 4 month time period.

Made on a budget of of only $320,000, it became the highest-grossing independent movie ever made at that time.

The original script, titled "The Babysitter Murders", had the events take place over the space of several days. It was a budgetary decision to change the script to have everything happen on the same day (doing this reduced the number of costume changes and locations required) and it was decided that Halloween, the scariest night of the year, was the perfect night for this to happen.


Due to its shoestring budget, the prop department had to use the cheapest mask that they could find in the costume store: a Captain Kirk mask. They later spray-painted the face white, teased out the hair, and reshaped the eye holes. The original mask that was going to be used was a clown mask!

The film was shot in April in California but took place in October in Illinois. In the background street scenes the trees are green and full. Because of the low budget on the film the crew painted fake leaves and placed them on the ground to make it seem more fall like. When the scenes were finished shooting, the leaves were collected and used again in other scenes.
You could also see palm trees in the distance in some scenes and all the cars have California license plates.

The cast had to wear their own clothes from home while filming because there was no movie left over for wardrobe.

"Halloween" was Jamie Lee Curtis' first film. She was chosen by director John Carpenter because he was a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock and Curtis was the daughter of Janet Leigh who started in Hitchcock's "Psycho".

The character of Laurie Strode was named after John Carpenter's first girlfriend.

The film takes place primarily in fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois. Haddonfield, NJ is the home town of screenwriter Debra Hill.

Donald Pleasence, who played Dr. Sam Loomis in the film was paid $20,000 for 5 days work. Christopher Lee was the first choice to play the part but he turned the role down. He later said that it was the biggest mistake in his movie career.

The "Myers" house was a locale found in South Pasadena that was largely the decrepit, abandoned place seen in the majority of the film. However, as the house had to look ordinary (and furnished) for the early scenes with the young Michael Myers, almost the whole cast and crew worked together to clean the place, move in furniture, put up wallpaper, and set up running water and electricity, and then take it all out when they were through.

P.J. Soles, who plays Laurie's friend, says the word "totally" eleven times.

The now famous frightning music score was composed by John Carpenter in 4 days.

Carpenter's intent with the character of Michael Myers was that the audience should never be able to relate to him.

Even though "Halloween" is thought of as the first "slasher film", there is hardly any blood or gore seen in the movie.

Nearly every character in "Halloween" was named after someone that director John Carpenter knew or idolized.

From a budget of $325,000 the film went on to gross $47 million at the US box office. In 2008 takings that would be the equivalent of $150 million, making "Halloween" one of the most successful independent films of all time.