Concept After viewing
John Carpenter's film
Assault on Precinct 13 (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 (1973)". There were claims as early as 1980 that the film at one point was supposed to be called
The Babysitter Murders but Yablans has since debunked this stating that it was always intended to be called (and take place on)
Halloween. Carpenter said of the basic concept: "
Halloween night. It has never been the theme in a film. My idea was to do an old haunted house film." Film director
Bob Clark suggested in an interview released in 2005 that Carpenter had asked him for his own ideas for a sequel to his 1974 film
Black Christmas (written by Roy Moore) that featured an unseen and motiveless killer murdering students in a university sorority house. As also stated in the 2009 documentary
Clarkworld (written and directed by Clark's former production designer Deren Abram after Clark's tragic death in 2007), Carpenter directly asked Clark about his thoughts on developing the anonymous slasher in
Black Christmas: {{blockquote|... I did a film about three years later, started a film with John Carpenter, it was his first film for
Warner Bros. (which picked up
Black Christmas), he asked me if I was ever gonna do a sequel and I said no. I was through with horror, I didn't come into the business to do just horror. He said, 'Well what would you do if you did do a sequel?' I said it would be the next year and the guy would have actually been caught, escape from a mental institution, go back to the house and they would start all over again. And I would call it
Halloween. The truth is John didn't copy
Black Christmas, he wrote a script, directed the script, did the casting.
Halloween is his movie and besides, the script came to him already titled anyway. He liked
Black Christmas and may have been influenced by it, but in no way did John Carpenter copy the idea. Fifteen other people at that time had thought to do a movie called
Halloween but the script came to John with that title on it.
Screenplay It took approximately 10 days to write the screenplay. 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." Sheriff
Leigh Brackett shared the name of
a Hollywood screenwriter and frequent collaborator of
Howard Hawks. In devising the backstory for the film's villain, Michael Myers, Carpenter drew on "haunted house" folklore that exists in many small American communities: "Most small towns have a kind of haunted house story of one kind or another," he stated. "At least that's what teenagers believe. There's always a house down the lane that somebody was killed in, or that somebody went crazy in." Carpenter also took inspiration from the character of The Gunslinger from
Westworld (1973) for Michael Myers. Carpenter's inspiration for the "evil" that Michael embodied came from a visit he had taken during college to a psychiatric institution in Kentucky. There, he visited a ward with his psychology classmates where "the most serious, mentally ill patients" were held. Among those patients was an adolescent boy, who possessed a blank, "schizophrenic stare". Carpenter's experience inspired the characterization that Loomis gave of Michael to Sheriff Brackett in the film. Debra Hill has stated the scene where Michael kills the Wallaces' German Shepherd was done to illustrate how he is "really evil and deadly". The ending scene of Michael disappearing after being shot six times and falling off the balcony, was meant to terrify the imagination of the audience. Using a montage of the houses as Michael's breathing is heard, Carpenter tried to keep the audience guessing as to who Michael Myers really is—he is gone, and everywhere at the same time; he is more than human; he may be supernatural, and no one knows how he got that way. To Carpenter, keeping the audience guessing was better than explaining away the character with "he's cursed by some..."
Casting plays Dr. Sam Loomis, the hero of the film. played the adult version of Michael Myers. The cast of
Halloween included veteran actor
Donald Pleasence as
Samuel Loomis and then-unknown actress
Jamie Lee Curtis as
Laurie Strode. 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 , Curtis received $8,000, and
Nick Castle earned $25 a day. Yablans then suggested Pleasence, who agreed to star because his daughter Lucy, a guitarist, had enjoyed
Assault on Precinct 13 for Carpenter's score. 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." Curtis was cast in the part, though she initially had reservations as she felt she identified more with the other female characters: "I was very much a smart alec, and was a cheerleader in high school, so [I] felt very concerned that I was being considered for the quiet, repressed young woman when in fact I was very much like the other two girls." Another relatively unknown actress,
Nancy Kyes (credited in the film as Nancy Loomis), was cast as Laurie's outspoken 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
Halloween's art director Tommy Lee Wallace when filming began. Carpenter chose
P. J. Soles to play Lynda Van Der Klok, another loquacious 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) and would subsequently play Riff Randall in the 1979 film ''
Rock 'n Roll High School''. According to Soles, she was told after being cast that Carpenter had written the role with her in mind. Soles's then-husband, actor
Dennis Quaid, was considered for the role of Bob Simms, Lynda's boyfriend, but was unable to perform the role due to prior work commitments. 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).
Tony Moran plays the unmasked Michael at the end of the film. Moran was a struggling actor before he got the role. At the time, he had a job on
Hollywood and Vine dressed up as Frankenstein. Moran had the same agent as his sister, Erin, who played
Joanie Cunningham on
Happy Days. When Moran went to audition for the role of Michael, he met for an interview with Carpenter and Yablans. He later got a call back and was told he had got the part. Moran was paid $250 for his appearance. Will Sandin played the unmasked young Michael in the beginning of the film. Carpenter also provided uncredited voice work as Paul, Annie's boyfriend.
Filming Akkad agreed to put up ) for the film's budget, which was considered low at the time (Carpenter's previous film,
Assault on Precinct 13, had an estimated budget of $100,000). used a mask modeled after
William Shatner's
Captain Kirk from the
Star Trek series (pictured), making various modifications such as painting it white, widening its eyes, and altering its hair. 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 from a costume shop on
Hollywood Boulevard. The mask, made by
Don Post Studios, used a mold of Shatner's face taken during production of the 1975 horror film ''
The Devil's Rain, although Shatner has stated that the mold was taken during the production of Star Trek''.
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. Instead of utilizing a more traditional symphonic soundtrack, the film's score consists primarily of a piano melody played in a
10/8 or "complex 5/4"
time signature, composed and performed by Carpenter. Carpenter said it was also done in an hour. Critic
James Berardinelli calls the score "relatively simple and unsophisticated", but admits that "
Halloweens music is one of its strongest assets". Carpenter once stated in an interview, "I can play just about any keyboard, but I can't read or write a note." In
Halloweens end credits, Carpenter bills himself as the "Bowling Green Philharmonic Orchestra", but he also received assistance from composer
Dan Wyman, a music professor at San José State University. Some non-score songs can be heard in the film, one an untitled song performed by Carpenter and a group of his friends in a band called The Coupe De Villes. The song can be heard as Laurie steps into Annie's car on her way to babysit Tommy Doyle. It plays on the car radio as Annie drives Laurie through Haddonfield with Myers in silent pursuit. The soundtrack was first released in the United States in October 1983, by Varèse Sarabande/MCA. It was subsequently released on CD in 1985, re-released in 1990, and reissued again in 2000. On the film's 40th anniversary, coinciding with the release of
Anthology: Movie Themes 1974–1998, a cover of the theme by
Trent Reznor and
Atticus Ross was released. ==Release==