Halloween
1978 USA Color 93 Minutes
Release date: October 25, 1978
Halloween is celebrated every October 31st
The performance of Halloween's musical score is credited to The Bowling Green Philharmonic. The orchestra is actually John Carpenter and assorted musical friends.
Due to the extreme low budget, the prop department had to use the cheapest mask that they could find in the costume store: a two dollar William Shatner mask, from the movie The Devil's Rain. They painted the face white, teased out the hair, and made the eyeholes bigger.
All of the actors wore their own clothes, since there was no money for a costume department.
Since the movie was actually shot in spring, the crew had to buy paper leaves and paint them in the desired autumn colors, then scatter them in the filming locations. To save money, after a scene was filmed, the leaves were collected and reused.
Halloween was shot in 21 days in 1978. Made on a budget of $300,000, it became the highest-grossing ($60 million) independent movie ever made at that time.
Jamie Lee Curtis´ mother, Janet Leigh, was murdered in Psycho. Jamie Lee was casted as Laurie because of the publicity
The sequels:
Halloween II (1981)
Halloween III (1982)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Halloween 5 (1989)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Halloween H20: 20 years later (1998)
Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Halloween: 9 / Retribution (2006)
Encyclopedia:
Halloween is a holiday on the night of October 31 that is celebrated in much of the Western world. The eve is that before All Saints day.
Carpenter professored a master class on director Howard Hughes at the British Film Institute.
January 16, 1948
John Howard Carpenter
Born in Carthage, New York (USA) and raised in Bowling Green, Kentucky, John was educated at Western Kentucky university and then USC film school in Los Angeles. While there, he started Dark Star a short that was later expanded to feature length (released theatrically in 1974).
Influenced by Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks he achieved a stronger impact with his next films, Assault on precinct 13 (1976) and Halloween (1978) which was the most profitable independent movie of its day.
During the eighties Carpenters movies were higher-budgeted, higher-profiled and he directed successes like The Fog (1980), Escape From New York (1981), The Thing (1982).
In the nineties Carpenter decided to go smaller again to gain control. He directed some TV movies and low budget cinema features like In The Mouth Of Madness (1995). His last theatrical release was Ghosts of Mars (2001) which was savaged by many critics.