Halloween-the holiday-is almost upon us, just a week away. For today, let’s explore some fun facts about the famous movie. Named after the greatest holiday of the year, Halloween has spanned generations and is still freaking people out to this day. With Halloween Ends releasing in theaters it potentially marks the death of the franchise. Consequently, today we’re going to dive into some trivia about the one that started it all.
What all fanboys know about 1978’s film Halloween.
A movie by any other name. The movie was first titled The Babysitter Murders. And Michael Meyers was first referred to as “The Shape”. The entire film was written in 3 weeks and filmed in just 21 days. The budget for it was $300,000.
Humble first beginnings. The budget was so small for the film, director John Carpenter agreed not to receive payment for the film until it was profitable. Donald Pleasance received $20,000 for his role as Dr. Loomis. Jamie Lee Curtis made $8,000 as Laurie Strode. And Nick Castle got $25 a day for each day he was on set.
Compare and contrast. Compare those number to Halloween II that came out just two years later. The budget for that film was $2.5 million. Jaime Lee Curtis markedly earned $100,000 for Halloween II and $5 million for Halloween H2O (1998). And John Carpenter’s net worth is at $40 million!
Cutting corners. The filmmakers saved money in some pretty creative ways. The movie was filmed in California during the spring, but was set in Illinois during the fall. As a result, they reused the same few bags of fakes leaves scene after scene.The actors used their own clothes and vehicles. And John Carpenter himself wrote the iconic soundtrack because, he was “the best he could afford.”
Piano riffs. John Carpenter’s father taught him how to play piano, but he couldn’t read music. He wrote the theme to Halloween in an hour and the entire soundtrack in just three days.
Nice debut. Laurie Strode is Jamie Lee Curtis’s first film role. It was her first big break. She went on to several other highly successful films, but came back to the Halloween Universe often. Later, she appears in Halloween II (1981), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), and in Halloween Ends (2022). She doesn’t even like horror movies.
Small budget block buster. Halloween premiered on October 25, 1978 in Kansas City. Viewers loved the movie, word of mouth spread, and after a few months, glowing reviews from big-name critics such as Roger Ebert started coming in (early critics didn’t like it). Gene Siskel said the movie was so scary he took a cab home from the theater instead of walking two blocks in the dark. The limited release turned into a national one. Eventually the movie became a huge box-office success and the highest-grossing independent film ever made at the time.
There’s much more to the Halloween movies than this first film. That original film spun off 13 other films that are linked to, or are adjacent to the original film. Some are considered canon, some aren’t. Two are reboots, such as Rob Zombie’s take on the films. Some are stand alone that simply exist in the same universe. But all are inspired by that first film. Michael Meyers is now as popular now as ever. Masks and jumpsuits always make for an easy costume and no one can escape that iconic piano soundtrack. How many of the Halloween movies have you watched? And how many facts did you already know?
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