Latest / Have You Seen?! The Movie Podcast / Halloween: The Shape and The Art Of Dread
Transcript
- 0:36Dylan: Welcome to Have You Seen the Movie Podcast, where every movie is a premiere.
- 0:41Joe: Spooky season continues, and this week we're heading to Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween night, 1978.
- 0:50Dylan: No vampires, no zombies, no river of slime, just a guy in a mask who apparently has absolutely nothing else planned for the evening.
- 0:59Joe: It's John Carpenter's Halloween.
- 1:03Dylan: If you're enjoying the show, make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app and leave us a five-star rating.
- 1:08Dylan: It really helps the show grow.
- 1:09Joe: And send us your name and a movie suggestion using the link in the description.
- 1:14Dylan: Halloween is rated R for horror violence, nudity, and language.
- 1:18Dylan: So if that's not suitable for little ears, we hope you'll tune in next week.
- 1:22Dylan: So before we jump into the movie, let's talk about how we watched it.
- 1:26Joe: Well, I got the Halloween Collector's Edition from Shout Factory.
- 1:33Joe: It was a three-disc with a theatrical cut, extended cut, and edited television cut.
- 1:42Dylan: Yeah, cutting out the nudity.
- 1:44Joe: Yeah.
- 1:44Joe: And they added extra parts to it.
- 1:46Joe: Oh, really?
- 1:48Joe: Because they had to meet the length of a pat it out for TV.
- 1:52Joe: For TV, yeah.
- 1:53Joe: As if uh commercials were not enough at the time.
- 1:58Joe: Uh we watched uh HDR 10, aspect ratio 2351, which is the original uh aspect ratio.
- 2:09Joe: Um Dolby Atmos and yeah, 4K.
- 2:14Joe: What'd you think of the quality?
- 2:16Dylan: I thought it was good.
- 2:17Dylan: Yeah.
- 2:17Dylan: I hadn't I I did not notice any issues with it.
- 2:22Dylan: So I don't know if it would be like an original scan or rescan.
- 2:27Joe: Yeah.
- 2:28Joe: Like you couldn't tell, you mean?
- 2:30Joe: Yeah.
- 2:31Joe: Yeah.
- 2:32Joe: Yeah.
- 2:32Joe: It looked good.
- 2:33Joe: Black levels were good.
- 2:35Joe: Uh there's a lot of night scenes, so that's very important.
- 2:38Dylan: Yeah.
- 2:40Dylan: Yeah.
- 2:40Dylan: I wonder how it would be to watch Halloween like in a theater.
- 2:45Joe: Oh, that's coming up, actually.
- 2:47Joe: We could do that.
- 2:48Joe: Yeah.
- 2:50Joe: Uh there's uh there's a whole slew of movies at our local theater that's going to be showing uh Halloween movies.
- 2:57Joe: Yeah.
- 2:57Dylan: As you can tell, that's how much I pay attention to it.
- 3:00Dylan: Yeah.
- 3:00Dylan: Yeah.
- 3:03Dylan: All right, Joe.
- 3:04Dylan: So let's talk Halloween.
- 3:06Dylan: So released in 1978 and directed by John Carpenter.
- 3:11Joe: Yeah.
- 3:12Joe: Written by John Carpenter and Deborah Hill, who were dating at the time.
- 3:16Joe: Oh yeah.
- 3:19Dylan: Um, did they also produce it then?
- 3:22Joe: Uh yeah, there were a couple other producers along with that, but they were the two top ones, I'd say.
- 3:29Dylan: Okay.
- 3:30Dylan: Gotcha.
- 3:32Dylan: And became one of the most influential horror movies ever made.
- 3:35Joe: Mm-hmm.
- 3:37Joe: Yep, definitely set the pace for slasher films.
- 3:41Dylan: Yeah.
- 3:43Dylan: Yeah, it you know, for not like inventing the slasher film, yeah.
- 3:49Dylan: It like has such a huge impact on like our kind of modern pop culture, yeah.
- 3:55Dylan: Slasher culture.
- 3:57Dylan: I don't know what you'd say for that, but yeah.
- 4:00Joe: So it was Jamie Lee Curtis's uh film debut.
- 4:03Dylan: Is it her first one?
- 4:05Joe: Wow.
- 4:06Joe: She was she only did TV before that, so okay.
- 4:09Joe: And she she filmed it uh between a TV show that she was on at the time.
- 4:16Dylan: Oh, really?
- 4:17Dylan: Yeah.
- 4:18Joe: You've known Mike Michael Myers basically your entire life without seeing this movie.
- 4:24Joe: What did you think Michael Myers was?
- 4:28Dylan: Um, you know, it was one of those things that like I knew the mask and that was about it.
- 4:35Dylan: Yeah.
- 4:35Dylan: And like you can kind of guess that it was, you know, a psycho serial killer, uh-huh, you know, uh-huh, based off of just all of the stuff you hear about it, yeah.
- 4:48Dylan: Everything like that.
- 4:51Dylan: But yeah, like with the opening, totally was not expecting that.
- 4:57Dylan: Yeah.
- 4:58Joe: Right.
- 4:59Joe: Yeah, I was like, you gotta pay attention to the beginning because this really sets things up.
- 5:05Joe: And I know because I watched it a couple times, and the first time I rewatched it, I was like, oh, I forgot about that part.
- 5:11Dylan: Yeah.
- 5:13Dylan: If you somehow haven't seen Halloween, here's the quick setup.
- 5:17Dylan: On Halloween night in 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers murders his teenage sister in the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois.
- 5:26Dylan: Fifteen years later, Michael escapes from the psychiatric hospital where he's been held and returns home.
- 5:32Dylan: His psychiatrist, Dr.
- 5:34Dylan: Sam Loomis, follows, convinced Michael represents something for more dangerous than an ordinary escaped patient.
- 5:42Dylan: Meanwhile, teenager Lori Strobe begins noticing a strange masked figure watching her throughout the day.
- 5:49Dylan: And as Halloween night arrives, the shape gets closer.
- 5:55Dylan: Alright, Joe, so what was your first time watching Halloween like?
- 5:59Joe: I'm sure it was just on TV.
- 6:01Dylan: Yeah.
- 6:02Joe: Um as I watched it, I I realized that I somehow know Halloween three more.
- 6:08Joe: And that was a weird Oh really?
- 6:10Joe: Yeah, it was a weird take on, like, I don't even think Michael Meyer shows up in that one.
- 6:17Joe: Yeah, it's a weird okay.
- 6:20Joe: So I was like, oh, okay, this isn't the one that I watched all the time.
- 6:25Joe: Yeah.
- 6:27Dylan: Do you think that was just coincidence of age?
- 6:32Joe: Probably.
- 6:33Joe: You know, it really depended on what was on TV.
- 6:36Joe: Yeah.
- 6:37Joe: And I don't even know that how much they showed this on TV very often.
- 6:41Joe: Yeah.
- 6:41Dylan: Yeah.
- 6:42Dylan: Because you would have been the kids' age.
- 6:44Dylan: Yeah.
- 6:45Dylan: When you watch it.
- 6:48Dylan: Your brother probably would have had you convinced about the boogeyman.
- 6:51Dylan: Oh, yeah, definitely.
- 6:52Joe: Yeah, that was definitely my brother.
- 6:56Dylan: But yeah, it's one of those things that, like, after, you know, still technically like knowing Michael Myers, you know, it's it's one of those things that it just still like was not what I expected.
- 7:11Joe: Oh.
- 7:12Dylan: Like it was, yeah.
- 7:14Joe: Was it scarier?
- 7:16Dylan: Was it um I wouldn't say scarier.
- 7:19Dylan: No, it was definitely kind of the level of scary that I was anticipating.
- 7:23Dylan: Okay.
- 7:24Dylan: And you know, I still jumped at three quarters of this stuff.
- 7:29Dylan: Um that moment that I pointed out to you of Michael just like coming out of the shadows.
- 7:35Dylan: Yes.
- 7:36Dylan: I was like, ooh, that was good.
- 7:38Dylan: Yeah.
- 7:39Joe: Yeah.
- 7:40Joe: And we'll talk more about that.
- 7:41Joe: Yes.
- 7:44Dylan: Um it definitely I enjoyed the pacing of it.
- 7:48Dylan: I thought the pacing was very well done.
- 7:51SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 7:52Dylan: Like it was able to just do that kind of slow dread build that you're kind of anticipating for it.
- 8:01Dylan: Yeah.
- 8:02Dylan: And like it just hits the beats that you want it to.
- 8:05Dylan: So I was pleasantly, pleasantly surprised.
- 8:09Dylan: Yeah.
- 8:10Joe: You know, it kind of reminded me of a TV show because there's some TV shows that will have an intro and then do the um credits and then go back into the story and pick up, you know, however many years later.
- 8:23Joe: Yeah.
- 8:24Joe: And it was kind of like that where in other traditional movies, this all the scenes will just be mashed up together.
- 8:29Joe: Right.
- 8:30Joe: Yeah.
- 8:30Joe: So it was a kind of cool different take for me.
- 8:35Joe: And and again, yeah, with the the pacing is like you you go from one thing, take a breather, and then drop right into something else.
- 8:44Dylan: Well, and it was it was really good too with the pacing of everything, because like, you know, you weren't necessarily like scared of Michael, if you will, but like you were more scared of because you knew that he could be just somewhere in the frame.
- 9:03Joe: Yeah.
- 9:03Dylan: Like every time it was like you kind of knew that he was adjacent.
- 9:08Dylan: Uh-huh.
- 9:09Dylan: I just spent like the whole time like watching the background and like seeing if they had him hidden somewhere in there.
- 9:16Dylan: Yeah.
- 9:17Dylan: Yep.
- 9:18Joe: Yeah.
- 9:18Joe: And he was, there were several times that yeah.
- 9:21Dylan: Yeah.
- 9:22Dylan: I almost asked you while we were watching it, like how many times he was in the background that you don't really notice it unless you're like that spot right there.
- 9:31Dylan: Yeah.
- 9:32Dylan: You know, looking specifically for it.
- 9:34Dylan: Uh-huh.
- 9:36Dylan: So while we were watching the credits, I pointed out something to you.
- 9:41Dylan: Yep.
- 9:41Dylan: There is somebody specifically casted as the shape.
- 9:45Joe: Really?
- 9:46Joe: I'm just kidding.
- 9:50Joe: Yep.
- 9:53Joe: So, um, wow.
- 9:56Joe: So there's a lot for for Michael Myers.
- 9:59Joe: Yeah.
- 9:59Joe: I'll just start with the the origin.
- 10:01Joe: So the origin of the name for Michael Myers is af named after a film distributor in London who had helped John Carpenter in his career, and he wanted to pay tribute to him.
- 10:15Dylan: Oh.
- 10:15Dylan: Right.
- 10:16Dylan: Yeah.
- 10:17Dylan: And I was totally waiting for you to say like they royally messed him over, yeah.
- 10:22Dylan: And like did him so dirty.
- 10:24Dylan: Yeah.
- 10:25Joe: Like Bruce the Lawyer or something.
- 10:27Joe: Right.
- 10:27Joe: Exactly.
- 10:28Joe: Yeah.
- 10:29Joe: No, it was actually, you know, and he was a little offended, but then understood that it was a, you know, that it was a tribute to him.
- 10:36Joe: Yeah.
- 10:37Joe: Um, so there were five different people who dressed as you know, the shape.
- 10:44Joe: Um, so Nick Castle, we'll talk more about him throughout the movie.
- 10:50Joe: There was Tony Moran during the unmasking.
- 10:54Joe: So the actual face of yeah, and then uh stuntman James Winburne, um, production designer Tommy Lee Wallace.
- 11:03Joe: Um and then it said due to his knowledge of how much force would need to break props during action shots in a single take.
- 11:15Joe: So he protected the uh props.
- 11:19Joe: Um, and then co-writer, co-producer Deborah Hill, uh in the external wide shot when Tommy sees the shape for the first time.
- 11:30Joe: Uh, and then she also played young Myers in the killing scene.
- 11:35Joe: Oh so she had she was the only one who had small hands, yeah.
- 11:39Joe: It was too late for like the kids to be working when they shot it.
- 11:43Joe: Oh and so they had to she had to do that, and that's why like you know, you see that point of view shot, but it's these, you know, yeah.
- 11:52Joe: So um, so yeah, totally did the stabbing and all that kind of stuff.
- 11:59Dylan: Um and that's such an interesting way to introduce the character is to have that first, you know, that first person view of him like creeping around outside, yeah, and then like going to the kitchen and like opening the drawer and grabbing the knife out.
- 12:18Joe: Yeah, yeah, it it's it's such a great setup.
- 12:22Joe: Um, so Nick Castle was a schoolmate of uh John Carpenter's at USC, and he asked if he could stick around the set and hang out and watch and take notes because he was learning to be a director and everything.
- 12:38Joe: And so Carpenter said, Well, if you're gonna be around, why don't you do something?
- 12:43Joe: So he ended up giving uh Nick Castle the part of Michael Myers.
- 12:50Joe: Yeah, we need a Michael Myers.
- 12:52Joe: Why don't you just right?
- 12:54Joe: Yeah, might as well, yeah.
- 12:56Joe: We'll call it an internship.
- 13:00Joe: No, he actually made money off of this film.
- 13:03Joe: I think it was$20 a day.
- 13:05Joe: Yeah.
- 13:06Dylan: Wow.
- 13:08Dylan: Um, and how much money did this movie make over on a bajillion?
- 13:13Dylan: Right.
- 13:14Joe: Um, so he asked, like, okay, what is what is you know, because he was an actor too, so he was like, what is my motivation for this character?
- 13:22Joe: Like, I'm kind of thinking maybe he should go in this direction.
- 13:26Joe: And John Carpenter said, just walk.
- 13:32Joe: So he, you know, I mean, he plays him kind of like a mime because that's his only, you know, direction and stuff.
- 13:39Joe: Um, he also played Myers in the rain scene, so the guy on top of the car and everything.
- 13:44Joe: He he played him.
- 13:46Joe: Um so then going into kind of the face of it all, um the production designer had two options uh at at like he based they basically had such a low budget that they couldn't even get masks made.
- 14:05Joe: Okay.
- 14:05Joe: And it would cost too much.
- 14:07Joe: Um, and so they went to a Halloween store and picked out different masks.
- 14:13Joe: And the the two that they picked out was a clown mask, um, which was an Emmett Cali mask, uh clown mask.
- 14:24Joe: Um he is sort of like Hobo kind of clown.
- 14:30Joe: Okay, yeah.
- 14:30Joe: Um, and the the actual mask is reminiscent of the mask that the Joker wore in the first scene of the Dark Knight.
- 14:37Dylan: Okay.
- 14:38Dylan: Yeah.
- 14:39Joe: So I could imagine Michael Myers being that, you know, how how that would look like.
- 14:45Dylan: So much worse.
- 14:47Dylan: You know what?
- 14:48Joe: They said it was.
- 14:49Joe: So uh and then the other option was a Star Trek William Shatner mask.
- 14:55Joe: Oh yeah.
- 14:57Joe: So the mask is actually a William Shatner mask, and they um they painted it white.
- 15:06Joe: Yeah, they took off the eyebrows, they opened up the eye eyeball, you know, so they could see through.
- 15:13Joe: Uh, and they modified it enough that you couldn't tell.
- 15:17Joe: Yeah.
- 15:18Joe: Yeah.
- 15:21Joe: Um so then yeah, he's referred to as it, the evil, and the shape.
- 15:30Joe: And uh John Carpenter deliberately wanted to strip away Michael's humanity and just keep it to like not saying Michael all the time, but saying, you know, it or the evil, you know, the evil has escaped, or you know, the shape.
- 15:48Joe: Um, I mean, he's even called the boogeyman several times.
- 15:52Joe: Yeah.
- 15:53Dylan: And that almost makes it so much scarier because the movie doesn't explain him and it doesn't talk about him.
- 16:02Joe: Yeah.
- 16:03Joe: Yeah.
- 16:04Dylan: It's just so you just yeah, you get the kind of the you know, the free reign to just come up with all the scenarios like in your head then.
- 16:12Dylan: Yeah.
- 16:13Joe: You could have any backstory, yeah.
- 16:16Joe: Like why he's like that, and you know.
- 16:22Dylan: Alright.
- 16:23Dylan: So you have Lori Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis.
- 16:28Dylan: Yep.
- 16:29Dylan: When she first appeared on screen and like talked, I was like, man, it's just such a recognizable voice.
- 16:36Joe: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely.
- 16:38Joe: She's done so much.
- 16:39Joe: Yeah.
- 16:40Joe: Uh, and this was her breakout film.
- 16:43Joe: Um and so like John Carpenter considered hiring her as the ultimate tribute to Alfred Hitchcock.
- 16:54Joe: Oh, yeah, who had um her mother, Janet Lee, uh was the lead in psycho.
- 17:03Joe: Oh so like whenever you see that uh shot of the you know knife coming down and lady in the shower, that's yeah, that's her mom.
- 17:13Joe: Wow, yeah, and her her dad was Tony Curtis.
- 17:17Joe: Um, he's been in all kinds of stuff, yeah.
- 17:20Joe: Um so that was kind of the ultimate thing, and then Dr.
- 17:24Joe: Sam Loomis was named after Sam Loomis from Psycho.
- 17:28Joe: Um so let's see.
- 17:36Joe: She didn't see herself as like this virgin that she was in the in the movie, and and was surprised that she was even cast for for that part, yeah, because she was a lot more like the other girls.
- 17:54Joe: She she said she was like the smart alec of the group, and and so it was it was surprising, but yeah, she thought she didn't even know if she did well, like she thought she did horrible on the first day, yeah.
- 18:07Joe: And she got a phone call from John Carpenter, and he was like, You did a great job, and you know, and all that, and she was just like, What?
- 18:16Joe: So it all worked out.
- 18:20Joe: Um, so then they shot the movie out of sequence because they had to do certain parts at certain times.
- 18:28Joe: And uh John Carpenter created a fear meter so that Jamie Lee Curtis would know what level of terror she would be exhibiting.
- 18:37Joe: Oh, yeah.
- 18:38Joe: Because she was, you know, you weren't sure what scene they were in and and all that kind of thing.
- 18:43Joe: And she even had so much fun with it that you you kind of notice uh if you look back, the jump scare after she gets past the hedges and it's the it's the sheriff, she actually holds her mouth back because she's laughing.
- 19:00Joe: Oh yeah, it's uh it's kind of a quick you know blink if you miss it kind of thing.
- 19:06Joe: Yeah.
- 19:07Joe: Um, yeah, so and she even said, in spite of her, you know, scream queen status, she said, I loathe horror movies, I don't like to be surprised.
- 19:20Joe: Yeah.
- 19:22Dylan: So next we have Dr.
- 19:24Joe: Sam Loomis, played by Donald Pleasant.
- 19:28Joe: And originally, um Chris Christopher Lee was uh the first choice, and he had done Dracula movies, he would go on to play Count Dooku and Star Wars and Saruman and Lord of the Rings.
- 19:42Joe: Yeah um, and he turned it down and said that was the worst uh mistake of his career.
- 19:49Joe: Yeah.
- 19:50Joe: I'm sure he would have played it up too.
- 19:53Joe: Like he's just a different character.
- 19:56Joe: Um so Donald Pleasance was cast for being uh a well-known actor, and he was in The Great Escape and uh some of the Bond films.
- 20:05Joe: Okay, played the villain.
- 20:07Joe: Nice, and then he he said he only did it because he had a um his his daughter had convinced him to do it, and he had like bills to pay.
- 20:18Joe: Oh yeah.
- 20:20Joe: An annulment that he had to pay for.
- 20:24Joe: Um and uh yeah, so that was kind of how he came about in the casting.
- 20:30Joe: Wow.
- 20:31Joe: And I'll you know, I'll say more later, but he was he was actually the name that brought people to the film.
- 20:38Dylan: Oh yeah.
- 20:40Dylan: Yeah, I thought he did I thought he did well.
- 20:43Dylan: There were definitely times where he did not play up the character as much as I kind of wanted to.
- 20:51Dylan: Yeah.
- 20:52Dylan: Because like he kept trying to convince everybody, you know, you do not understand how bad this is.
- 20:59Dylan: Yeah.
- 20:59Dylan: But then it's like nobody believed him.
- 21:01Dylan: Right.
- 21:02Dylan: Instead of like making them understand, he's just like, oh, whatever, I'll just go wander down the street.
- 21:10Dylan: Yeah, and see if somebody else believes me.
- 21:12Joe: Right.
- 21:15Dylan: So next we have Annie Brackett played by Nancy Keys.
- 21:22Dylan: That was such a funny character because it was just the stereotypical, you know, teenager babysitting, uh-huh, doesn't want to be babysitting.
- 21:34Dylan: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- 21:36Joe: It's like I gotta do this, like, you know.
- 21:39Dylan: Waiting for the kid to go to bed and then gonna invite the boyfriend over.
- 21:43Dylan: Right?
- 21:44Dylan: Yeah.
- 21:46Joe: Yeah, and she was the wife of the production designer, Tommy Lee Wallace, so she was a shoe-in to get that part.
- 21:53Joe: Oh, yeah.
- 21:56Dylan: Man, the scene of her Laying dead on the bed with the tombstone there.
- 22:06Dylan: What a great shot.
- 22:07Joe: Yeah, yeah.
- 22:09Joe: That's it's a pretty horror, you know, yes shot.
- 22:15Dylan: Yeah, and then you know, for for Lori to be like, you know, following all all over that room then finding bodies.
- 22:24Joe: Yeah, yeah, it's just crazy.
- 22:29Dylan: So speaking of bodies, we also have Lynn Linda Van Dirk Keok.
- 22:35Dylan: Keok?
- 22:36Dylan: Clock.
- 22:38Joe: I don't know.
- 22:38Dylan: I don't know.
- 22:41Dylan: Played by PJ Souls.
- 22:45Joe: Yep.
- 22:46Joe: Um so she had already been in Brian De Palma's slash Stephen King's Carrie.
- 22:55Joe: Oh yeah.
- 22:56Joe: Yeah, which is a huge horror film on its own.
- 22:59Joe: Okay.
- 23:00Joe: Yeah.
- 23:00Joe: That's a whole thing.
- 23:02Joe: And uh she was dating Dennis Quaid at the time and tried to get her tried to get him on the film as well, but he was filming something else.
- 23:11Joe: So he was almost gonna be in there, which Dennis Quaid, you know, became a huge actor later on.
- 23:18Joe: Yeah.
- 23:19Joe: So but he was also in Jaws 3.
- 23:26Dylan: Is that the one with the holographic shark coming in?
- 23:29Joe: Yeah, exactly.
- 23:31SPEAKER_00: Coming soon.
- 23:35SPEAKER_00: Jaws.
- 23:38Dylan: So then you also have the sheriff uh played by Charles Slifers.
- 23:46Joe: Yep.
- 23:47Dylan: I thought it was so funny how when they were in the car smoking, yeah, and then they like pull up to him.
- 23:56Dylan: Right.
- 23:56Dylan: And then roll down the windows.
- 23:58Dylan: Yeah.
- 23:59Dylan: There's no way.
- 24:00Joe: Right.
- 24:00Joe: There's no way.
- 24:02Joe: Like, if you're any kind of cop, if you're any, if you do security, if you're a mall cop, you would know that smell.
- 24:09Dylan: If you have stepped foot outside your house, you know that smell.
- 24:14Dylan: Yeah.
- 24:15Dylan: Honestly.
- 24:16Joe: Yep.
- 24:18Joe: Especially the neighborhood I used to live in.
- 24:20Joe: Oh boy.
- 24:24Dylan: But yeah, and then the the big jump scare with Jamie Luke Curtis.
- 24:30Dylan: Yeah.
- 24:31Joe: It's so perfect.
- 24:32Joe: It's so perfect.
- 24:33Joe: And he just laughs at her and is like, yeah.
- 24:38Dylan: I totally thought he was going to play a bigger part in this movie.
- 24:42Joe: Yeah.
- 24:43Joe: I thought I thought like Loomis and the Sheriff were gonna be like hunting him down.
- 24:48Joe: Yeah.
- 24:49Joe: You know, and it's really like, okay, I guess I'll go over here.
- 24:53Joe: Right.
- 24:54Dylan: You go check all the backs of the houses.
- 24:56Dylan: I'll go just walk down the street.
- 24:57Dylan: Yeah.
- 24:58Joe: Exactly.
- 24:59Dylan: No way to contact each other.
- 25:00Dylan: Yeah.
- 25:01Dylan: Yeah.
- 25:05Dylan: Never split the party.
- 25:07Joe: Yeah.
- 25:07Joe: You never.
- 25:09Dylan: So then you also have Tommy Doyle played by Brian Andrews.
- 25:15Joe: Yep.
- 25:16Joe: The the guys were harder to pinpoint who they were than, you know.
- 25:21Joe: Yeah.
- 25:22Joe: Because they only show them a couple times and all of a sudden they're one of them's hanging off a wall.
- 25:28Dylan: Right?
- 25:29Dylan: Yeah.
- 25:31Dylan: The that shot though was so good.
- 25:34Dylan: Yeah.
- 25:34Dylan: With him pinned to the wall with the knife.
- 25:37Dylan: Yeah.
- 25:38Dylan: I was totally expecting him to um, you know, be hanging there when Lori came in the door and then wasn't.
- 25:49Dylan: Yeah.
- 25:50Dylan: And I was like, ooh, what happened?
- 25:53Joe: Where did he go?
- 25:54Joe: Yeah.
- 25:56Joe: Yeah.
- 25:56Joe: That and that shot too was like one shot was done on a box, you know, as he lifted him up.
- 26:02Joe: Yeah.
- 26:03Joe: Kind of just kind of bent up.
- 26:04Joe: Yeah.
- 26:05Joe: And then and then the next shot was like a pull away, and he was kind of like hanging up and dangling his feet.
- 26:12Joe: Yeah.
- 26:12Joe: Yeah.
- 26:13Joe: And uh it just looks so perfect.
- 26:15Joe: Yes.
- 26:19Dylan: And then also with that scene too of Michael Myers like wearing the the sheet with his glasses.
- 26:28Joe: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 26:30Joe: But after he what's so like creepy is after he he stabs him and how he moves his head.
- 26:38Dylan: Yeah.
- 26:39Dylan: You know, oh man, he just sits there and watches him.
- 26:42Joe: Yeah.
- 26:43Dylan: Because you totally expect it to like move right along.
- 26:47Joe: Yeah.
- 26:47Joe: Right.
- 26:47Dylan: And then it just sits on that scene.
- 26:49Dylan: Yeah.
- 26:50Dylan: And he's just sitting there watching it.
- 26:52Dylan: Yeah.
- 26:53Dylan: You're like, that makes you so uneasy.
- 26:56Dylan: Yeah.
- 26:57Dylan: Yeah.
- 26:57Joe: And then yeah, after after that, he comes up as a ghost.
- 27:01Joe: Yeah.
- 27:02Dylan: Joe, I think this might be one of your biggest music segments.
- 27:07Joe: Yeah.
- 27:07Joe: Yeah.
- 27:09Joe: Huge.
- 27:10Joe: Totally huge.
- 27:14Joe: Um three seconds.
- 27:16Joe: But John Carpenter had three days to put the music together.
- 27:20Joe: Yeah.
- 27:20Joe: He was the composer, director, and composer um of the movie.
- 27:26Joe: Uh his dad had taught him like bongo drums.
- 27:30Joe: Yeah.
- 27:31Joe: And taught him 5'4 5'4 rhythm.
- 27:34Joe: And so he decided to use that and do octaves on the piano.
- 27:40Joe: And it gave it an eerie feeling because music is traditionally 4-4.
- 27:46Joe: You know, one, two, three, four.
- 27:49Joe: And so that extra beat kind of messes with your psyche and gives you an uneasy feeling.
- 27:55Joe: Yeah.
- 27:56Joe: Because you feel like it's going to hit the beat and then it doesn't, and then it does.
- 28:00Joe: And then you're just like, so he thought it gave it an eerie feeling and and all that.
- 28:07Joe: And you know, the intro music when the movie starts to me is just like this eerie, kind of sad music, like melancholy but eerie at the same time.
- 28:18Joe: Yeah.
- 28:18Joe: You know.
- 28:19Joe: Um, and then like the funny thing is the only like pop song in it is um Don't Fear the Reaper.
- 28:28Joe: Yeah.
- 28:28Joe: And it's so cool the way they use it because they're they're driving and and Michael Myers comes right behind them.
- 28:35Joe: Yeah.
- 28:37Joe: It's almost like he's singing to them.
- 28:39Joe: Yeah.
- 28:39Joe: Right.
- 28:42Dylan: Man, for how long Michael Myers like follows them.
- 28:46Dylan: Uh-huh.
- 28:46Dylan: How could you not notice?
- 28:48Joe: Yeah.
- 28:49Joe: Yeah.
- 28:51Joe: Um, and then this can be considered the music category, but uh Jamie Lee Curtis admitted that she made up the just the two of us song that she sings um to herself at the beginning of the movie.
- 29:06Joe: Oh yeah.
- 29:07Joe: And then um I think it's Nancy who sings as well about Paul.
- 29:12Joe: Uh, she made that up as well.
- 29:14Joe: Yeah.
- 29:14Joe: So they just kind of made up music on the spot.
- 29:18Joe: Um and for music advice, if you ever do that, as cap it and and uh get the rights to that song because you will get residuals from that.
- 29:29Joe: Like I bet they wish they I mean Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty well off, but I bet they could have made more money off of their music.
- 29:36Joe: Right.
- 29:38Joe: Considering the limited amount of music that there was.
- 29:41Dylan: Yeah.
- 29:42Dylan: Yeah, with just how like minimal the main theme was and like how repetitive it is, yeah, truly.
- 29:53Dylan: Uh-huh.
- 29:54Dylan: Like, it's just like arguably one of the most recognizable horror themes ever written.
- 29:59Dylan: Oh, totally.
- 30:00Joe: Like, absolutely.
- 30:01Joe: Yeah.
- 30:02Joe: And it it's it goes back to that simplicity, you know?
- 30:06Joe: Because like you have the the Jaws theme that's just that, you know, da da da da, you know, and this is again, I mean, literally looking at it, it's three notes, it's like a C sharp and an F sharp and octaves, and then it goes to a major C and an F, and then it goes back to the sharps, and then it kind of plays with that.
- 30:30Joe: And so, you know, just to give it that simplicity, but at the same time, that meter gives you that yeah, because you want it to keep progressing and it just doesn't.
- 30:44Dylan: Yeah, this movie doesn't like try to scare you with what it shows you, but what it doesn't show you.
- 30:51Dylan: Yeah.
- 30:52Dylan: Like how we were talking before about how like how much of it is like in your head with like Michael's backstory, everything like that.
- 31:00SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 31:01Dylan: And so then, like, with that opening, you know, POV shot, uh-huh, you're expect like I was expecting that to be like full grown Michael already on the hunt.
- 31:15Dylan: Yeah, already on the hunt.
- 31:16Dylan: So then for yeah, for him to, you know, go down the stairs and out the front door and then like right up to the people, you know, driving the car.
- 31:24Dylan: Yeah, I'm like, okay, he's gonna stab them and take off.
- 31:27Dylan: Yeah.
- 31:27Dylan: And they're like, Michael, you know, pulls the mask off and it's just small child.
- 31:33Joe: Yeah.
- 31:34Joe: And and it's funny because you're like, why are they so nonchalant?
- 31:38Joe: Wouldn't they be right?
- 31:39Joe: Do they just not see them?
- 31:41Joe: And then you're like, oh, he's only like nine years old or whatever.
- 31:47Joe: Yeah.
- 31:49Joe: Um, so you mentioned about the babysitters and uh Erwin uh Joblins, who was uh writer and producer, um he his premise was a horror film surrounded around babysitters, so that you would be familiar with, you know, everybody's familiar with babysitters, so he's like, why don't we put them in a scenario?
- 32:14Joe: Um, and then he chose Halloween as the as the night because everybody kind of relates to that as well.
- 32:21Joe: Um and he said that no other movie at the time had the word Halloween in it.
- 32:28Joe: Oh really?
- 32:28Joe: Yeah, whether the title or because he was looking to see if, oh, do we need to find, you know, get rights for this?
- 32:35Joe: Do you know what do we need to do?
- 32:37Joe: And there's nothing uh, you know, Halloween.
- 32:40Joe: Wow, yeah.
- 32:41Joe: Um, and then John Carpenter um based it on his experience in college, uh, he toured a psychiatric hospital and he met a child who stared at him with a look of evil and it terrified him.
- 32:58Joe: Yeah, yeah.
- 33:00Joe: So that's kind of the real backstory for wow.
- 33:05Joe: Yeah.
- 33:06Joe: And then how they got it together.
- 33:09Joe: Uh Mustafa Akkad was an investor in several different movies.
- 33:17Joe: Um, and he was hesitant to you know, they went to him and they're like, Hey, you know, we need 300,000, we can get it done in three weeks or four weeks.
- 33:29Joe: Um, and then and they were like, he's like, Whoa, like he would get nervous if the money was too high, and he would get nervous if the money was too low.
- 33:38Joe: Oh, because the movie he was working on when they asked him, they were spending 300k a day.
- 33:44unknown: Wow.
- 33:46Joe: So he was like low budget film.
- 33:48Joe: I don't know if I want to do this because I don't know if it's gonna bring in a few years.
- 33:52Dylan: Is it gonna be some weird B tier right?
- 33:55Joe: Some shysters.
- 33:57Joe: But uh executive producer Ur Erwin Yablund uh tricked him and said, Well, maybe maybe Mustafa doesn't have three 300k, maybe it's too much for him.
- 34:12Joe: Let's look around for other investors.
- 34:14Joe: And he was like, No, wait, wait, wait.
- 34:16Joe: And he said yes, like right on the spot after that.
- 34:20Joe: So yeah.
- 34:22Joe: So, you know, there'll he so he was like, Yeah, if you get it done in four weeks and you know, you get it in this budget.
- 34:30Joe: Um, you know, uh John Carpenter ended up getting like 10% of everything and you know, getting lower fees so he can make more after that.
- 34:42Joe: He wasn't even sure if he was gonna make anything off of it.
- 34:44Joe: Yeah.
- 34:45Joe: Um, because it was just, yeah, they didn't know where what was gonna happen, you know.
- 34:51Joe: And so yeah, they went into it and um, you know, kind of went there.
- 34:57Joe: Um there's like the opening shot that POV that we talked about, um, you know, it's it's like there are cuts, but it it's so well put together, it feels like one shot.
- 35:14Joe: Yeah.
- 35:17Joe: Um, so like some of the techniques that they use, like um they use the uh for the point of view, they use the PanaVision glide camera, um which which is like a steady cam basically of what we know.
- 35:33Joe: And so literally it's somebody with a camera, and at the time it was like innovative to do this, but they're holding the camera and walking through the scene.
- 35:43Joe: Yeah, and you know, it's there's no it's like because it keeps it so steady, you don't get that shake, right?
- 35:51Joe: You know, and so it's just this floating entity feel of, you know.
- 35:57Joe: Um, and then so then to kind of continue with that feel of it, um at the end when they find Michael and they uh at the end of that scene when they find Michael and they take the mask off and he's just kind of standing there with that look, they use the crane shot to pull back and just kind of make it seem like you know, yeah.
- 36:17Dylan: Yeah, that just kept pulling back out of that shot.
- 36:19Joe: Yeah, it's like that whole that whole sequence is just great.
- 36:24Joe: Yeah.
- 36:25Joe: And then Carpenter will frequently let the audience see Michael before Lori does.
- 36:30Joe: Yeah.
- 36:32Joe: Um, one of the shots, too, that I was thinking of um when I think it's Nancy is doing um, you know, like she's in the kitchen and just has the shirt on or whatever.
- 36:45Joe: Like, there's one point where she's on the phone and she's like, she moves, and you can see behind, and by right through the door, he's standing right there.
- 36:55Joe: Yeah.
- 36:56Joe: And then she moves again and he's gone.
- 36:58Joe: And it's just like this.
- 37:02Joe: And so they just, you know, played with with all that kind of tension and stuff.
- 37:08Joe: And then that shot where um is it Lori, right?
- 37:13Joe: Um, she's like panicking and she's just like crying, and you know, she goes against the wall, and you just see you know emerging from the shadow.
- 37:26Joe: Yeah, just like that white face emerging.
- 37:29Joe: They played with the exposure of the camera.
- 37:32Joe: Yeah.
- 37:33Joe: And so they they they made it seem like you were able to see in the dark more, you know, like when your vision kind of so they kept it really dark and then opened up the exposure of the cameras so that you would get more light in, and then he just fills out so he didn't even step forward into that shot.
- 37:54Joe: No, he just stood there and they changed the exposure so that it seemed like yeah, whoa, and they didn't have a lighting budget, so they had to do stuff like that all over the place, yeah.
- 38:07Joe: Yeah, yeah.
- 38:09Dylan: Well, and like just with how they use kind of the negative space around their you know, main cast.
- 38:17Dylan: Oh, yeah, and you're just I you know felt like I was always just sitting there like scanning the background, like instead of watching the person talking.
- 38:29Dylan: Yeah, yeah, because that's just like where's he at?
- 38:32Dylan: Like you just know waiting.
- 38:34Dylan: Yeah.
- 38:35Joe: And there's like different rules for photography and and you know, doing um cinematography.
- 38:42Joe: And he uses like a three-split rule where you know, Lori's at the end on the you know, if you look at one frame, she's on the right side and the rest of it is is space, yeah, you know, and he uses that to kind of bring that tension, you know.
- 38:57Joe: Just like the more you know about filming, the better it gets because you just know how to trick people and yeah.
- 39:08Dylan: But I think it's also one of those things that I feel like pop culture kind of lies about this movie.
- 39:15Dylan: Because uh, compared like with the slashers that we have now, oh yeah, this movie is not especially graphic.
- 39:24Dylan: Yeah, totally kind of went the opposite way that I was expecting it to go.
- 39:30Dylan: Right.
- 39:30Dylan: Because there's I mean, very relatively very little blood.
- 39:34Dylan: Uh-huh.
- 39:35Dylan: And um, you know, when he cut how many people's throats?
- 39:40Dylan: Yeah.
- 39:40Dylan: And you know, if they did that now, it was, you know, would be fountain of blood, yeah, spraying every window in the car.
- 39:47Dylan: Right.
- 39:48Dylan: Versus, you know, there it was like, oh, just you know, sc scraping down the side of the door panel then.
- 39:56Dylan: Yeah.
- 39:57Dylan: But yeah, it definitely went that suspenseful over gore route.
- 40:03Joe: Yeah.
- 40:04Joe: Yeah, it definitely is not just not as like I consider this more of a thriller or a suspense than it is actually like what people consider nowadays as horror because it's so light on some of the things, and it really doesn't all come out till the end, you know.
- 40:26Joe: Yeah, it's just there's a lot of playing with the jump scare stuff at the beginning in the yeah, I know.
- 40:35Joe: Which is crazy because it's not like graphic, it doesn't have like it's just the fact that things are building up and you're just like, what's going on?
- 40:45Dylan: I had my protective blanket on though, so I was safe.
- 40:48Dylan: Yeah, exactly.
- 40:51Joe: I had my Mountain Dew on the side.
- 40:55Dylan: Yeah, but I mean, I just expected this movie to be way gorier than it actually turned out to be.
- 41:04Joe: Yeah, and I forgot how gory it wasn't, you know.
- 41:11Joe: I'm like, oh.
- 41:13Joe: I was kind of hesitant to even rewatch it because and you know, with certain movies, I won't have my wife in the room and I'll wait till she's gone so I can watch something because I don't want her watching stuff that you know is that it's gonna be a good one.
- 41:26Joe: Yeah, if she doesn't like it, yeah.
- 41:28Joe: And so I'm watching and I'm like, huh.
- 41:32Joe: This is not where's the rest of that?
- 41:36Joe: This is like an episode of Psych or something.
- 41:43Dylan: All right, Joe.
- 41:44Dylan: So what are some of your favorite scenes?
- 41:48Joe: It's a dumb scene, but when when the boys go over to the the Myers house and and Loomis is back there going, hey, you know.
- 41:59Dylan: Yeah, just to get him to go away.
- 42:01Joe: Yeah, yeah.
- 42:03Joe: It's like, I don't know, and to me, it showed some a different side of his character, you know, like he's not all like panicky and stuff, like he actually cares, yeah.
- 42:13Joe: And he you know, he was doing that to protect those kids, but at the same time, it was like a joke to him, yeah.
- 42:19Joe: Right.
- 42:22Joe: Uh I think when uh when uh the girls were walking down the street and she yells out speed kills and the car just stops, yeah.
- 42:32SPEAKER_04: And they're like, does he not have a sense of humor?
- 42:38SPEAKER_04: Totally.
- 42:41Dylan: Yeah, just like what got me like right off the bat, yeah, was when Michael was watching Lori from across the street, like in the school, because it just it just like you know, she looks outside and you get that POV, yeah, and it's just him standing there behind the car.
- 43:01Joe: You're like oh yeah, or when she's in the house, um, and she's looking down and looking at the like the laundry and the wind, and he's just standing there.
- 43:10Dylan: Oh my goodness.
- 43:14Dylan: Um I really liked how they held back Lori seeing Michael because even the kid that she's babysitting was like the boogeyman's across the street.
- 43:29Dylan: Yeah, yeah.
- 43:30Dylan: And then she like you know, goes and looks and is like, there's nobody there.
- 43:34Dylan: Yeah.
- 43:34Dylan: Yeah.
- 43:36Dylan: Like such a classic trope, but it just it just works.
- 43:41Joe: Right, it does, it does.
- 43:42Joe: And it might be classic because of this movie, I don't know.
- 43:45Joe: Maybe.
- 43:49Joe: Um, yeah, you mentioned the Lori discovering the bodies.
- 43:53Joe: Um, that that is a freaky kind of, you know, it just all hits at the same time.
- 43:58Dylan: Yeah.
- 44:00Dylan: And it just has that like long tracking shot of just of her, you know, discovering them.
- 44:07Dylan: So but yeah, um, and then we were talking earlier about the head tilt after he kills Bob.
- 44:16Joe: Yeah.
- 44:17Joe: I think that's from what I've heard, that's most people's favorite is the head tilt.
- 44:22Joe: Yeah.
- 44:23Joe: And and even all of that, like uh I pointed this out, but it's just so funny how she throws away the knife and then he comes back, and then it's she throws it away again, and I'm like, why did you do that?
- 44:36Joe: Like, you did it the first time.
- 44:38Dylan: Did you not learn Did you not learn your lesson?
- 44:42Dylan: And then that shot of him like after he gets stabbed from the closet, yeah, and he's laying on his back on the floor, uh-huh, and then he just like sits up and just turns his head.
- 44:53Dylan: Yeah, and I'm like, that's just so mechanical looking.
- 44:57Dylan: It just takes all of the human out of it.
- 45:00Dylan: Yeah, it's just so robotic or so like and then Loomis shooting Michael.
- 45:09Dylan: Yeah.
- 45:10Dylan: Michael falls off the second story balcony, yeah.
- 45:14Dylan: Yeah, and then he, you know, Loomis looks and he's just laying there, look, you know, looks away, yeah, and then looks back and he's gone.
- 45:25Dylan: Yeah.
- 45:26Joe: They filmed that twice, and he gave two reactions, and one was like, Oh, I knew this was gonna happen, and other and the other reaction was, oh no, where'd he go?
- 45:38Joe: And they ended up using the kind of oh, I knew this was gonna happen.
- 45:42Joe: Yeah, you know.
- 45:44Joe: So it's just yeah, you never know how things are gonna end.
- 45:50Joe: And they definitely didn't um set it up for a sequel or anything, like it was just they wanted to leave it, you know, ambiguous or you know, just kind of leave the story hanging, um, because they didn't know, yeah.
- 46:04Joe: Right.
- 46:06Dylan: Well, yeah, and like if you didn't get sequels from it, it would just be so suspenseful, and you're like, what an ending.
- 46:14Dylan: Yeah, and then if you did get sequels from it, you're like, well, obviously it was set up for it.
- 46:19Dylan: Yeah, yeah.
- 46:20Dylan: All right, Joe, so let's get into some behind-the-scenes nuggets.
- 46:25Joe: Hmm.
- 46:27Joe: Well, so the film was done in the spring, and what it was done in the spring.
- 46:36Joe: Oh, not only that, it wasn't in Illinois, it was done in South Pasadena, and so it was difficult to find pumpkins at that time, yeah.
- 46:49Joe: And they were only able to find three actual orange pumpkins.
- 46:53Joe: So the scene where the one is broken, the kid gets pushed down.
- 46:59Joe: They had one shot to do that, yeah.
- 47:01Joe: Like it was one take because it was like, we're gonna destroy this pumpkin and we're done.
- 47:05Joe: Yeah.
- 47:07Joe: Um, and so then the green the crew later got another type of green pumpkin and painted them orange so that they Oh yeah.
- 47:16Joe: Yeah.
- 47:18Joe: So it's like orange or uh green carved pumpkins to make them look like it's Halloween.
- 47:26Joe: Um the budget, you know, I mentioned was initially uh 300,000.
- 47:33Joe: Yeah.
- 47:34Joe: And uh John Carpenter had to go back to Mustafa and say, hey, you know, we want to get Don Donald Pleasant, and that brought it up to 320.
- 47:47Joe: Oh yeah.
- 47:49Joe: Since he was the name in the film and they wanted him, the he brought it up.
- 47:54Joe: Yeah, then he was like the main draw for it.
- 47:56Joe: Yeah, he was like, okay, that's fine.
- 47:59Joe: You know.
- 48:00Joe: Um John Carpenter had showed Halloween to an executive before it was finished without the music, and the executive didn't find it to be scary at all.
- 48:10Dylan: Oh, yeah.
- 48:11Joe: However, after the film was released, she watched it again and changed her mind.
- 48:17Joe: Oh it it you know, Carpenter's score added so much to the atmosphere, and you know, uh producer Erwin Joblins uh confirmed this by saying while watching the movie in theaters, audience members would regularly block their ears with their hands because the sound and music were so scary.
- 48:39Joe: Oh yeah.
- 48:41Joe: It's like piano and synthesizer, you never know what you're gonna get.
- 48:45Joe: Right.
- 48:47Joe: Um, like I said, parts were filmed in South Pasadena, and this is a little for my family in California, but at downtown Sierra Madre, uh at downtown Sierra Madre area, uh at the cross streets of Baldwin and Sierra Madre, there's actually a restaurant we like to go called Casa del Rey over there.
- 49:08Joe: Okay.
- 49:09Joe: Um, and it was shot right there.
- 49:10Joe: Uh and there were parts shot in Hollywood as well, and they had to shoot around palm trees to make it look less Californian.
- 49:21Joe: Um, they they brought uh fake leaves uh on the set because it was you know it was spring, it wasn't fall, so they had to make it look more like fall.
- 49:32Joe: Yeah, and so they blew they would blow these leaves, and then guys would the crew would come back and rake the leaves up, put them back in a bag so they could use them for another scene.
- 49:42Joe: Use them again.
- 49:43Dylan: Wow.
- 49:45Joe: Uh graveyard scene was in Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery.
- 49:50Joe: Um so then John Carpenter had done a movie called Assault on Precinct 13.
- 49:58Joe: Um, because he could do it in three weeks and do the music.
- 50:01Joe: Um, he got to do the movie and he got 10% of the Halloween profits.
- 50:07SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 50:08Joe: Um Erwin had a hard time getting distribution.
- 50:13Joe: So the CEO of the um you know production company that they're working for at the time had done some work with Paramount and had done some favors.
- 50:23Joe: So they Paramount picked them up for limited distribution.
- 50:27Joe: Oh, yeah.
- 50:28Joe: It's like when you know people, right?
- 50:31Joe: You know.
- 50:32Joe: Um Mustafa Akkad um kept going on all on making the franchise uh continue.
- 50:41Joe: And when it he said when it got to like part three, he came back to be more on the creative side because he wanted to preserve the original kind of thing behind it.
- 50:53Joe: Uh I feel like I want to go watch part three right away because it I feel like from what I remember it was such a different take, like had nothing to do with like it had things to do with Halloween, yeah, but not Michael Myers.
- 51:07Joe: Interesting.
- 51:08Joe: Yeah.
- 51:08Joe: So um to ensure Michael Myers would break the window of the station wagon um as Dr.
- 51:15Joe: Loomis approaches.
- 51:16Joe: Um a wrench was adhered to uh his forearm and hand, and then it was painted a flesh color, but you could still kind of see it in the oh yeah.
- 51:31Dylan: I kind of noticed, yeah.
- 51:37Joe: Right, yeah, yeah.
- 51:38Joe: It was it was interesting.
- 51:40Joe: I was like, what's on his hand?
- 51:42Joe: Um so he uh Donald Pleasance did all his scenes and only five days of shooting.
- 51:49Joe: Uh the total duration of his scenes was just over 18 minutes.
- 51:53Joe: Wow.
- 51:54Joe: 18 minutes for$20,000 in 1978.
- 51:58Joe: That's crazy.
- 51:59Joe: Um according to the crew, Pleasance had consumed two bottles of wine before doing the scene where he and nurse are talking about Michael in the car.
- 52:10Joe: No wonder she was driving.
- 52:14Joe: Uh John Carpenter was worried that he would be uh incomprehensible and had a talk with the actor beforehand.
- 52:22Joe: And to the crew's amazement, Pleasant pulled it off.
- 52:28Dylan: That's crazy.
- 52:28Dylan: Because yeah, you would totally be like, this guy's drank two bottles of wine.
- 52:33Dylan: Like, we're not gonna get anything from him.
- 52:35Joe: Right.
- 52:37Joe: Uh John Carpenter told the production designer Tommy Lee Wallace to go out and find a government-looking car to be used by Dr.
- 52:46Joe: Loomis.
- 52:47Dylan: Um and so I think it was used more by Michael than the doctor.
- 52:53Joe: Well, yeah.
- 52:54Joe: So Wallace went to the nearest car rental agency, and it in 1976 Ford LTD station wagon was the only car uh there that looked apart.
- 53:04Joe: Wallace rented it for two weeks, installing a wire mesh divider between the front and rear seats and slapping Illinois uh state decals on the front doors.
- 53:16Joe: Uh Carpenter loved it, and the car rental agency had no idea of the of the LTD's use in the film.
- 53:23Joe: Yeah.
- 53:24Joe: Which is crazy because it's probably like a you know historic movie car that was for writing.
- 53:31Dylan: It's like the DeLorean.
- 53:33Dylan: I was gonna say Enterprise is gonna be so upset about that.
- 53:35Dylan: Right, right.
- 53:37Joe: They're like, rent our cards for movies.
- 53:39Joe: Go ahead.
- 53:39Joe: Right.
- 53:41Joe: Um Tommy and Lori are watching The Thing from Another World, which is in 1951, and John Carpenter would go on to remake the thing.
- 53:53Joe: Um yeah, John Carpenter purposely took a restrained, suggestive approach with the gore in the movie.
- 54:01Joe: He learned his lesson with his movie Assault on uh precinct 13 when he killed off Kim Richards' character and the audience wound up hating him.
- 54:11Joe: Oh so producer Erwin Yablons also assisted that very little blood be used because he was a fan of radio plays where all the horror happens in the audience's mind.
- 54:24Joe: And I'm sure that had to do with budget as well.
- 54:27Joe: Right.
- 54:28Joe: Um, the the Myers House was an abandoned building.
- 54:32Joe: Um the filmmakers found in South Pasadena.
- 54:36Joe: Oh, yeah, it became a chiropractor's office and later a monumental building uh housing a museum dedicated to Halloween.
- 54:44Joe: Oh, nice, and they shot the film out of sequence, so um the the crew came back.
- 54:53Joe: So initially the house was beat up and ugly, and so then the crew came back, uh, including like Jamie Lee Curtis and everybody else, made the house look brand new and pretty, and then shot the the first scene.
- 55:07Joe: So the first scene is the last scene shot in the movie.
- 55:12Joe: Um it was voted the fifth scariest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
- 55:19Joe: Um William Shatner didn't find out till years later that a mask bearing his likeness was used to make Michael Myers' mask.
- 55:27Joe: Yeah.
- 55:28Joe: He sued for past royalties and they settled out of court.
- 55:33Dylan: So you don't even realize that that's your masks slash your face being used.
- 55:40Dylan: Yeah.
- 55:40Dylan: And then you're like, oh, well, in that case, give me money.
- 55:44Joe: Right, right.
- 55:45Dylan: Slow your role here.
- 55:46Joe: Exactly.
- 55:47Joe: Yeah, it's like, well, Casey Shimashko never sued, you know, uh for that.
- 55:53Joe: I mean, I still think he has a case, but um so but ironically, he or you know, Shatner ended up donating the settlement to charity, so it was just to make a point.
- 56:07Joe: Oh, uh Jamie Lee Curtis's wardrobe was all bought at JCPenney's for only a hundred dollars.
- 56:17Joe: Because they wanted all the all the outfits to look like they all belong together.
- 56:21Joe: Yeah.
- 56:24Dylan: To cap off our spooky season, we did The Lost Boys, which is our vampires.
- 56:30Dylan: Yes, did Ghostbusters 2, our supernatural, uh, Knight of the Living Dead, our bleak zombie horror.
- 56:40Joe: Yeah, yeah.
- 56:41Joe: It's the it's the emo of the movies.
- 56:44Joe: Right.
- 56:46Dylan: Of course, we cap it off with Halloween, which is our suspense slash slasher horror.
- 56:56Dylan: Would you say that this one is our scariest of so far?
- 57:00Joe: Yeah.
- 57:01Joe: Uh yeah.
- 57:01Dylan: I'd say so.
- 57:02Joe: I say so.
- 57:03Joe: Even though, yeah, even though it compared to even Thriller from Michael Jackson, it's not as scary.
- 57:12Joe: But yeah.
- 57:15Dylan: Man, this movie it really does kind of give that Halloween atmosphere, though.
- 57:22Joe: Yeah.
- 57:23Joe: After seeing it again after years, I'm like, this is why it's such a classic.
- 57:30Dylan: Yeah.
- 57:33Dylan: So how do you feel like it kind of compares to Night of the Living Dead?
- 57:39Dylan: Because I think that's kind of, you know, out of what we watched, yeah, that's kind of what it most compares to.
- 57:46Joe: Yeah.
- 57:47Joe: I mean, he he sort of zombified in a way.
- 57:52Joe: Yeah.
- 57:54Joe: It's it's interesting because there is an outtake, like a scene from the TV version where he explains more of Michael's um psyche and all that, and and says that he is he's observed him having cold calculated decisions.
- 58:16Joe: Um so that was it was an interesting thing to hear because I'm like, yeah, I mean, maybe he is playing, maybe he is acting like he's that way and he's really not.
- 58:27SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but we'll never know.
- 58:31Joe: No, I'm sure all the sequels have all the backstory.
- 58:35Joe: Right.
- 58:37Joe: There is one scene in particular that it felt like Night of the Living Dead, and I said this to my wife when it was on.
- 58:45Joe: Um, when Lori goes to the house and trying to get the kid to open the door, it feels like we're where he's trying to get in the house and the other guy's not wanting to open the door for him.
- 58:59Joe: Yeah, you know, and it's like I felt the same way.
- 59:01Joe: Like, if I was Lori, I would have slapped that kid for taking his time.
- 59:05Joe: You know.
- 59:09SPEAKER_00: Like, what are you thinking?
- 59:11Joe: And then he's like questioning her and like, you know, like, didn't you like five minutes ago just believe in the boogeyman?
- 59:18Joe: I'm telling you, he's literally on the other side of the door, and you're not listening to me, right?
- 59:26Dylan: Uh I told you nothing bad was gonna happen.
- 59:29Dylan: I'm still trying to make that happen, but work with me here.
- 59:32Dylan: Right.
- 59:32Dylan: Yeah.
- 59:34Dylan: Yeah.
- 59:37Dylan: So, how much of the horror after 1978 owes something to this movie?
- 59:44Joe: I think there's quite a bit still.
- 59:46Joe: Yeah, it it might not have been like the um, you know, the invention of the slasher movie, but it definitely I would say perfected it in some ways, you know.
- 59:59Dylan: The masked killer.
- 1:00:00Joe: Yeah, yeah.
- 1:00:02Joe: I mean, you know, you look at Friday the 13th and uh, you know, all those other movies where it's this like aimless kind of being going after the, you know, not a zombie but different, you know.
- 1:00:16Dylan: Um creature adjacent.
- 1:00:18Joe: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- 1:00:20Joe: Yeah, it it just definitely there's a lot of um kind of things from like the movie Scream where they talk about all these like cliches of a horror movie, you know.
- 1:00:33Joe: Uh if if kids are you know messing around in the bedroom as it were, then they're gonna get killed.
- 1:00:41Joe: Like it sets it all up, you know, those types of uh tropes of of horror, yeah.
- 1:00:50Joe: And they didn't really mean to set it up that way, they just thought, you know, they're kids and they have the reign of the house and babysitters will do what they do.
- 1:01:02Dylan: And Chaos and Zeus.
- 1:01:03Dylan: Yeah, exactly.
- 1:01:07Dylan: But yeah, it's it's just crazy like just how much of the success from this movie goes to influence kind of the formula of slashers.
- 1:01:19Joe: Oh yeah.
- 1:01:20Dylan: And then like with the franchise itself, what you have sequels and reboots and alternates and remakes.
- 1:01:31Joe: Like H20 came out in the 90s, and I was like, there's a 20th sequel.
- 1:01:40Joe: Like, wow, this guy does not die.
- 1:01:45Joe: He's like he's like 70, still going after Jamie Lee Curtis.
- 1:01:49Joe: Right.
- 1:01:51Joe: She's probably I don't know, I wonder how old she is now.
- 1:01:57Dylan: Yeah, we'll have to have a extra spooky Patreon episode of just you explaining the Halloween timeline.
- 1:02:08Dylan: Be scarier than the movies themselves.
- 1:02:10Dylan: Right.
- 1:02:11Joe: At the beginning I asked what you thought Michael Myers was before seeing Halloween.
- 1:02:17Joe: After finally watching the original, was the Michael Myers in your head anything like the shape?
- 1:02:27Dylan: I mean, because it really you know, Michael Myers versus the shape is it kind of is like the difference between the man and the myth.
- 1:02:38Dylan: Yeah.
- 1:02:39Dylan: You know?
- 1:02:39Dylan: Uh-huh.
- 1:02:40Dylan: So it I think of what I thought of like Michael Myers, yeah.
- 1:02:50Dylan: Definitely is the shape more than the man.
- 1:02:55Dylan: Yeah.
- 1:02:56Dylan: So it was definitely definitely interesting to see like how they wrapped that all into one, though.
- 1:03:04Joe: Yeah, yeah.
- 1:03:05Joe: They definitely, I mean, they had had they really had a good way of starting the story off with those two kind of ideas and putting them together and you know, being a slasher babysitter movie, but also the kid that turned into Michael Myers.
- 1:03:24Dylan: Alright, so I think for a rating, I would probably have to give this movie an eight.
- 1:03:32Joe: Yeah.
- 1:03:33Dylan: It's just such a good watch.
- 1:03:36Dylan: Yeah.
- 1:03:37Dylan: Easily would be on the you know, rewatch list every year for Halloween.
- 1:03:42Dylan: Yeah, yeah.
- 1:03:43Joe: It's you know, right there next to the great pumpkin, but but it definitely, yeah, it's a it's yeah, it's a rewatch for me.
- 1:03:56Joe: Yeah.
- 1:03:57Dylan: So Joe, is Halloween still scary to you?
- 1:04:02Joe: Jump scary.
- 1:04:03Joe: Yeah.
- 1:04:04Joe: But not like gory scary.
- 1:04:07Dylan: Not not keep you up at night scary.
- 1:04:09Dylan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 1:04:10Dylan: Like I said, that's exactly how I would phrase that.
- 1:04:13Joe: Yeah, you can see some worse things on CSI or something.
- 1:04:17Dylan: Right.
- 1:04:18Dylan: Have you watched a single episode of Bones?
- 1:04:21Dylan: Yeah.
- 1:04:51SPEAKER_00: What is this Binions cover?
- 1:04:58SPEAKER_00: Banana.
- 1:05:01Dylan: This is a roll credit studio production.