DAY 13HALLOWEEN on screen

If you live in the New York City area, don't miss a chance to see the original HALLOWEEN on the big screen at midnight this weekend at Landmark's SUNSHINE CINEMAS.  Details and tickets here.

It doesn't look like Fathom Events will be doing anything Nationwide, but check your local listings by next week for possible locations at an Independant theatre near you.

It only makes sense to support Indie movie houses with screenings with one of the highest grossing Indie films of all time.

DAY 12Take One: Fear on Film

This vintage clip from "FEAR ON FILM" contains a very young-into-his-career Mick Garris interviewing John Carpenter pre-The Thing but not too long after Halloween.

It contains some great insight into Carpenter's feelings about the MPAA, including his intent to make Halloween a PG film... 

DAY 11Compass International Pictures

The origins of Halloween starts with Compass International Pictures, just as the film itself starts with the Indie studio's logo. 

Producer Irwin Yablans, co-founder of Compass, is credited to suggesting The Babysitter Murders to John Carpenter, as well as the suggestion to set it during Halloween.

The first Halloween would go on to become the highest-grossing independent movie ever made until dethroned by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The next film produced by Yablans and Compass International Pictures would be the way less successful Tourist Trap (1979).   That oddly-rated PG slasher has since become a cult classic, and probably rivals Halloween in number of syndicated horror television exhibitions.

Additional Compass International Pictures releases are:

                Fyre (1979)

                      Nocturna (1979)

               The Day Time Ended (1979)

                   Roller Boogie (1979)

                       Blood Beach (1980)

                            Hell Night (1981)

 

On a side note the Pixar film logo for The Incredibles totally looks like the logo for Compass International Pictures.

  

DAY 10Don't Fear the Reaper

Long before Christopher Walken immortalized the song on Saturday Night Live, Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was a late 70s staple on Rock radio.

The song's inclusion in the early scenes in which Laurie Strode catches a ride with her pot-smoking friend Annie only makes it all the more authentic.

The song is, in fact, a fantasy scenario of death too young.  With its references to Romeo and Juliet, it uses love as a great connector to the afterlife.

The song would continue to sneak into horror projects, including the Wes Craven tribute/satire Scream (though covered by Gus) and of course in Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween in 2007.

Additionally:

•  Stephen King's The Stand was in part inspired by the song, and the track features prominently in the miniseries adaptation for television.  

•  There's a Mutton Birds cover of the song cover in Peter Jackson's The Frighteners from 1996. 

Also of note:

• The B-Side of the single release is called Tattoo Vampire. 

• The song's highest position on the Billboard Hot 100 was 12.

• The track's producer David Lucas is the one who played cowbell.  His other claim to fame is as one of advertising's greatest jingle writers, having created "Catch that Pepsi Spirit" and "G.E. We Bring Good Things to Life."

• The song was on the charts during the start of a spree of "Son of Sam" murders by real-life serial killer David Berkowitz.  It would be a year before Berkowitz was apprehended. 

Day 9The Death of Laurie Strode

Halloween: Resurrection was on TMC the other day, and I got caught up in watching the poetic opening sequence.  That's really the only part worth watching of the, as of now, last sequel in the Halloween franchise.

I love Jamie Lee's throwback long hair.  I love her hospital set throwback to Halloween II.  And most of all I love the "let's put this to bed" closure of Laurie vs Michael.

This should have been a short film, ending before the opening credits began on the pointless feature film.  

Sorry, Busta Rhymes.

DAY 8 The Mask of Michael Myers

For years it was only urban legend, but when the official Star Trek website does a full story on it, it has to be true.

Originally a death mask of William Shatner created for Star Trek, it became mass produced by Don Post Studios, and of course painted white for the iconic on-screen serial killer.

Just look at this vintage ad for the masks, and imagine the upper right photo with a large bloody knife in hand...

If that's not enough of a verification, check out this video from Shatner himself...

DAY 7John Carpenter Performs the Themefrom HALLOWEEN Live...

From the, ironically, Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles, here's a recent performance of John Carpenter himself performing his "Halloween Theme."

I highly recommend his Lost Themes albums for sleepless nights and dark dreaming.

Day 6The Night She Came Home

It's hard to believe now that she's back to being a Scream Queen on, well, Scream Queens, but Jamie Lee Curtis once turned her back on the Horror genre.

She also never went to fan conventions or really spoke at length about the Halloween films until attending the HorrorHound Magazine convention for charity in 2012.

That's captured in the wonderful fly-on-the-wall short documentary, The Night She Came Home, which is available on the 35th Anniversary Halloween Blu-ray from Starz and also appears in last year's full home video collection of the franchise.

The film was directed by John Marsh and Kelly Curtis (her sister) and it's a great look at fandom, particularly of the Horror genre.  Best of all, like the original Halloween, it's really low budget and not overly ambitious.

DAY 5 5 HALLOWEEN films in 35mm!!!

Ready for the ultimate celebration of HALLOWEEN this year?

Check out the first 5 movies in 35mm on the big screen at the Palace Theater in Syracuse, New York on Saturday, October 15th!  Tickets are available here.

That's a marathon of

Halloween

Halloween II

Halloween III: Season Of The Witch,

Halloween IV: The Return Of Michael Myers

Halloween V: The Revenge Of Michael Myers 

As if that's not enough, TOM ATKINS and STACEY NELKIN from HALLOWEEN III will be appearing for a special Q&A!

VIP packages include access to the VIP party starting at 4pm with Tom Atkins & Stacey Nelkin, an autograph signing, photo opportunity, event poster, early access to the theater and more! Limited to only 30.

DAY 4 Mistakes of HALLOWEEN

Folks like to point out the many continuity errors around HALLOWEEN, mainly surrounding the Pasadena for Illinois locations.

But for a low budget Independant film, especially one that needed to shoot in the LA area, HALLOWEEN pulls off the Midwest setting pretty well.

Still, in the age of IMDB, it is always fun to be on the lookout for these mistakes here.

DAY 3 HALLOWEEN, the novelization

The novelizations of movies.

Woody Allen blasted them in Manhattan, his on-screen character calling them "another contemporary American phenomenon that's truly moronic."

For a kid in the early 80s without a VCR or Pay TV (what they called HBO and Showtime back in the day), they were my salvation.

The only way to experience movies again, or even for the first time (sort of), was to read the book based on the screenplay.

Yes, that's a devolution of format, but many of these book versions of the films were written and ghost-written by really talented people.  One that stands out in particular, and maybe the best of the novelizations I read back in the day, is Halloween.

Credited to Curtis Richards (a pseudonym of Horror author Dennis Etchison), this novelization doesn't start with the murder of Judith Myers.  That doesn't happen until chapter 2.

Instead, Richards starts the book with a prologue explaining the Halloween related origins of the curse of "Samhain."

From there, the book deviates to a first chapter containing a scene between a young Michael Myers and his grandmother.  The chapter works to humanize the young Michael, setting up a sort of alibi one could argue in the form of Schizophrenia.  Some of the dialogue is flat out chilling. Focusing on the pre-pubescent/pre-boogyman years of Michael Myers is what critics tore apart in Rob Zombie's take on Halloween, but I loved it (more on that later).  He may have been inspired by this novelization's attempt to back-story Michael, if not the television version of the film's additional scenes (more on that later).

Halloween the novelization is long out of print from Bantam Books (ISBN 0-553-26296-3), but you can snatch up a copy on eBay for a hefty price.  There are two editions, but I love the original book cover pictured below.  

There are more invented side-bars to the screenplay that you can read about on this fantastic Halloween wiki here.  If you're a true fan of the film, this one is worth investing in or somehow getting your hands on.  Incidentally, there are novelizations of Halloween II, III, 4, and 5, but as with the films, they don't live up to this original one.

DAY 2 HALLOWEEN - The Shooting Script

Legend has it the original script for HALLOWEEN was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill in just 10 days.  Of course it was originally known as THE BABYSITTER MURDERS and took place over the course of several days, not one All Hallows' Eve.

I can't offer you that version, but here's the shooting script for the resulting film...

DAY 1 Four Frames From HALLOWEEN

Over on my Twitter project FOUR FRAMES per FILM I've been selecting four stand-out frames from movies that catch my attention.  For today's celebration of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, one iconic and three creepy moments from the classic.  Follow @FourFPF on Twitter for more films.