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Halloween (1978 film)

1978 film directed by John Carpenter

Halloween is a 1978 American slasher film about an escaped psychotic murderer, institutionalized since childhood, who goes on a murderous rampage through the streets of his childhood town on Halloween.

I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no, uh, conscience, no understanding and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply...evil.
Directed by John Carpenter and written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.
The night that HE…..came home to you!Taglines

Dialogue

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Dr. Loomis: Ever done anything like this before?
Marion Chambers: Only minimum security.
Dr. Loomis: I see.
Marion Chambers: The only thing I can't stand is their gibberish... how they keep ranting on and on.
Dr. Loomis: You haven't anything to worry about. He hasn't spoken a word in 15 years.
Marion Chambers: Are there any special instructions?
Dr. Loomis: Just try and understand what we're dealing with here. Don't underestimate it.
Marion Chambers: Don't you think we could refer to it as him?
Dr. Loomis: If you say so.
Marion Chambers: Your compassion's overwhelming, doctor. You're serious about it, aren't you?
Dr. Loomis: Yeah.
Marion Chambers: You mean you actually never want him to get out?
Dr. Loomis: Never, ever. Never.
Marion Chambers: Then why are we taking him up to Hardin County if you're just gonna lock...
Dr. Loomis: Because that is the law.
[After Michael escapes]
Dr. Loomis: He's gone! He's gone from here! The evil is gone!
Dr. Wynn: I'm not responsible, Sam.
Dr. Loomis: Oh, no.
Dr. Wynn: I told them how dangerous he was.
Dr. Loomis: You couldn't have! Two roadblocks and an all points bulletin wouldn't stop a five-year-old.
Dr. Wynn: Well, he's your patient. If you knew that the precautions weren't strong enough, you should have told somebody.
Dr. Loomis: I told everybody! Nobody listened.
Dr. Wynn: There's nothing else I can do.
Dr. Loomis: You can get back in there and get back on that telephone and tell them exactly who walked out of here last night and tell them exactly where he's going.
Dr. Wynn: Probably going.
Dr. Loomis: I'm wasting my time.
Dr. Wynn: Sam, Haddonfield is 150 miles away from here. For God's sake, he can't drive a car!
Dr. Loomis: He was doing very well last night! Maybe someone around here gave him lessons.
[Michael Myers' car cruises by the girls walking home from school]
Annie: Hey, jerk! Speed kills! [Michael's car screeches to a halt] God, can't he take a joke? [the car resumes cruising down the street]
Laurie Strode: You know, Annie, someday, you're going to get us all in deep trouble!
Lynda: Totally.
Annie: I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor.
Annie: [looking behind a bush for the stranger Laurie saw] Hey, creep! [coyly] Laurie, dear, he wants to talk to you. He wants to take you out tonight.
Laurie: He was standing right there.
Annie: Poor Laurie. Scared another one away. It's tragic. You never go out. You must have a small fortune stashed from baby-sitting so much.
Laurie: Guys think I'm too smart.
Annie: I don't. I think you're wacko. Now you see men behind bushes.
Graveyard Keeper: Yeah, you know every town has something like this happen... I remember over in Russellville, old Charlie Bowles, about fifteen years ago... One night, he finished dinner, and he excused himself from the table. He went out to the garage, and got himself a hacksaw. Then he went back into the house, kissed his wife and his two children goodbye, and then he proceeded to...
Dr. Loomis: Where are we?
Graveyard Keeper: Eh? Oh, it's, uh, right over here. Yes, Judith Myers. Couldn't believe it... such a young boy. [they stop and the keeper looks confused]
Dr. Loomis: [Puzzled] What are you, lost?
Graveyard Keeper: [The headstone for Judith Myers is missing] Why do they do it? Goddamn kids! They'll do anything for Halloween.
Dr. Loomis: [deep inhale] He came home!
Dr. Loomis: Does anybody live here?
Sheriff Brackett: No, not since 1963 when it happened. Every kid in Haddonfield thinks this place is haunted.
Dr. Loomis: They may be right. [After noticing something in the beam of the flashlight] Look!
Sheriff Brackett: What? What is that?
Dr. Loomis: It's a dog.
Sheriff Brackett: It's still warm.
Dr. Loomis: He got hungry.
Sheriff Brackett: ...It coulda been a skunk.
Dr. Loomis: Could have, huh?
Sheriff Brackett: A man wouldn't do that.
Dr. Loomis: This isn't a man! [he and Sheriff Brackett go upstairs into Judith Myers' bedroom] It happened in here. [walks to the window] He could've been standing outside, seen us right through this window. [a gutter slams into the window, startling Loomis and causing him to draw a revolver] You must think me a very sinister doctor. Oh, I do have a permit.
Sheriff Brackett: Seems to me you're just plain scared.
Dr. Loomis: Yes, I am, uh... I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no, uh, conscience, no understanding and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply...evil.
Sheriff Brackett: What do we do?
Dr. Loomis: He's been here once tonight. I think he'll come back. I'm gonna wait for him.
Sheriff Brackett: I still think I should notify the radio--
Dr. Loomis: No. If you do that, they'll see him on every street corner, they'll look for him in every house. Just tell your men to keep their mouths shut and their eyes open.
Sheriff Brackett: I'll check back in an hour.
Tommy: What about the boogeyman?
Laurie: There's no such thing.
Tommy: Richie said he was coming after me tonight.
Laurie: Do you believe everything Richie tells you?
Tommy: No.
Laurie: Halloween is when people play tricks on each other. It's all make-believe. I think Richie was just trying to scare you.
Tommy: I saw the boogeyman. I saw him outside.
Laurie: There was nobody outside.
Tommy: There was!
Laurie: What did he look like?
Tommy: The boogeyman.
Laurie: We're not getting anywhere. All right, the boogeyman can only come out on Halloween night, right?...Well, I'm here tonight and I'm not about to let anything happen to you.
Tommy: Promise?
Laurie: Promise.
Sheriff Brackett: Nothing's going on except kids playing pranks, trick-or-treating, parking, getting high. I have a feeling that you're way off on this.
Dr. Loomis: You have the wrong feeling.
Sheriff Brackett: You're not doing very much to prove me wrong!
Dr. Loomis: What more do you need?
Sheriff Brackett: Well, it's going to take more than fancy talk to keep me up all night crawling around these bushes.
Dr. Loomis: I watched him for fifteen years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall, looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. You can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.
Sheriff Brackett: More fancy talk. Doctor, do you know what Haddonfield is? Families, children, all lined up in rows up and down these streets. You're telling me they're lined up for a slaughterhouse.
Dr. Loomis: They could be.
Sheriff Brackett: [thinks for a second] All right, I'll stay here with you tonight, just on the chance that you're right. And if you are right, damn you for letting him go.
Tommy: Was it the boogeyman?
Lindsey: I'm scared!
Laurie: There's nothing to be scared of, now get changed.
Tommy: Are you sure? How? [Michael walks up the stairs behind Laurie]
Laurie: I killed him.
Tommy: You can't kill the boogeyman! [looks behind her to see Michael; he and Lindsey scream and panic]
[Last lines]
Laurie: [after Michael falls off the balcony] It was the boogeyman.
Dr. Loomis: As a matter of fact, it was.

About Halloween

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John Carpenter Q&A (October 31, 2014)

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John Carpenter Q&A: Why ‘Halloween’ Didn’t Need Sequels & What Scares The Master Of Horror

  • The opening shot was inspired by Touch of Evil. Orson Welles did a couple of one-take sequences, but the most astonishing is not the opening sequence which everybody remembers. In a motel room, in the middle of the movie, a man is broken by Orson Welles’ character. It’s almost a reel-long one-shot. It’s astonishing. I was inspired by the idea of that. So in the opening scene, we were coming up on the outside of the house, around and up the back steps, and as we passed through a room going into another room the crew would re-light it behind us. We were just flying on the edge, but that was the spectacle, the money shot. Plus we had a naked girl upstairs! You couldn’t ask for more than that. There are a couple of cuts in that first shot. The mask allowed us to do a cut, and there were botched takes — we didn’t make it up the stairs, there was a camera shadow, something would happen. But it was fun.
  • The mask that Michael Myers wore was written as “the pale features of a human face” – that’s what the script said. However, we had no money to manufacture such a thing, so what did you do? There were two options – one was a clown mask, which was a better mask, but the Captain Kirk mask was altered, spray painted, eye holes cut, with the hair. I don’t know if he knows the story.
  • I didn’t think there was any more story, and I didn’t want to do it again. All of my ideas were for the first Halloween – there shouldn’t have been any more! I’m flattered by the fact that people want to remake them, but they remake everything these days, so it doesn’t make me that special. But Michael Myers was an absence of character. And yet all the sequels are trying to explain that. That’s silliness – it just misses the whole point of the first movie, to me. He’s part person, part supernatural force. The sequels rooted around in motivation. I thought that was a mistake. However, I couldn’t stop them from making sequels. So my agents said, ‘Why don’t you become an executive producer and you can share the revenue?’ But I had to write the second movie, and every night I sat there and wrote with a six pack of beer trying to get through this thing. And I didn’t do a very good job, but that was it. I couldn’t do any more.

Taglines

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  • The Night HE Came Home!
  • HE came home for HALLOWEEN.
  • Everyone is entitled to one good scare
  • Trick or treat... or die
  • Let's celebrate the horror
  • Happy Halloween!
  • The Trick Is To Stay Alive!

Cast

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See also

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