By Rish Outfield
This past Friday the 13th was a special one (doubly special, since it fell in October) as I was lucky enough to go to a 22 year anniversary screening of Halloween, the John Carpenter classic at the Grauman's Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. To please tyranist and to tick off the rest of you, I've decided to share the details of my experience.
Always the deep-thinker, I tried to get there early so I could get a good seat. But as Bruce Willis once said, "Traffic was a bitch." By the time I arrived, there was not only a crowd and a line, but an enormous crowd and a line that went all along the building and then doubled back toward the doors. Said line was filled with people around my age--lowlifes and horror buffs (I think I described them to tyranist as "creepazoids like me")--some dressed with Halloween T-shirts, others armed with posters, videos, and even dolls to showcase their fandom. It was sold out and there was so much interest in the film that the Egyptian added a second showing at eleven o'clock. I had a ticket, though, so I wasn't worried.
I had hoped to see Michael Myers wandering around (it just felt right), and as the line started moving me to the entrance, I did see him. He was easily six and a half feet tall, and BIG (not fat, but real hefty). I approached him, said, "Mike, can I get a picture?" and he nodded. We posed together and that photo may show up on these pages someday.
They let us inside. The theater (recently renovated) was big and nice, with a balcony and stadium seating. There were banks of speakers that moved into place when the lights went down. It was mostly full, but there were plenty of empty single seats I could claim. I went to my normal place-–three rows from the front (everyone around me was saving seats, though) and just sat, occasionally looking back to see if famous people were sitting in the reserved seats. From the reports I read, there were plenty (even Bruce Campbell and George A. Romero) but I didn't see ‘em.
Before long, another loner guy showed up and asked if somebody was sitting there. I told him no and he sat. We talked about the "Halloween" series and he seemed like a pleasant guy, even if his name was Marvin. We just sat there, waiting for things to start, when some guy leaned over and said, "Is somebody sitting there?" I looked up. It was my hero, Kevin Williamson. The guy on my other side told him they were being saved, and he started heading back up the aisle. I stood and offered Kevin my seat, figuring it'd be an honor, right? But he told me he needed two, so he disappeared again.
Marvin said, "Was that Kevin Williamson?" I told him it was. He said, "Cool." I thought aloud that, "I really should've talked to him, told him I was a fan." Then I figured, what the hell and stood up. Marvin said, "See if you can get me Katie Holmes' number." I went up to where he was sitting and shook his hand and got a picture with him. I told him that he was one of the reasons I was out here, to which he replied, "This"–-meaning Halloween–-"is the reason I'm here." That was very cool to me, and I won't tell you if I got Katie Holmes' number or not.*
Well, the presentation started. This guy from the American Cinemateque the host. He said that we needed to thank Anchor Bay Entertainment for setting this up and we all applauded (God bless, Anchor Bay). After that, a group of folks started coming up the aisle, and I struggled to recognize them. One was Debra Hill, one was Nick Castle, one I thought might be Dean Cundey. A woman in a slinky body stocking moved up the aisle, and we all knew who it was even before she turned around. Another man, an older guy (he was Dr. Donald Reed, President) from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films (who gives out the SATURN awards)--came and gave out plaques for those involved in Halloween. Unfortunately, Nick Castle did not get one.
After that, people sat in director's chairs at the front of the theater. John Carpenter didn't come because he was still shooting Ghosts of Mars, though he had tried to schedule crew lunch so he could make it. All in all, the folks in front were: 1) Art Director and Editor Tommy Lee Wallace, 2) Writer/Producer Debra Hill, 3) slinky body stocking-ed Jamie Lee Curtis, 4) P.J. Soles who played Linda, 5) Nancy Kyes (or is it Loomis?) [editor's note: it was Loomis back when the movie was shot.] who played Annie, 6) Exec Producer Irwin Yablins, 7) Cinematographer Dean Cundey, 8) Co-editor Charles Bornstein, and 9) Nick Castle who played the Shape. All were introduced and Jamie Lee was something of their spokesperson, as she had a funny way of talking and a zillion stories to share. She pointed out that other Halloween-related people were in the audience. They stood when she mentioned their names: Kevin Williamson, the guy who played little Tommy Doyle, the guy who played the kid who mocked Tommy Doyle, H:20 director Steve Miner, and Nancy Stephens, the woman who played the nurse in H1, H2, and H20. Dean Cundey pointed out that two more actors from the film were there: Superman and Little Red Ridinghood. They were his own kids who had cameos in the movie.
The interviewer began with questions aimed at each of the crew members. They were very well prepared. He asked Yablins** about how he got the idea for The Babysitter Murders and he and Debra Hill discussed the origins of the film for a while. Then they talked about casting. Jamie Lee is damn funny, it's just a shame her hair always looks so awful. She mentioned that before Halloween she worked on a TV show called "Pettycoat Junction" where she just stuck her "tits out every week." To her, Halloween was a great break simply because Laurie Strode was a major part-–her first.
Dean Cundey talked about how they were making a low-budget film (I think they said 300 thousand, but it rose to 325 when Donald Pleasence. was brought onboard), but that even during filming, it was special, and every dollar was onscreen. Nancy Kyes and P.J. Soles spoke about how they got their jobs and what they did to be scared on cue. Then Tommy Lee Wallace talked about (he was also Production Designer) how Myer's mask was chosen. He had two masks, one was a clown mask and one was a William Shatner Captain Kirk mask that they painted white and cut the eyes out of. He said, "The clown was scary, and evil, and I would go on to exploit that in IT," which he directed for television. But when his assistant came out wearing the Shatner mask, he said, and I quote, "Oh, shit. That . . . that's sick!" They knew they had their mask, and Jamie Lee bemoaned the fact that the other movies couldn't get it right.
There were several funny anecdotes and the whole session was a blast. I for one could've stayed the whole night listening to it and was sad when it was time for the movie to start. Jamie Lee spoke about souvenirs she kept from the shoot, and about Dean Cundey giving her the clapboard he had used in all the "pornos" he had shot. Then she said, "You wanna see something cool?" Of course we did, and she said, "I pitch for a cellular company, as you know," and this is what my ring sounds like: She got out her cell phone and pushed the button. Instead of ringing, it played the Halloween Theme. We applauded, but when the applause died down, some guy in the theater turned on his, and it played the same song. She said, "It's not quite as cool if you have it."
Yablins told about the first screening they held, in Westwood. He was surprised that the audience was laughing all the way through it, and thought it meant the film didn't work, but it turned out it was just nervous laughter. He remarked that at the end, when Laurie drops the knife, someone shouted at the screen, "You dumb bitch, you deserve to die!" Jamie Lee told us that her autobiography would be called that.
They shared other neat little tidbits, like the fact that they had to use green pumpkins from South America and paint them orange, and they had a big garbage bag filled with autumnal leaves they had to spread out and gather back up for each scene. It was Debra Hill's tiny hands that were used for the stabbing scene at the beginning. Jamie Lee bemoaned the fact that you could see the corduroy imprint on her face in one scene because she had fallen asleep on the couch.
I came away with a surprise at how much the cast and crew obviously loved each other, all these years later. Jamie Lee described the familial atmosphere of the shoot, and how on the last day, everybody worked together trying to fix up the old Myers place (which really was as run down as it looked later in the film). Everyone, actors included, painted it, dressed the set, and helped set up the shot, then stood waiting through attempted-take after attempted-take. She said that was truly evident of the closeness everyone had on the set, and it made me long to be a part of something like that.
The hour was passed, and the film began. On the big screen, everything is better. But this was nice, because we had a whole audience to share it with, making the laughs funnier and the scares scarier. The scene where the Shape came stalking across the street to get Laurie was almost unbearably tense, like I had never seen it before. And I'll tell you, one of the great things was applauding every time a new character came on the screen (especially when we clapped for Superman and Little Red Ridinghood). I appreciated things on the big screen, like Myers standing among the hanging laundry, that I can barely see on video. There was a big "ohhhhhhh" when one character said, "I'll be right back," and I thought, "Damn, Kevin is sitting right there, hearing a response that HE created."
A little something that Dean Cundey said, after the interview was all over really hit home. When they first released the movie, they had a similar type of thing at UCLA, where crew members got to answer questions after screening the film. And he said there were some artsy fartsy (my words) film students there who really looked down on Halloween, and on him for working on it. One guy, in particular, really hated the movie, and asked why Cundey would "contribute to such crap." Cundey responded, that he didn't think Halloween was crap, and that everyone had tried to create something special, something unique, that people could someday call a classic. Well, the spectator scoffed at that and walked right out of the screening. Cundey said that now in the year 2000, Halloween has endured, and many DO see it as a classic. I think everyone in the room agreed.
Well, that was my evening. Even though it was a movie I owned and had seen several times, I was very glad I saw it again, and from now on, whenever I think of the movie Halloween, I'll think about my night viewing it with the cast and crew, twenty two years later.
Rish Outfield
*Of course I didn't, what, do you think he'd give it out to a total stranger? He did give me James Van Der Beek's number, though.
**Say the word "Yablins" with me. It's a fun word.