Halloween: How It Came into the World

This chapter discusses how Halloween (1978) was developed and created. John Carpenter's name appears above the title on Halloween, but the project existed before he came on board. Independent film producer Irwin Yablans rightly claims the mantle of ‘The Man Who Created Halloween’, the title of his 2012 autobiography. The project reached Carpenter with the tentative title The Babysitter Murders before it became Halloween shortly thereafter; but Carpenter is still quick to credit Yablans for conceiving the title and the concept. Yablans' marketing and distribution ingenuity played a large role in securing Halloween's success but it went far beyond anyone's expectations, reportedly making back its original budget sixty-fold in its initial release alone. It seems apparent that Halloween was uniquely positioned to benefit from overlapping currents in the New Hollywood, the American independent cinema, ‘youth cinema’, and the horror film. Halloween was also well positioned to benefit from a new wave of academic interest in the horror film.

Parenthood, Adolescence and Childhood Under the Knife

This chapter examines adolescence as a central theme in Halloween (1978) in a slightly different way, as invoking (and attempting to resolve) the rootlessness of adolescence in the Lost Generation. The character of Laurie Strode is divided between the realms of adults and children, but this capacity for category mobility ultimately proves valuable. Cast in the roles both of virgin and mother, her ability to properly navigate, embrace adult responsibilities and retrain a child's intuition is ultimately what allows Laurie to save herself. The 1950s and John Carpenter's childhood saw the birth of the teen horror film, which followed swiftly on the heels of the ‘invention’ of the American teenager as a discrete segment of the population. In a sense, Halloween is an inheritor to the ‘horror teenpics’ or the ‘weirdies’ of the 1950s, and similarly owed much of its success to its ability to knowingly target the large teenage demographic. The slasher films that followed Halloween would do the same, and it seems no major exaggeration to say that, if slasher films collectively are ‘about’ anything, they are about adolescence.

The Haunting of Haddonfield

This chapter argues that, formally, narratively, and thematically, the character of Michael Myers is constructed as a haunted force, and Haddonfield as a haunted space. One common framework for dealing with the supernatural in literature comes from the Bulgarian structural narratologist Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov delineated three modes for the literary supernatural: the Marvellous, the Uncanny and the Fantastic. Many of Halloween's most effective moments similarly depend on Fantastic hesitation. The chapter then explores the themes of haunted houses and legend tripping in Halloween, as well as the utilization of sound in implying a kind of omnipresence to Michael's presence and perspective. John Carpenter's musical score works similarly to project Michael's presence beyond his body.

‘Black Cats and Goblins on Halloween Night’: Halloween and Halloween

This chapter explains that Halloween is more than simply a setting in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), but that the film is indeed centrally concerned with the contested meanings of the day when it takes place. The film is a cultural artefact of how Halloween was thought about in the 1970s. In other words, it is not just called Halloween; it is about Halloween. The chapter then studies the history and dangers of Halloween, which traces its roots back to the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain. Halloween is often constructed as a rare time when the anger and discontentment of children, and indeed their capacity for violence, may be demonstrated. The character of Michael Myers is driven by a need to pursue the carnivalesque and violent aspects of Halloween to their violent extremes. It is here where the theme of masking becomes critical. Michael commits his sister Judith's murder wearing a Halloween mask, which reveals his true nature more clearly than his actual face ever could.

A Very Sinister Doctor and a Cosmic Monster

This chapter focuses on the character of Dr. Sam Loomis, Michael Myers's psychiatrist. Loomis's only accomplishments in the film Halloween (1978) are entirely outside of his training as a psychiatrist, and may even run counter to it. Terms like ‘psychopath’, ‘schizophrenic’, and ‘neurotic’ appear nowhere in Halloween, and even ‘catatonic’ appears only in the extended television cut. All of Loomis's therapeutic methods have not allowed him to understand, let alone help, Michael, and the psychiatric establishment around him has done little to recognise and prepare for the threat that he rightly feels Michael represents. Loomis provides a link to another tradition of horror fiction, in which doctors and scientists investigate and confront monsters and supernatural phenomena. His character is also reminiscent of the tormented scholars who prove to be some of the more capable protagonists in H.P. Lovecraft's short stories. Though John Carpenter's work is probably more dependent on a ‘homocentric’ worldview than Lovecraft, Lovecraft's mode of cosmic indifferentism provides a framework for addressing the old question of what motivates Michael, while reconsidering the film within the generic framework of cosmic horror.