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John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN unleashed Michael Myers on the teens of Haddonfield, Illinois for decades to come while making a bloody fortune at the boxoffice.

There actually was no such city in Illinois. Carpenter named it after Haddonfield, NJ, his producer, co-screenwriter & then-girlfriend Debra Hill’s hometown. According to Hill, Carpenter named Jamie Lee Curtis’s character, Laurie Strode, after his first girlfriend. Michael Myers’ name came from a British producer who’d gotten Carpenter’s 1976 action thriller ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 into some European film festivals.

Producer Irwin Yablans and financier Moustapha Akkad saw ASSAULT at the Milan Film Festival and asked Carpenter to direct a movie for them about a psychotic killer stalking babysitters. Yablans wanted to make a movie with the same impact William Friedkin’s 1973 blockbuster THE EXORCIST had.

Carpenter signed on after being assured he’d have complete creative control. The deal brought him $10,000 to write, direct and score the film. Hill agreed to work for just a percentage of the profits — a smart choice since HALLOWEEN grossed $70M worldwide and only cost about $325,000 to make on a 20 day shooting schedule.

Carpenter & Hill titled their story THE BABYSITTER MURDERS. Yablans suggested some marketing driven changes — like having it take place on Halloween night and calling it HALLOWEEN. Carpenter later explained that Halloween was a fresh movie theme and that he had wanted to make a haunted house film.

Yablans was a fan of the Canadian horror film BLACK CHRISTMAS, which was about an unseen killer targeting sorority house girls. Carpenter asked its director, Bob Clark, if he could turn Carpenter’s slasher killer idea into a BLACK CHRISTMAS sequel, but Clark wanted to stop making horror films.

When Carpenter asked what Clark would do if he were willing to create a sequel, Clark shared some ideas — like having the killer escape a year later from a mental institution and calling the film HALLOWEEN. Clark, who went on to make the 1981 hit comedy PORKY’S, had no problem with Carpenter doing HALLOWEEN. He later told interviewers that he knew many people were talking, at the time, about doing Halloween theme projects.

“The truth is, John didn’t copy BLACK CHRISTMAS. He wrote a script, directed the script, did the casting. HALLOWEEN is his movie,” Clark’s observed. “He liked BLACK CHRISTMAS and may have been influenced by it, but in no way did John Carpenter copy the idea.”

HALLOWEEN, which opened Oct. 25, 1978, did $70M worldwide, making it one of the top grossing independent movies ever at the time. Ten more franchise episodes followed. A 12th episode, HALLOWEEN KILLS, hit theatres Oct. 15, 2021 and did $133.4M worldwide on a budget of $20M. HALLOWEEN ENDS, episode 13, opened Oct. 14, 2022 and grossed $104.4M worldwide, also on a budget of $20M.