Brigid Daull Brockway is technically a writer

Brigid Daull Brockway is technically a writer

A blog about words, wordplay, and etymology, with slightly more than occasional political rants.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Bonus Content - Augh!

Okay, so this really has nothing to do with words, or whatever it is that this blog is supposed to be about, but 
a. It's Halloween and I feel like I should be doing something to acknowledge it, besides eating these Reece's Cups we got on sale.
b. I saw this thing about the movie and now I have all this trivia and nothing to do with it.
c. I'm putting off actual writing.


So let me tell you some things about Halloween. The movie, not the holiday (I did the holiday last year). 
Halloween was made on a budget of $300,000, so when it came to Michael Myers'mask, the word was budget (from the Latin bulga, meaning leather bag). Costume folks bought a handful of  masks at a costume shop, including Emmett Kelly, Mr. Spock, and Captain Kirk. The Kirk mask was chosen because it was the most generic - they just made the eye holes larger and painted it white. I knew that Shatner couldn't be trusted. In the script, by the way, the monster is referred to only as The Shape.
Michael Myers was an English guy who helped director John Carpenter with his previous film. Carpenter named the character after him as an homage. Apparently, Michael Myers was well known for being an incredibly nice guy.
Nick Castle, the actor who played The Shape, appeared in only three other films, and two of those appearances were uncredited. He has written and directed a couple of films, however; notably, he co-wrote the screen story for Hook. That's not from the documentary, it's from IMDB.
Jamie Lee Curtis, who was a teenager when the movie was made, is the daughter of Janet Leigh, who played Marion Crane in Psycho.
The original title for the screenplay was The Babysitter Murders. Filmmakers were shocked to learn that there had never been a movie called Halloween, or even a movie with Halloween in the name.
John Carpenter wrote and performed the movie's theme, which is in 5/4 time, a time signature I did not know existed. It sounds to me an lot like the opening theme to Tubular Bells, the theme for The Exorcist. The Halloween theme, however, seems to hold scary better - play Tubular Bells out of context and it's not really all that creepy. 


There. Half an hour of procrastination managed. Also, I have never seen Halloween all the way through. 

No comments:

ShareThis