164: Halloween (1978)

Alex is watching John Carpenter’s “Halloween” once a week for all of 2025. In the latest installment of the WAWY New Hollywood Film Project, Alex and Nick discuss Alex’s crazy challenge, the film’s use of sound, cinematography, and editing, why “Halloween” is their favorite horror film, and how in the hell John Carpenter was able to write, direct, and score one of the most iconic films ever made with very little money. Totally.

Part 4 of the WAYW New Hollywood Film Project.

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Transcript

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He's on his way. You've got to believe me, officer. He is coming to Haddonfield because I know him. I'm his doctor. You must be ready for him. If you don't, it's your funeral, I know that. Trick or treat. Oh! Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex Witt throwing. I'm joined by my best man, Nick, though. So how are you doing there, Tommy Doyle? Yes, yes, yes. Pound town USA. Tommy Doyle. I knew you'd like it. Let's go. Do you know why? Yes. Hell, tell the people why I think you like it. So what is this? The story of me and my friend. What the hell are you talking about? No. Paul Rudd plays six. That's all I need. That's all I. What story? Different story. Different story. Yes, yes, I know, I know no such story I would love to know as we go on. But who knows where that's going to go, folks? No. Tommy Doyle. I thought I'd give it to you because he makes an appearance in six. Played by, introducing Paul Rudd. First movie. That's very true. And, well, I mean, I'll tell you this story, and then you can do it. This would, you will. But, me and my friend, we're watching Halloween one time. This is back in probably 2011, 2012. We're watching Halloween, and we're making fun of Tommy Doyle the entire time for no reason. Yeah. This is still the boogie man. Yeah, it's the boogie man. There's all this and that. And then all of a sudden Lindsay comes over and, And, like, now this kid's, like, teasing. They're pulling pranks. Pranks. And then like, Laurie. Straight up, like, leaves him with with this girl. And then it's like Tommy Doyle taking this little girl down to pound town USA. You know what I'm saying? Well, that's a bit of her reach. Jesus, he's he goes behind a curtain, scares her. It's not I don't I mean, yeah, but then she. But then Laurie leaves and they go upstairs and it's sort of like they go to bed. He's been teasing her all night. He's been playing in the curtains, making everything but the basic making, lulling her into a sense of, you know, like a false security. So that way that, that. Hey, everyone, welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex with throat. I'm joined by my best man, Nick Doe. So how are you doing there, doctor Loomis? The evil is gone. The evil, you know, the evil is gone. All right, folks, wow. Welcome back. Actually, officially, to the New Hollywood Film Project with an emphasis on new Hollywood films from the 1970s. We are looping this historic film. John Carpenter's 1978 masterpiece Halloween, considered by many, myself included, perhaps my loyal co-host, as the greatest horror film ever made. It is the finest film in the genre, and today we are going to talk about it for a number of reasons. How do you feel to be here? Well, I'm I mean, facts number one is everything you were saying facts. But also another reason why we're here is our absolutely absurd on your end, you. I mean, this is. Yeah, I, I've known you for a long time, and I've seen you do some crazy shit. This right here takes the cake. And when you brought this idea up, I was like, I dropped you. Tell me. On a trip, I was dropping you off to the airport, and then you left, and I drew and I drove back by myself in the car, and I go, he's officially lost it. He's officially lost it. Lost his mind because I was trying to. I've never really done a movie challenge. I just watch a lot of movies. 20, 23 I was like, hey, I'll write a mini review of every movie I watch and I'll put it on letter box. Okay, did that 2024 I went, let's see if I can watch at least one movie a day. Did that still haven't broken that streak like a maniac. I've watched at least one movie every day since October 2023. In fact, absolutely. I needed to challenge myself in a new way. So for 2025, I said, what if I pick one movie and watch it at least once a week? That's it. That's the challenge. 52 times, once a week. I locked into that challenge in like March, April 2024, but then I spent the rest of the year. Which movie do I do? This one was always at the top, it was always in the top three. And I tried to. I had some rules for myself. Definitely make it under two hours. Definitely be great if it was 90 minutes or under, make it something that you've seen it already like. Do not make it a new movie that you might watch the first time and hate. Whatever. So Halloween was not a movie I was unfamiliar with. I loved Halloween, I have watched Halloween every Halloween at least since I first saw it as a kid, but I don't know, I settled into that, so that is what I have done. We are recording this episode right now. Today on July 17th, 2025. I've watched the movie 28 times so far this year. I believe 29 actually, and it's been great. Like it truly has. I've never I have not burnt out. I've not gotten bored. It is not felt like a chore. I've had a lot of fun. Granted, I am not sitting there pulling up the 4K and boom, watching it 90 minutes straight every week. I've been having a little fun, which I'm going to talk about. There are many different ways to watch a movie. I mean, the most obvious maybe is like with a commentary on. So there's so many different ways I've been having fun is I've gotten into like once I hit the halfway mark, I've been having fun sometimes with how I watch it the last time I watch it, just put on my 4K, watch it straight and I have a blast. These people are my friends. I love this film. I will not be stopping. I'm going all the way to 2025. Yeah, what do you think? You're a man of Constitution. Yeah I mean Dan Dan I will not let anyone say otherwise. I will not quit. What did you think when I, when you heard this. Because immediately you were like you're going to fucking ruin this movie for yourself. But I don't know exactly what I thought. Yeah. I was like has I mean, we'll see. Once I hit 20, 26, but right now I am into it still. I bet you, I bet you if you're at this point now, you're because you're over the half year point. Exactly. If you're not sick of it now, then chances are whatever level of sick you may get of it is probably going to be like minimal. Yeah, because if it was me, I at this point, even though I love this movie and we'll get into like my relationship with it, but I would absolutely be done. I would be like, get this away from me. I never want to see it again because that was my fear. My fear would be that when this year was said and done, you'd be like, you know what? I had my time with the Halloween and like any conversation, Halloween comes up. You would instantly just go, yeah, yeah, Halloween. And then everyone would be like, what was that all about? Are you are you are you cursing Halloween? You're like, no, no, I just, I spent a year with that movie and then everyone's like, I've had my time with. Yeah, I'm on intimate terms with that movie. Yeah. Just by the way, one of my favorite lines from a Sam Shepard play, which was from True West, and he goes, I'm on intimate terms with that land. I love it, I know him intimately. Yeah, I, I was of course, nervous. I knew when I started I would never quit that I was going to push through. No matter what. And part of the reason of picking Halloween, part of what helped tipped it over. And I know I've talked about this on various other pods, but this is the official Halloween episode, is that there's so many sequels to this. Some are not good, some are revered. But I when I mapped it all out, I'm like, oh, I can also do a sequel a month, which is what I've done. So Halloween, or rather January was just Halloween February I would. I always still watch Halloween every week, but then every week I make it a point to watch the designated sequel. February. It was two, March was three, April was four, and so on. Right now in July, I am in the midst of my favorite Halloween sequel, H2O. I love this movie. It's my second favorite Halloween movie. I was raised on H2O. I love H2O so much so I'm having a blast, so that has helped separate it a bit as well. It's just been so much fun exploring the sequels. To be fair, we were all raised on H2O. No we weren't. There are some. There are some. Oh God. Jesus, yes, yes. And as he added he talking about it, you're a fucking and you're a rare quality talking about the film. Damn it, people our age were you know it like psycho. Tried it. Psycho, the remake came out in 1998. That didn't hit, but a lot of people discovered Halloween. Maybe not for the first time, but they're like, oh, with H2O. That was me. I r I had already seen the original and I had seen some of the sequels, but this sequel, I thought it's really hit. So yes, I've had a lot of fun. I've watched it a number of ways. I've learned a ton about the movie just in watching it over and over, and then in researching all the commentaries, yada yada. It's not the only thing we're going to talk about today. It's still a new Hollywood film project. We're going to have the categories. We're going to talk about the legendary director John Carpenter, oh, about to star Jamie Lee Curtis. But oh yeah, it's been a very fun challenge so far. It absolutely has. Yeah, I've seen this movie a lot. Clearly has as much as you. Clearly. Yeah. Well, yeah. But this was, so when I was a kid, I think I mentioned this before on the pod that, like, horror was my in my jam as a kid. I was obsessed with it. I didn't care what it was like. Like I would go to blockbuster and go to the horror section and find, like, the worst B-movies ever. My aunt and I would actually, like, get like those, like, crazy, like VHS copies, like they weren't even movies. They were like a bunch of, like, short films of like, like horrors at camp. And yeah, you know, like, all these kids are just getting fucking like, but, like, brutally ripped apart, like, it's not. It's not like, are you afraid it's dark, you know, from Nickelodeon. It's. It's like. It's like it's like some straight up B-movie horror shit, but like wild and. Yeah. And, and Halloween was always like, even as a kid, I was like, well, this is a cut above the rest. This is, yeah, a whole different thing. And it's also fun. It's definitely, as I've gotten older, what, like one of the things that I'll bring up a lot during this is that I think this movie now as being like the filmgoer and film, whatever I am, this is like an absolute, like arthouse movie that is so good. Yes. If the horror genre didn't exist as a genre and this, this piece of art existed, it would it would still work like it's it's totally a horror movie. It's a slasher movie. It does all of these things. But I mean, the shot composition alone in the cinematography, I have never seen a movie where in one shot, singularly, you could express so much terror and like and and no matter how many times I've seen, it doesn't matter when I know what's coming. So I was wondering if this was your experience with this is like, you see some of these shots of like, Michael from afar off distance and you just literally get chills. You're like, oh God, that's fucking creepy. And it never changes. And it's just one shot. Yeah. And this movie has countless of these countless. I just wonder because up until this point, I don't recall a movie doing this. I don't recall, especially maybe in a movie you might get a shot that might bring you this type of emotion, but to have a movie that's a whole entire movement and design is based off of this one character. Like basically looking at you. Yeah. Just stalking. It's. Yeah, stalking you. And it's just absolutely terrifying. And it's but it's also like the strategy going behind that I that's what makes me so curious is like, how did John Carpenter go and Dean Cundey go about like, how do we want to do this? How do we really want to make people feel this idea of fear and taking the risk? It might look really stupid because it might, you don't know, like an idea that shot less so he's standing in, in a yard with, with a sheet going. He's just looking at her. That's, that's what we're doing. Yeah, yeah. And people are gonna shit their pants. All great setups. Yes. So like to to get kind of into how we got Halloween. It's that this a lot of some people think this is Carpenter's first movie. It's not. He had Dark Star, a hilarious sci fi satire in 1974, and then the extremely gnarly and at times very hardcore Assault on Precinct 13 and 1976. That's a really good movie, and it looks way more expensive than it is. A lot of that is the cinema tography. He made it so people liked it. Independent film producer you're when you're blandness. And a financier, Mustafa Assad that's a name that fans of this franchise know a lot. Mustafa a card. He basically got the reigns of Michael Myers and dictated the sequels, all that stuff. They sought John Carpenter out and they're like, hey, we want you to make a cheap indie movie about babysitters getting killed one night. Boom. Like, that's it. Carpenter's like, all right, cool. Like I can run with that. That's fine. At first, he thought he might do a sequel to Bob Clarke's Black Christmas, silent Night. Deadly night is also another title. Great movie. But Clarke was like, no, just go make your own slick man. Go do that. So Carpenter and his girlfriend Debra Hill got together. They write Halloween in ten days. They're the things that they split. Was that Debra Hill basically took on all the dialog between the girls. And you can tell. You can tell a woman wrote that at least I can tell. Carpenter absolutely owned Loomis, although I studied him for 15 years, like he owned all that. And then they would do passes on the script. Yeah. Ten days. There had never been a horror movie called Halloween. There never been a scary movie set at Halloween. And they're like, why don't we do that? Okay. They settle on a $300,000 budget. That's nothing. This is an indie film. There's no studio involved.$1.98 of that budget was for a Captain Kirk mask that they made some modifications to. They filmed over 20 days and Pasadena and Hollywood in May 1978, and that sucker was in theaters a few months later by Halloween. It's crazy how it all came together, but part of why they really settled in like that $300,000 budget, at least half of it is going to the look, we're shooting anamorphic. Yeah, that is a huge, huge difference that you can see. Like when you know Laurie standing what my favorite shot when she's standing she thinks she's one. And then you see the doorway. Michael's face just like appears. It's like it's just there. The dimmer comes on. It's just there. That's the wide shit that you can see. So the wide screen helps. All of it helps. It's, great editing. The editing is really precise. The acting is on point throughout, very believable. And probably most notably, no one can put enough emphasis on how fucking important this score is. It is by the director, which is insane. He got paid ten grand to write, direct and score it. And the score is, it might be the most iconic scary movie score that has ever existed. And it is not complicated. It is a quite simple thing. He explains how he did it very easily, and that is really what terrifies you most in all these shots you're talking about. Sometimes they'll do like the doom, like when something pops out, like when the gutter falls in the window and scares Loomis. But sometimes the dude just steps onto the sidewalk in the frame as Laurie's walking away singing her little song, and you just hear his breathing. And then maybe there's some music, but sound. The sound is so important. Breathing? Yes. When to use score, when to not use it, silence. When to use that. It's. You basically have a bunch of kids. Carpenter's a kid. Debra Hill's a kid. Jamie Lee Curtis is a baby, relatively. And they were given money by these financers who were used to working with adults. And they're like, okay, let's give it a shot. You could never know that this would become what it was while they were doing it. There's no way to know that. But you just have a lot of pros, young pros, working on something and it fucking worked. Oh my God. Oh my God. It. Yeah. One of my favorite bits on that sound is because because the score comes into it. But you know, this isn't necessarily a part of the score. There is some sort of sound engineering mixing that happens where, Tommy, I don't know if it's Tommy. I don't think it's Tommy. It's a kid. Like Tommy's getting made fun of at outside school. Oh, the bullying when he gets grabbed. Yeah. Bully. So that's what I. So. Yeah. And then there, I swear, I don't know about you, but there is a moment where it sounds like steam is just shot out of, like, a pipe. Like during that grab. Yeah. Like. Yeah. You're right. And it's sustained. Yeah, yeah. And then the score kicks in like, right. Like like milliseconds after you get that sound. Because the grab is the sound sturdy, I rewind, I rewound this because I was like, wait a second, how much of this is sound and how much of this is score when this moment happens? And for from my from my like five times of rewatching that the sound jumps first and then the score is milliseconds because then it goes right into that high tempo one because there's different scores to it. There is like there's there's dun dun, there's that one. Yeah, there's the one that's an octave above it. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And then you get that little like yeah, that little tiny thing and like sometimes that's all that it is and it's all but it all feels like it's a part of the same thing. The only. Okay, here's the here, the only bit of this sound that always threw me. I don't like this sound choice just because I don't think it fits the movie. But that's okay because this is just my opinion. But it's two alien. Like when Loomis and the nurse are driving and then we see that one shot of Michael Myers, like, jump up on top of that. Yeah, there's like, yeah. There's like a real, like, synthesizer effect that sounds like an alien coming. Like. And I was always like, highs has. There's something just about that particular sound effect that seems a little too supernatural and not grounded in the reality that this is. Even though he's the boogeyman. So I guess it works. No, but I guess I thought that was like a little too sci fi. Alien is an interesting word. I always kind of felt like it. Like a snake. Like he's darting up because it kind of goes like I. But yes, I definitely know what you mean. It's it might be the first one of those, actually, in the movie. That might be the first thing we're talking about. Yeah. And that's, that. Yeah. That's great. God, I love that. God, I love that scene a little bit about the score. Obviously, as mentioned, Carpenter did this himself. He was taught music by his father at a young age. One of the things that has to make this so unsettling, the score, is that it is composed in a very rare five four time signature. A lot of things are four four, so you can count for four beats. And this is one, two, three, 12123121231212312. So if you try to count by four, you'll be off. There are not a lot of songs like that. I didn't know this pre my, you know, challenge this year I've learned that that helps make it unsettling. And he said he said it an octave higher on the piano. He makes it sound very easy, like, yeah, no big deal, but I you can. I just would love to know if he knew when he was recording this. This is going to be one of the best ever. Or is he just like, yeah, I'm fucking around. Done. No no no no no no no no no no no no I mean it's not that complicated. Jaws is not that complicated. And you wonder, like Spielberg never liked that score until the movie was being tested with audiences and he saw how good it is. You just. And Spielberg did not make that score. So I'm just saying it's the same the director making the score. The score may might be the most important aspect of the movie, and I'm not even kidding. Like, it might be. It might be what sets it help, sets it apart from everything. I mean, the writing is everything is good. Everything's good. That's kind of the point. That's why we're here, where we're talking about it. I mean, it's true. I wonder because like something when I was talking about, like, the shot composition, how you get some of these terrifying shots, if you were to have it on mute. I've done it. I bet you you. Yeah, yeah, I did with that. Without the score, though. Did you still feel like maybe like what was your level of, like, fear as, like a horror audience when you take out the music? What I would love to do, I hoped this would be on the Blu ray 4K pack I own. It's not. Sometimes they do the isolated score, so you can just watch the movie with only the score. I would love to watch the movie without the score, so all the sound effects I would. Also, I actually do not officially know if those settings we're talking about are part of Carpenter's score. I think they are. I don't think they would consider those sound effects. I don't know though, but I think he created those. But either way. So just watching it on mute, I mean, you know, no movie is as effective on mute. It really just brings out the compositions and the cinematography more than anything in the editing. And it still works like it's still freaky. But the point is it the the movie is nowhere near as effective if you watch without it, without the score, like it's just not. And it is. I don't know how. Certainly I can't say that with many scary movies made before this, The Exorcist has a great score that isn't unique to the movie, and it's very iconic, but it does not. I mean, it gives you chills, but it is not used as effectively as it is here. Psycho amazing score. That is when it hits you really hard. It's more like scaring you. Like the shower scene score is scaring you. This is unsettling. Psycho isn't necessarily unsettling. It's just so jarring. You're like, yeah, that we cannot talk about the score enough. So yeah, I've tried it on mute. It still works. I still like the movie a lot. So intentional. And its use too, because it's like you're saying like like when when it's really, really dark and there's not a lot going on. You just get like those outside sounds and then you do just hear whatever it is. It could be either that didn't it, or it could be like the dun dun dun. Yeah. And then as soon as that comes in, you are, you are immediately put into an emotional state, like I still don't. I think, I think the most effective one for me is, I mean, it has to be right where, Laurie thinks that she's killed him. Like you're seeing him in the back. And then he he rises in silence. Dun. And then this score. So, like, there's a good example where the choice could have very easily been you actually, his movement starts the done didn't. I mean, I don't know how that conversation goes, but I can only imagine that there must have been a version of it where there was one idea where it starts with his movement, and then one where you get the final version. Yeah, I mean, that's a part of the editing as well as not only when to cut, but it's like when to include something or not include it. So the noise kind of starts when he looks at her like he sits up in silence. It's terrifying because he has that perfect like ab crunch. He just like sits up and you're like, Jesus. He actually does move his leg a little bit. I've watched it a lot of times, folks. He has to. His knee is kind of bent. You just can't really tell. Anyway, that is so terrifying that don't dunna is when you know shit's about to go down. The theme is kind of used for discovery, usually like, yes, sees the car for the first time, which he somehow missed all day. Come on doctor, like he just turns around and he sees the car. Oh, God. Oh, he's here, he's here. Yeah. Sound music. Bad. We I mean, you cannot emphasize enough that the director did that. The person who wrote it and directed it and obviously has a hand in editing is all directors do also did the score. It's just so rare. And this is not unique to Halloween. A lot of Carpenter's scores are amazing, and they're so good in his movies. I and I know I've said this before in our pod, like, I mean, when when you talk about like, true artistry and you can look in like a John Carpenter's career and you can have your opinions on movies because he's got some, some, some movies that he's made that aren't very good. I think that's fair to say. Oh, yeah, but when you look at the, the what the, his big hits. Right. Like this the thing big Trouble in Little China they live and there's another one to this blanking from my my escape from New York. Oh, yeah. Escape from New York. Christine. Starman. I mean, there's there's great films here. Yeah. Like, this guy is real. He has a vision. And it is. A lot of it is based in art. A lot of it is based on like, what are the effects we can use for the thing? How can we get it to look like this? And, you even see that in big trouble in Little China a lot with that production design, some of those graphics, and like the special effects with the music. With his overall tone and style, I've always felt that John Carpenter is a true artist in all the sense we look at art like from the from a visual to the audio to, his different ideas. Like, you can't like if you're telling me that the guy who made Halloween is the guy who makes big trouble in Little China, right? Like they're they they feel like they live under the same artist, but they don't feel like they're made by the same director. So that make any sense? How I how I say that, yeah. That's like a very unique difference to make. I think this is why I have had trouble with Carpenter in the past. I've always loved Halloween. Always. But even the first time I saw let me go through the list, Dark Star, The Fog, The Thing, Big Trouble, Prince of Darkness. I was not a fan of these. The first time I watched them. Like, what am I? Am I expecting too much? Am I looking for too much? And with Halloween, with this challenge I've done this year, I've also gone back and explored the movies, particularly the movies of his. That didn't work for me. And I'm like, all right, what am I missing? If I love Halloween this much? And surprise, surprise, I love them all now and I appreciate them for what they are. What they're trying to do. And yeah, just real quick. I mean, like I said, Dark Star is really a USC student film that he's making with his friends, a lot of which helped with on Halloween Assault on precinct 13 is really hardcore. Like that movie is hard. They kill a girl in like minutes. Five. It is nuts. A girl buying ice cream. It's a wild, wild movie. It's really. It's his ode to Hawks and his favorite Howard Hawks, his favorite John Wayne movies, Rio Bravo, all that stuff. He goes to Halloween shortly after Halloween. It's the fog, a movie again, didn't really work for me. Now, I really appreciate a lot of old like Hollywood history movie history in that escape from New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble, Little China, Prince of Darkness, They Live There is not a bad movie in there. That's his run from Dark Star to they live from 74 to 88. Not a bad movie at all then. Yeah, it gets a little. Sometimes it gets a little dicey. Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Not good in the Mouth of madness. Fantastic. Like maybe the last truly great carpenter movie. Village of the damned. Not very good. Escape from LA. A hell of a lot of fun. Let's be real vampires. Some people like that. I think it's fun as well. Ghosts of Mars were going downhill. The ward were out. Yeah, and he's out. He's like, I don't I don't want to do this anymore because I don't have the control. I want all that stuff. So yes, this is a director I love a lot. But Halloween they live. You're not watching these going, this is the same like it now, you know, a decade later is obsessed with like, consumerism. And what's that doing to us? And all these messages that were in it, despite what a lot of people think and what a lot has been written about about Halloween, that is not a message movie. There were not trying to say that if you were the Virgin you live, that's not what they were saying at all. That's just what society put on it. And that's why, you know, 20 years later, not even, 18 years later, you're getting Jamie Kennedy's monologue and scream like you can never have sex, you know? And that just wasn't the intention. But yeah, I love Carpenter. I think his as I get older, I absolutely appreciate his love of cinema and how he put that into films. In Halloween. There's a really long shot of a TV showing the original The Thing from another Planet, like, you know, and then also what, how he influenced so many other people. Love Carpenter. Yeah. I mean, he's really, really amazing. Interesting conversation piece to have with it. Donald Pleasance, they offered this to a few people, offered it probably most notably to Christopher Lee, and he turned them down. Said later that he regretted it. And Donald Pleasance, like this guy, was in at least 109 film and TV. He had 109 film and TV appearances before Halloween, like he was very famous The Great Escape, The Greatest Story Ever Told, where he's playing Satan, cul de sac, directed by Polanski. You only live twice. Bond film was playing blow field. Yeah. 1138 George Lucas's movie Wake in Fright, an absolutely gnarly flick set in Australia. The Black Windmill and Telephone by Seagull. Dan Seagull that is Last Tycoon by Kazan. Oh, God. Like, yeah, he was around and he was a really good sport on this set. But he they had him for five days. Five days. They had to Pleasance that's it. And the dude is committed like he's committed in this and he's committed in every sequel he's in. And it's really nice to bring like they didn't slouch with him. Carpenter didn't use like someone brand new or one of his friends who were all great in the film, don't get me wrong, but they needed someone, you know, you needed a star, quote, unquote. I don't know if he was the most whatever bankable star, but he absolutely adds a gravitas to the film because you believe everything Sam Loomis said. So I love him in it. It's what you absolutely do. And and you know, what's kind of cool is that, you know, there's no way. And this is a this was an a time before franchises. But, I mean, if you were to kind of go back and talk to most of today's moviegoing audience, they will probably only know Donald Pleasence from the Halloween movies. Sure, sure. So so, like, it's it's crazy to think that this guy has had this long of a stretch of of working as a working actor, but yet probably the most notable thing that he'll his legacy will be is not just this Halloween, but like one through one through 6 or 1 through five. Yeah, two, 4 or 5 and six. Yep. And two, 4 or 5 and six. Because he is the he he continues on this whole entire arching story and I don't know, has that ever been done before this. Yeah. People have like come in and it's like, wow, I'm just going to be known for this now. But I the the thing that's funny to me is that there's no way he could have known that there's no way what he signed on for. There's no way five days of work in Hollywood that this would be the thing, this would be his legacy. And what's cool is that he owned it. He embraced it. He did the sequels, and he didn't half assed the sequels. He was committed. And some of the stuff. Yes, insane sequels. It's just ridiculous. But he's still totally committed the whole time. I mean, that's the only reason why the sequels like, Can Work is because, yeah, they're grounded in because, like, they're giving you this crazy ideas as the story goes on. And he's the one that's like putting it all together and it's and like he carries the weight of, like what these stakes and significance are supposed to mean, even though if they're like really horribly written. But he, he, he makes you feel like that weight of it. So all of a sudden it's not trash. Yeah. It matters. All of a sudden you're like, well, this guy believes it. And we liked him from the first movie. All right, all right. And then the other star, who was not at all a star because it was her first ever movie appearance, is Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. They definitely were aware that her dad was Tony Curtis and that her mom was. Was Janet Lee possibly considered the original scream queen, the shower woman from psycho? So they were very aware of all that. And they went, all right, let's let's give her a shot. Let's do it. She was very nervous that she was going to be fired the whole time. And it made her. I mean, this might not only be Donald Pleasant is legacy, it might be hers, too. And she has gone on to be Jamie Lee Curtis. She's had a great career. I mean, oh, yeah, she became the scream queen after this. The fog, prom night, Terror train, road games, Halloween two. Then she moved to, trading Places. Perfect fish called Wanda, my girl. Forever young with Mel. Remember? Forever young. She's had an amazing career. Like she's. She had so much. She has. And she. Yeah. And, yeah, I had a, I had a friend of mine who, was a writer on NCIS, and she came in and did a guest spot. Oh, cool. And he just said that she is the most wonderful personality you could ever imagine being around. Just, like, generous and just energy all way here. But it's genuine. And it's like you love hearing things like that, especially when you had someone who's had the career that she's had where you never know what what someone in this business is going to turn into. Yeah, you know, I mean, and it doesn't even have to go to bitterness. It can just go like I phone it in. I just give me my paycheck. I'm here, I'm there. But to show up and and be as lively and engaging with everyone, that's that, that's that's a testament to character. Not just like, you know, your your career. Yeah. Given where we are now in 2025, I would call her one of the like ambassadors of Hollywood. She speaks on the culture all the time. I mean, right now, like she's she's a very important cultural figure for film and TV, I think. Yeah. And it all started here. And she is great in this. She is so believable. Like it's Laurie Strode. It's the I maybe the first final girl officially. And she God, she's so good. I never see any cracks in her performance. When I watch this film, it's probably because, of her being nervous. Yeah, it's probably definitely helps it I it because she is that kind of a character. So I can only kind of imagine where it's sort of like if you feel like you're about to get fired every day, then there's no way that that doesn't kind of bleed into your performance. And but that's honestly perfect in this situation because she's just this insecure teenager that doesn't want to be, you know, when Ben dream or all of a sudden when she finds out that, you know, and then and then he finds her attractive, he's like, oh, no, you didn't. Oh no, you 000, Woody. Then Kramer I then Kramer. Yeah. Oh we never even see him. You don't. He gets fucking nailed by an ambulance or, by a police car into an ambulance early. And part two dead. I love part two. Yeah, I love parts. Yeah, we can talk about the sequels maybe a little later, because I don't want to. I don't want to run too long. Halloween is only about 90 minutes, and I try to keep these episodes. I want them to not run longer than the movie. So we're like, we're cruising today. Now we just get to the film and we can talk about it. I think most everyone listening to this has seen it, so it's not going to be like a scene by scene thing. But there really are not many parts to the film. It's I have it categorized loosely in five parts. There's the opening killing. So that's a very brief part. There's where Michael escapes in present day, also very brief, then part, I call it part three. A is we're in Haddonfield during the day with Michael hunting Laurie, part three B is going on concurrently in Haddonfield Halloween day, Loomis hunting Michael. And then part four is night and we cut to night a little before half way through the movie, and that's the rest. And then we're just cutting back and forth between all these people we've met. And you know, who's he going to take out? What's he doing? What's he thinking? Who's he going to kill first? But you already alluded to this opening shot and how unsettling these long takes are. We got to talk about this opening because we get the little chant from the kids. Well, no, actually, hold up. Totally. Go back. The credits are phenomenal. The credits are like, oh, yeah, setting everything up beautifully. The score is pounding there. They're not short. A lot of credits in 78 crews by. But you know they want the song to play out. It's a real pumpkin. They shot that in a garage. Like just moving the camera into the pumpkin. And it looks great. It's so effective. Are you telling me, though, they couldn't have done a better job on that pumpkin? I mean, what, like the car that pumpkin is? Yeah. The car. What? What's a sad pumpkin? What did pumpkins look like when you were eight? After you carved them? They didn't hire. They sure budget, man. They didn't have professional pumpkin carver. I thought you could get a dimmer for Michael Mike Myers coming out of the shadows, but you couldn't get someone to have his John Carpenter, for God's sake. Just man. Man's responsible for some of the coolest visual effects ever again. This is the pumpkin. We get. The way that it looks, it looks like it was done by a kid and it's a little sloppy. I like it, I will not have this year. Say there are some I will give you. There are some goofs in Halloween, such as being able to see visible camera equipment and shadows in the opening shots. I'm fine with it, I don't care, I won't take the slander. The pumpkin looks good. I would have, I would have, I would have appreciated. I don't want to say need to like this. Like extravagant, like perfect looking, like horrifying pumpkin. But some cleaner lines would have been nice. All right, all right. Fine. You're already it. Like we're in. We're in second 30 and you're already digging. We got so many seconds to go, let alone minutes. The opening killing you. No matter how many times you watch this movie. Take it from me. It hits. It's, online. You see, some people say it's three shots. It's definitely at least two because it cuts when he puts on the mask. And then. Which is Debra Hill's hand, which I think is really funny, seeing, like, grab the knife. Some people say it cuts when he's walking down the stairs. I don't really see that one. So whether it's 1 or 2, I don't know. But wow. I mean, you do not know what's going on. I remember the first time seeing this, like you don't know, is this you don't even know until she says Michael was some. Yeah, she knows this person. It's so fucking effective. I also want to say two fun bits of trivia. The movie has bookends. It starts with this shot, and then it ends the current dilapidated Myers house. And speaking to that poor state of the house that you see in present day Haddonfield in 78, that's what the house looked like. They had to throw wallpaper, paint. They had to throw all this shit on it, just in the areas they shot for that opening shot, which they filmed dead last, was the last thing they filmed. Wow. And I mean, they like Carpenter says, if you move the camera a millimeter, it's just all crap. And like, dust and shitty boards on the ground and everything. So I love that. I love the day it a lot of planning went into it. There's a bunch of grips behind the moving lights the whole time. Is that this? It has to be the same interior as well then. Yeah. Yeah. And that it. Yeah, exactly. But yeah. So you see the interior when like, Loomis and Sheriff Brackett are in there and, you know, I watched them for 15 years. All that. Yeah. It looked like shit. So they just basically dressed, set dress the shots that they would use for that opening scene. But they were afraid they were going to, like, fall through the floors. They're like, the house is a piece of shit. Yeah. And they made it. I mean, when you're looking at the inside, like when, like the sister and the guy are making out and then like the like, I mean, walking inside, I mean, it looks like a that looks like a house. Not just like, like the production design that that alone is actually pretty incredible considering what you know, it actually looks like. Exactly. Wow. Wow. But yeah. Tell me about this opening. I mean, it just hits every time, right? No matter how many times you see it, it's there. It's just there's just no I mean, it achieves so much because one, you've never really quite snapping like it and it's setting you up by because it's not like, this movie is told from the first person perspective of the killer, but it is in some ways, putting you into a headspace that's very, very uncomfortable to be in. And if you don't have that, I don't know if you get that same effect of when you're always getting those behind the back shots of, yeah, Michael Myers like the breathing, because you've already been in his head as like just from the like the cinematography point of view, to be able to be like, oh, we're in first person watching this camera. You don't know that it's a kid, but you do know that you're in this first person setting and then that first person commits a murder. And then when you break away, when it cuts to the kid, you feel that break. It is like all of a sudden like you just got transported. Oh, and the mask comes off. Oh, yeah. Yeah. When the mask comes off, it's a great cut. But it it's so fucking jarring. You're like, whoa, okay. It's this. Yeah, kid. Whoa. Yep. Yeah. And then any time that you are seeing because you never exactly get that first person again, you don't ever get seeing it from Michael Myers. His exact point of view. You're right. Yeah. We might be behind him or something, but yeah, you're right. But when we are there, like we are familiar with a place that we don't want to be. And so I think that adds to some of the terror that you're seeing and or even when like Michael is like stalking Annie outside her house because that's the, that's like the only other time that we really see a similar thing where it's like, oh, he's outside the house looking through the windows. You know, it's just it's it's one it's also a pretty ballsy, artistic move to do at a time where you've never seen, oh, we're going to open the shot with one take and there's going to be a killing by itself. Awesome idea. Also very cool. And it was executed amazing. But without it, it does. I think, like if you were just to, have the movie start without that scene. Yeah, like with them in the car, like it's raining. Yeah. Loomis and the nurse are in the car. Yeah, because you could technically, if you wanted to increase the dialog in that scene where that could be the opening scene, and Loomis just explains to her, killed his sister. Six. Yeah, killed his sister. You know, you could exposition, tell that whole entire story and probably still achieve it, because even like his way of telling that story carries is certain. Like, oh, shit. Like even like the nurse, like, driving is like, you're kind of crazy, aren't you? Just fucking chain smoking, man. She's. She's nervous. Just yanked out so, so, but but yeah. So I think that that opening shot achieves so much I think it's an inspiration in terms of a lot of filmmaking, in terms of how do we do something cool, think outside the box, use the camera in a way that's never been done like that. That's really I think the most is probably the most. But outside of the score, this is a hot take. I have another one, but maybe outside of the score, that opening, way that you're using that camera is probably one of the most revolutionary ways to tell a bit of the story, I think. Yeah. And people start I mean, that does kind of happen in Bob Clark's Black Christmas, which I talked about there. That happens in the beginning. He's like stalking a sorority house a little bit. So they use that as inspiration. I think they greatly improved upon it for Halloween. But then after Halloween, everyone's doing this shit. This, like, becomes their thing. I mean, let alone everything else that is in Halloween. Stalking the babysitter. Like, whatever. You know, picking them off one at a time. Over. You cannot overstate how much this grabs anyone who watches it, and you're not going to turn it off after this. You're not. If it is not another thing about the movie, it is. But this is not what I would classify as hard-r. There's very little gore. A lot of people misremember that. Very little gore. There's not. I mean, there is sexual, sexual ality that's going on, but there's not, you know, explicit nudity. There's not a lot of harsh cursing it just so you can watch this one at an early age, as I as I suspect you and I did, and as some of my friends are telling me, they're starting to show it to their children. So that's part of the allure of it, too, because you're still, like, really freaked out. But, you know, you can still you can kind of keep watching. Oh my God. Then we're in the car, all the interiors in the car to shot in a garage. There's shake in the car. It's it some lighting's moving lights. It looks so damn good. It's so believable. I never would have guessed that you got the nurse, Marion, played by Nancy Stevens, the great Nancy Stevens. She's in part two. This is the nurse that in part two is going to reveal the news that Michael and Laurie are brother and sister. But yeah, that if you're just watching one and that is not part of the lore and it's just this crazy fuck stalking out this girl and her friends for no real reason. Maybe because she showed up at his house first like she's the first girl he's seen, you know, because she drops the key off at the Myers place. But anyway, when you don't know any of that and they're just driving up, and as soon as she's like, like, oh, we're here. He says, we're here. That they cut you to see him walk it around. And then that score starts because something is being revealed. Like they just let him walk around like that. He's like, go on, move like so. It's so fucking freaky when they're just like, you can't hear that, but they're just haphazardly, like walking around in the rain in these white gowns. Terrifying. I mean, you actually never want them to get out. No, never. Never come. Why are we taking him off to Hardin County? If you're just gonna take us? That is the law. We are. Since when did it lets them wander around? And up to the main gate. Shouldn't we go on? The. It's absolutely. It's one of the most horrifying images to me in the entire movie. And it's just some crew members walking around on, like, the side of the road. That's it. That's all it is. And the fucking score, like, it's it's it's because of I, I like how little light we're seeing. Yeah. Because like, and then you get like the rain coming in. So it's really sort of I think what's terrifying about it is that because the image is not clear, you're just getting like these very, very specific glimpses. But then there's a reality to it that becomes, that's the scary thing because you're confused and you don't know, like when she usually they let them wander around like that. That's giving you enough of an idea to where something's wrong. But then you're seeing and you're like, that's doesn't look right. And nope. And I remember, I think I told you, that, I mean, this is a whole different story, but I had like a situation when I was a kid where it was like a children of the corn type thing, where I would see these kids thinking about that. Yeah. And and and it I mean, different it completely because it was during the day and like these were kids coming out one by one from a freaking the from the woods. Very unsettling. But it was the same type of unsettling as that shot is where you're like, what is going on? This is not normal. This is very creepy and scary. We need to leave or we need to get out of this situation that it's all done in just that one tiny shot with the score, and then one person's dialog of saying, do they usually let them out like this? All that together puts enough together for you to be scared to. Absolutely. So you said, like all these kids, like you were at a playground and all these kids came out of the woods and, like, surrounded the jungle gym and, like, didn't say anything. Well, I mean, you want me to tell the whole story because I can't get to tell the whole story. I know, I know. All right, well, to go save that for a rainy day, I know, I know, but it's, you know, it's, to tell it. Right. The Patreon. You got to go to Patreon. That's right. That's what we're. We got fucking do it. This. It would be perfect for it. Go to Patreon to hear Nick's haunted house story, or his scary kid story that he made up in his head. All right, I've. I've kidnaped and I'll to my uncle get it. Fucking kids. Creepy kids. The scary like Michael in the beginning of this movie. But yeah. Then, you know, I one of the best lines in the movie. He's gone. He's gone from there. The evil is gone. He's so fucking freaked out. And Jean's like, try to collect yourself. And yeah, now it's Halloween. Doesn't help her up. And oh no, he doesn't care. He's got more. He's got things to worry about. Go on. Move. And now we're. Yeah, we're in Haddonfield, and we're meeting Laurie. Fun bit of trivia that I figured out on, I don't know, like my 15th viewing this year. Laurie's dad, who just has a few lines, you know, don't forget to drop the keys off the at the Myers house. That's Melanie Griffith's dad, aka Dakota Johnson's grandfather. Okay. You know. Oh, wow. Well, you know, I just thought that was fun. And yes, that the one of the big questions of the film is why does Michael pick Laurie? I the part of the one of the great things that I love about the movie is that that is not explained. But, you know, her dad is a realtor, she's dropping the key off at the Myers house, and he sees her through that screen door and he's breathing. He see he sees Tommy. Maybe that's the only reason we need, because for the rest of Halloween day, he's going to stalk her out. He's going to watch her at school. He's going to see Tommy. When Tommy, he's out of school. He's watching them both. He picks up on her friends who I love, but that as far as I can tell, that is the only justification there is. The. And it's enough, though, because, I mean, when he escapes the asylum, he just drives like he he drives to his house. Yeah. So so so really like if anything, his whole entire motivation was to leave just to go home. And then he, he sees exactly Laurie and, and and then that, that that is enough because he really is only stalking her. But, but it's everything that's in relation to her. So yeah that's the prime suspect then. Oh this kid. Oh these are her friends. So like you're putting together as like all right he's going to do it. But I, I0I can't wait till we get to my hot take. I got a whole entire thing for you. Oh I'm ready. You're my man. Yeah. Wolf wool I want to save it for where it is because I think it'll be, it'll, you know, like kicks up the conversation again. But, you know, as, like, during the day we're meeting Laurie Strode. She's very nice. She seems like a goody good. You know, boys think I'm too smart. I never go out. Things like that. She's got two friends. Nancy Loomis. As Annie, we've learned that she is the sheriff's daughter. She's a wise ass. She's blond, I love Annie. The actress would later be known as Nancy Keyes, but it's funny that she was credited as Nancy Loomis because that is, you know, Donald Pleasance is character name, and they chose that name Loomis, because that's a name from psycho. So it's all connected, baby. Billy Loomis and scream. It's all connected. Oh, don't you forget it. P.J. Soles is Linda. She's great. Totally great smoking hole doing tells it like it is. Totally. She also played the teenager who orchestrates the humiliation of Carrie White and Carrie. She was married to Dennis Quaid at the time. In real life, he almost played Bob, but he had scheduling conflicts. She later went on to be in Breaking Away, Private Benjamin, stripes, Sweet Dreams, I just, I love their dynamic so much. And as mentioned, Debra Hill wrote most of this pitter patter between them. But it's very simple. You know, boys, what are we doing tonight? It totally believable. Totally, totally. Just the way they're passing the cigaret back and forth. Like I love it. Walking home, Linda hits the breath spray because she's been smoking before she goes in. It's great. It's all great. Shit. I love this part, I love it. You can double them. No, they're not, not yet, not yet, not dope. These are the six dope comes with Annie. Annie is the bad girl. Annie is the sheriff's daughter who picks Lori up when they're going to their babysitting job. She's like, we have just enough time. They actually play stoned. Really well into the night. Like when they're talking on the phone and giggling. They're playing it really well. But yeah, during the day, you know, Michael hunting Laurie Annie is my favorite. And oh my God, we could talk about it now. I love Annie, I've developed such a crush on Annie from all these repeat viewings. Like I just I love her, I love her confidence, I love her. Why is that story like. Oh, great. I have two options. Listen to Linda screw around or hang on tight with you. Hang out all night with you. It's like I said, a bad option. Laura is your friend. That's mean. But you know, she has that, punch to her like a sheriff's daughter might. I love it, love her. Well, are we still on for tonight? I wouldn't want to get you in deep trouble, Linda. Oh, come on, Annie. Bob and I've been planning on it all week. All right, the Wallaces leave at seven. I'm babysitting the Doyles. It's only three houses down. We can keep each other company. Oh, terrific. I've got three choices. Watch the kids sleep, listen to Linda screw around or talk to you. Oh, yeah, I love you. I know you gonna say that is such a crusher as a kid. No, I got such a crush on her from repeat viewings. Now, I love Nancy Loomis, circa 1978. Lover. Also lover and soul. Precinct 13 and the fog. She's great. She's got a bowed out in movies after that. Good. It's her choice. Live your life. Love to hear it. But yeah, just watching all of them around you. And these are the scenes that you kind of started with with him. Like stalking her out and deciding it's her and like her friend and he's like, you're not. What are you talking about now? You're seeing men behind bushes, now you're seeing men, like, with buying lines, like, I think you're wacko. Yeah, no one cares. Laurie's trying to convince her, like, just calm down. There's nothing going on. Little does she know, little does she know. Also, concurrently, Doctor Loomis is in town hunting Michael. He's got the sheriff on board, Charles Cyphers. I love this guy. Good carpenter guy. You know who else this guy is? He's, like, the quasi assistant to the meanest owner in major league. So when at one point they're winning and she's like, what? You know, oh. He's cheering and she's like, shut up. And he go and he blows a raspberry at her. And I just forgot that was him as well. But love him in this course he doesn't believe the doctor. God, I hope you're wrong. I mean, it's so funny that, like, Loomis just keeps missing this car. Like, it's got the hospital decal on it. It's a station wagon. It's great. It's great. Just one point. It just drives by him. That intricate shot of, like, him just missing it. It's great, but, yeah, I love during the day you have these current things. I mean, she's also at school. Like he's stalking her out at school early in the day. Michael is like, you know, a lot of stalking going on in Haddonfield. Is there a maybe maybe there's a question as to whether, Donald Pleasence, doctor Loomis is, possibly either insane himself or a raging alcoholic. Well, we don't see him. We don't see him, you know, having any pops. I think maybe, like, the insanity is one or the fixation. I mean, this is a child psychiatrist who carries a fucking gun. Like, what more do we need, exactly? You know, like, it's. Yeah, he's he's way off. You know, I looked I met him 15 years ago. I was told that. Yeah, he left no reason, no conscience. Like. Yeah, he's he could, he could be like the quack of of of of the whole time. I mean he is and world he is. Right. But he's just so fixated that he's missing the bigger picture. Like cards. Like where is he? I know he's in town, but, dude, you were in the passenger seat of that car last night. Look around. Maybe. Maybe he killed the, truck driver in that one scene. Nah, that's how Michael got the the get the, you know, rig. He's in the, whatever. Jumpsuit. Mechanic suit? Yeah. Jumpsuit? Yeah. Mechanic suit. Yeah. Since we're here, I'll talk about. Since we're here. There. You know, you go on like, IMDb, you go to the goof section, whatever. There's only one goof that bothers me about this movie. That's it. It's something I picked up, you know, several viewings, and you can point out. Yeah, whatever. There's there's mistakes. I talked about seeing camera equipment, shadows. Fine. We don't know why Michael's doing this. I don't think that's a mistake. Fine. Laurie throws a knife away twice. That's fine. She ain't a killer. I get it. We don't let the Undertaker finish his story on old Charlie Balls there. That's fine. The thing that bothers me is when Annie and Laurie show up to that hardware store, they just hotbox the car. Her dad doesn't notice. That's fine. But he says that the hardware store is just been robbed. The alarm is going off. They stole masks. They stole knives, stole a rope. Michael's been in the mask all fucking day. Yeah, he he we saw him in the morning. In the mask, the the hardware store to not just get ripped off. The alarm is not been going off all day. That's really dumb. If they were going to school, it would make sense. But the fact that it's. I mean, this is October, it's supposed to be Illinois.

The sun, it's like 6: 1:01:02

37 p.m.. He robbed this fucker at like eight in the morning. That's all. That's it's so weird to me. It's I can forgive everything else, but it's so weird with the. I mean, it's just the alarm. That's it. Even if, you know, whatever. He was late to showing up to the robbery. Got hit this morning. How? Who the. Who else do you think did it? But the fact that. But the fact that the alarm is still going on is silly. Halloween, I love you. I mean, you know, you film movie in 20 days, I get it, but still. Hey, I have a way to rectify this with my hot take table. It. We're almost there. Halloween night. What happens? I just want to bring about a little knowledge in a little context, because you even were talking and kind of got it wrong or misstated it. Oh, Annie. No. Annie and Laurie are not at their houses. They are babysitting. People forget that they are not familiar necessarily with these surroundings. They don't. So that's how they get locked out of doors and stuff. But imagine like being at yes, they've clearly babysat these kids before, but imagine being there and it's not your surrounding and you're getting fucked with the whole time. Babysat, whatever babysitting babysitter or and you're getting fucked with the whole time. I just, I love that there's someone else's homes, there's someone else's kids. And you know, for this, for the bottom half of the movie, it's gracefully cutting between Laurie babysitting Tommy. There's so much of this movie where Jamie Lee Curtis is just acting with the kids, where she's not interacting with anyone her age, and then there's Annie babysitting Lindsay, who is being played by future Housewives reality star Kyle Richards. Loomis hunting Michael so soon? Linda's brought back in, and then, you know, Michael's just served these kills. Just imagine being Mike. You're like, I'm going to go sit in this garage in back of the car. It's right. She comes in, boom. Oh my God. Victim one I didn't even have to work for this boom. He's carried in his body. And and after a few minutes, here comes this blond with her boyfriend. And it's come right in. Look at that now. Oh my God, no, they go at it. Called back to my sister. I don't like this too much. I get to have a little fun myself. I get to have a little fun. Ice them out. Poor Linda thinks that Linda probably thinks Bob killed her. She thinks it's Bob under the sheet, and the person under the sheet strangles her. That's a tough way to go. Yeah. It's true. And then Laurie walks on over to the house. He doesn't even have to go anywhere. He's just being served all these people. It's not when. It's not till Laurie runs away for the first time that he comes to her house where they are. It's just a great time. Very well written. I mean, we're also I just want to point out one of my favorite Donald Pleasence moments. Oh my. Is because I know we're cruisin. Yeah. Is, is is my favorite down Pleasence moment in the whole entire movie. It's when it's when he's stalking out the old Myers house and those kids are up and he. I mean, he's locked your ass away from there. But then when the kids run away, he goes satisfied. He's so proud of himself, so, like, proud. And then right after the sheriff scares him. It's one of my favorite scares because he turns around, he's like, 0000. He literally he literally his whole entire body just like, rises with so much pride. He's there's a little glimmer in his eye of like, oh yeah. Oh, it's just like. I'm not afraid for him not go in. Check it. Go ahead. Lonnie, go in. Hey. Hey, Lonnie, get your ass away from power. Jesus. Are you all right? Yeah, yeah. Nothing's going. Yeah, I love it. I love that moment. It's so good. And then, you know, I love even the sheriff. Because just kids, you know, pulling pranks, driving around, parking, getting high. I think you're way off on this. It's so good that wood believes him. Sheriff. Sorry. Your daughter is the first to get killed tonight, you know, tap it. Hey, you know it. Start. It starts the trope. Oh, maybe it doesn't start it, but, But there certainly is something to be said about the sheriff of a town. And any horror movie is just the worst. The mayor and jaws is what you know. It gets brought up a lot. I we're going to open this damn beach, I don't care. And then, I mean, yeah, like you talk. We just talked about a pleasant look. One of the I mean, like, one of the signature looks of the film is that his final shot? And he told Carpenter, I can give you with my countenance. Oh, shit. He's gone, or I can give you. God damn it! I fucking knew this would happen. Oh, my. And that's the look in his face of like, oh my God. And I'm in the last interaction of it was the boogeyman. As a matter of fact, it was. It's just it's perfect. It's a great the ending. I mean, all the kills are unique and like, fun or scary in their own way. Like, Mike took the time to collect the sheet and poke holes in it. Did he? I don't know, it's still funny. Like I just love it. But I mean, man, when you're seeing when, like Tommy, seeing him walk in his body and and then like, Laurie's got her on the she thinks and he's messing with her. Get on the phone. And then she goes and stands in the doorway and that's all in. It's immortalized in scream because, you know, they're watching scream. They're watching Halloween and the end of scream during that climactic moment. So I'm so familiar with this whole portion of the film because it and I've timed it. It's not in real time in scream. I'll have everyone know it's it's skipping ahead a little bit. So like the first time we see Halloween, if you start Halloween on a separate device like I've done, it's not going to match to where it does. The next time you see it and scream, that's okay. Ridley Scott rules anyway. Yeah, the end is just great, isn't it? He's telling me brother. Yeah. No, the ending is awesome because it leaves you with this idea, which is the most terrifying idea is that he's still out there. Can you don't know if there's going to be a second one where there's going to be, you know, all this or that, but, I mean, you just went through a whole entire situation where every time you think Laurie has killed him, he keeps coming back and you don't understand why, and that's scary. And then all of this happens. And then, though I love the shot because it's right after, he's like, I really think it was. But then the score kicks in and they start like taking those shots of like the empty lawn plot where he was just laying is no longer there. Seven look on his face. Yep. And then you get Laurie, who just continues to start to cry even more, even though she's she's unaware that he's no longer there anymore. Like she doesn't see the body. Right. But I think she gets it from Pleasance. I think she's sensing that he's not like, there's no he's not like, oh, he's still down there. I mean, just the silence I read her is saying like, Holy fuck, this isn't over. It's not over. Exactly. And, and and then to, you know, because I can only imagine, like in 1978, like you just went through that in a movie theater. But then the idea is, is that how am I supposed to walk to my car right now, exactly when Zach is still out there? Because it ends with him breathing? Yeah, like like this last shot. But he's still fucking out there. Exactly. And that is the most scary thing, is that he's still there. It leaves you satisfied but still terrified. It does because you're like, oh, that was a great movie ending, but holy shit, he's still here. How? We don't know. It's I mean, it starts it ends just as strongly as it began. And that is not easy to do for any movie because both are. Yep. Flawless. Yep. Absolutely. Dean Cundey I'm glad you named dropped him earlier. I do want to talk about him. He was the cinematographer. This he was Carpenter's guy. He did The Fog, escape from New York, Halloween two, The Thing, Halloween three. Big trouble. Then he became Zemeckis's Guy, romancing the Stone, all the back to the futures won an Oscar for shooting Who Framed Roger rabbit, and he did some. Yeah, they needed hook. Death becomes her, Jurassic Park, the cinematographer of Halloween, I knew. Oh, yes, the cinematographer of Jurassic Park. He shot Apollo 13. What women Want the Holiday, Jack and Jill. This is a fantastic cinematographer. And I, when I started in what what why man what it were I don't know I'm a filmmaker. This opening scene with Mel. There you go. The whole movie. Fantastic. Well shot I guess Jurassic Park though. I mean, it's like the these aren't the people who worked on Halloween. These aren't slouches, you know, like they knew what they were doing. There's. And you can tell Debra Hill they, you know, didn't go on to last forever as boyfriend girlfriend, her and Carpenter. But she went on to produce The Dead Zone, clue, Adventures in Babysitting, The Fisher King, escape from L.A., Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. She had a good career. That's a lot of the people who were involved in this movie had good careers by choice. Great film, great for these categories. Oh, I'm ready, baby. Let's do it here we go. The. New Hollywood categories. That's right. You're going to go first. Number one. What is your favorite thing that makes this a new Hollywood movie? Unconventionally putting us in the first person of the killer with that opening shot, I think purely in that opening shot is enough of a reason to kind of put this into ushering in a new way of doing things. Cinema radically. That becomes, you could have to know, like we're talking about we could not have known that that would be what it would become. As an inspiration for so many other cinematographers and directors. But yet it was done here during a time where there was freedom to do it. Yeah. I think the overall cinematography of this movie is why this is, the phrasing, why this makes it a new Hollywood movie, new Hollywood movie, this cinematography by itself, like just that alone. It makes this completely revolutionary in so many ways. But because of the purely those shot compositions that I was talking about, this might be one of my all time favorite movies. And from the cinematography standpoint, Holy. Like, I love it, dude, I love it. I, I mean it because, like, and it's not just because some of it's the lighting, some of it, it's, it all has to be done with so many different things. But you can't look at this movie just as it's moving and not just be emotionally affected by almost damn near every single shot that's in here. Being a complete independent movie, this movie has so much intentionality behind it. That and like we talk about like, cinematography is not exactly it's not like making the best looking shot. It's about what is the best way to use the camera to evoke the emotion, storytelling that we needed to do. This movie does that every step of the fucking way. Then the sexual perversion, idea that's introduced, talking about the virgin killer talk like the Virgin lives, you know, is Michael haunting or stalking these women? Due to any kind of sexual perversion? I mean, there is a lot to draw from this idea that he sees his sister at a young age, not really understanding what's going on, and then kills her as a result of it. Now, I'm not seeing that this is exactly what this movie is or anything, but I think it certainly does introduce an idea here. But I mean, this idea is an open conversation that I think lends itself to being in that category that we're talking about as well. Yeah, I mean, it definitely started the conversation on a lot of that, and it was not their intention, that's all. But yeah, certainly not. So it gives you so much to it. That's why so many movies have been, you know, spun off. Exactly. Because there's so much rich subtext built into it that they do not explain and that many, many, many sequels have basically gotten their budgets greenlit, saying, we're going to explain some of that stuff. So, yeah, I mean, it definitely it adds to it. Yeah. There's so many different ways you can go. Was you triggered by the sexual sexuality in the beginning and then it's yeah, yeah. I mean, because I mean, when you look at every other big horror franchise or anything freaking horror that lasted throughout the rest of the 80s and 90s, it all has to do with like, nudity. Yeah, the kills happen in sex. It's like a whole like you can't go through a Jason movie a Nightmare on Elm Street movie like any other Halloween sequels that happens in every Halloween. They all do. They're going at it and someone gets it with a pitchfork. I've seen it. Exactly. It's just it's just what happens. Scream based it like it's whole entire like, you know, genius on partially. But this idea, you know, and and it's just sort and it's, it's, it's what it all talks about and it all stems from this. So this was not intentional by John Carpenter or Debra Hill, but it had weirdly taken a life of its own that brought in an introduction to this sexuality into this slasher genre that you can't get away from. You just can't, you can't, you can't. And that's a good answer to our first question of the category. But I like to thank my mind kind of touches on that. The thing that made to me that makes it very new Hollywood is that this was an independent film, independent financers not with a studio at all. Yet, to your point, it looks fantastic. And it was a monster hit, $300,000 budget, went on to make millions and millions and millions of dollars and spawned how many, say, a legacy, maybe one of the biggest legacy horror franchises in history? Genuinely, maybe the biggest. So yeah, yeah, there's a lot of things that helped set this movie apart. And that's all why we're talking about it today. Is this John Carpenter's best film? Yes, I think yes, I agree, I love Carpenter, but I think this is it I do. What's your second favorite big trouble, big trouble thing? My second favorite, be it Assault on Precinct 13. That's really good. I love that movie. I mean, I love they live to sing these elements. So the same thing that we're talking about, Halloween, the way that I felt about this movie when I was a kid, it still exists now. And you cannot you can't. That if you showed this to someone who had never seen it before, they will have those feelings too, because it's undeniable. Is this the actor's best performance we can do? Pleasance. We can also do Jamie. I'll say for Pleasance. I've seen him in a lot. Yeah, but Doctor Loomis is my favorite in Halloween, the original. And then Jamie. Yeah, I mean, I think my favorite performance from her is her first. I love Jamie Lee Curtis, but she is so damn good in this, I love it. Oh, I, I can't give you that. What are you going to do, give you that. What are you going to say. Well, I mean you better not fucking say I, I got, you know, she won the Academy Award for it, baby. That's your thing everywhere. All at once. Performance from her. I really do like her in it, I really do. I'm not going to go as far as to say it's my favorite, least favorite performance from her. I. Oh, I mean, A Fish Called Wanda. I like True Lies. I mean, she's such a amazing cur. Freaky Friday, do you talk about someone that's willing to go for it? Freaky Friday is all better than what you want her Oscar for all of them. Don't do this to me. Well, I mean, I, I, I don't know, man. I really did enjoy her in that movie. I thought she was great in it. I don't know what her best would be. I think if. Okay, if I had to really give her her absolute best. Probably a Fish Called Wanda. I really, really like her in that she's great, but it's a long career. Donald Pleasance I give, I give his whole entire Halloween legacy. That's fair. Yeah. That's fair. I dig that. All right. What happened to them? This is the category. Next category. This is a dumb category because you already answered. I did the research, motherfucker. That's right. I went through all these women and all these side characters, and I found them. And then you explain them all during the actual podcast. Which is why now I'm like, whoa, whoa, now I got no questions and we got no conversation, which is why I'm going to say my answer is Nancy Loomis, who we already discussed in great detail. I love Nancy Loomis. That's all you have to fucking say. Why you gotta yell at me that you're red in the face? Okay, can the shirt off again. Cheese's now the pain next to Jesus Christ so fucking riled up here. That's all you got to say? It's okay if we've touched on something as we've gone. We sometimes spoil stuff as we go. Like, it's. It's okay, it's okay. Well it's fine. Well, so I'm just saying, Nancy Loomis was in a few movies with Carpenter, and then she bailed out from acting, and then she went on and had her life. She was. She got married to Tommy Lee Wallace, who edited, did the production design of Halloween and some other Halloween films. He was very integral to the making of Halloween and of Dark Star and Assault on Precinct 13, so they were all one big, happy family. That's all. It's all I got to say, man, I'm glad we talked about this. Now I am too. Who's your pick? Why already did them all? I already I did a bunch of them. Great I did, I did, I did Annie Nancy Keys and then PJ soles and and and oh, oh okay. Here you go. Here you go. PJ soles was in a horror movie called Candy corn. Whoa. With two of my friends. Sigh and punch and, that's right. I forgot she was in that. That's right. Yes, I have seen the film. Yes, that's right. Good call. I was Candy, I was at the premiere when you said that. I was like, wait, I've seen this. Is this like a different one? Like an earlier one? No, it's not her favorite scene. Her favorite shot. Well, we we breezed over it because you just went on, on a locomotive to get to the end of the movie. So it's a movie number one. It's it's the shot where Lori falls down the stairs. And then we see up from the bottom of the stairs, Michael, with the knife just standing above it. Yep. And then the the the walk down, like there's some, like, there's already something terrifying about that image of, like, just from that idea. But then the walk down it all of a sudden becomes real, like real earlier than it already was. And that's even more terrifying. And then, of course, like you get like the subsequent follow up of the Chase. Yeah. And, and I don't know if this had been done before, you would know better. Oh. Like in because getting into the house or the. Yeah. Just like, I don't know, I don't know, but it's this is the earliest I can think of. But yeah, I mean, I know what you did last Summer does it too. And Sarah Michelle Gellar every they all you all do. It's crazy. Oh they all do it. Yeah. And there is nothing more unsettling. It doesn't matter whether you can open a door or you can get the keys inside of a car, whatever it is. But that that panic of where certain death is biting at, you're like at your, at your, your heels and, just keeps getting in on me and Dean and I, It would be so easy. This is where the trope comes in. It'd be so easy for Michael to run, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but just, like, know with the chainsaw, leather face is running. Yeah. Oh. Related faces running. Absolutely. Great point right there. But there's something about this slow, methodical plod where it's sort of like it's coming. Yeah. And and then, you know, and then you're waiting for Tommy Lee after he's just got done, you know, you know, he's finished. And now back to this go okay. Back to that. He's he's all groggy all you want. And then you know how slow he's coming down because now you're, you're is the because you're the eyes like kid get to fucking step in I know, I know when the door and you're. And you're just on the edge of your seat. And this is something only film can do. Like, you can't translate this type of feeling in any other medium, this sense of urgency, or even from the bottom of like the the, when he's breaking through the door of, like the, the latch chains because it's such a terrifying thing because and obviously we all know that, like this. This door doesn't stand a chance. Like the closet door. But she's. Yeah, the closet door. But there's an inordinate amount of time of him just pressing it. It's like, what's going on? I should be able to press this. And then we're like, what the hell? Why can't he figure this out? Yeah, yeah. It's so unsettling. It's so unsettling because I think we all like, you know, for the most part, especially, you know, growing up, you know, doors are like that. There's like a sense of familiarity where you know that they're they're flimsy. They don't lock necessarily. But to be able to have that safety go away and then all of a sudden just punches through. Yep. And then you're getting the light on. And and I mean, I it's just it's just it's, it's, it's all done so well it's that, that whole entire end from Lori discovering the bodies to all the way, all the way to the end, that is just a an achievement right there. It's really not much. There's like ten minutes or so to go when she's outside like Tommy let me. Yeah. Let me I mean the movie is almost done. I'm saying like credits are done, like you're getting like the MPAA logo at the end, like you're the it is we are going to be out hard in like 7 or 8 minutes. It's yeah, it's it's remarkable. And the whole I know I did breeze over it but yeah. Like the whole thing, the whole staging of it. Her terror in the back of the closet. Yeah. Coat hanger like shoving it up. And. Man. Yeah, I, I touched on I have two favorite shots. One is just that dimmer when she's standing there and she thinks she's, beat him. And you to see it, you know, the mask become apparent. And then also, when he picks up the phone after he's killed Linda and Lori's like, Annie. Annie. And the way he picks it up and holds it to his face, like, in slow motion. Yeah. They speaking to the cinematography. They backlit a lot of the movie with blue light, so there's often a lot of blue in the background. And occasionally you see that blue on its face. So like half his mask, like white and blue. So good, so good. But yeah, like, everything is well shot in it. Every scene is good. There's nothing I like them all. Even the ones that don't include like action or terror or anything. Favorite quote? There's two of them, but if I had to pick the one, it's the evil is gone from here. God is gone. I love, such a crazy thing to say. You're right, you're right. He's gone. He's gone from here. The evil is gone. Right, I got it. I mean, the last words of the film, I really can't. It's not a quote, but it was the boogeyman. Like, not even a question. Just kind of like stating it and him saying. As a matter of fact, it was just. And they don't know each other like they they have not met at all that he is not in the Myers house. He, Loomis is in some random fucking house that he's never been in before right now. Like he has no idea what he's doing and that that brief little thing, it's just it's so good. And then look. And then her crying. Those seven still shot. But yeah, the evil is gone is great. And then. Hey, jerk. Speed kills third one there and get it. And that's a terrifying element right there to control. What else can you take joke. Because you because it's the longer he holds on that break in that silence is, you know, that's why the cut is so perfect, because at first it's just sort of startling, but then it's unsettling. Yeah. When we see how long he's just there and then that cuts back to them. And then she's like, God can't take a joke. Like that moment right there is like, oh man gets you. Yeah it does, it does. I added this one. Just some favorite films of 1978. This is the new Hollywood project. Yeah, I just wanted to throw some out there. I will say a little behind the scenes ones, because we're doing one movie per year. Other movies I considered Superman to tie in with the new film Coming Home by Hal Ashby, Interiors by Woody Allen. Believe it or not, we did talk about that one. I think all would have been good choices, but settle on Halloween II largely because of my challenge. I'm like, let's just do it. I think it'll be fun. And it has been a lot of fun. But seven days is a good year. I mean, episode 97 of this podcast, we did The Deer Hunter, probably our favorite movie of the year. Heaven Can Wait, Warren Beatty's first movie that he directed, The Buddy Holly story. If you want to see Gary Busey act before he his terrible motorcycle accident, go watch that Midnight Express was big. Grease was the word. Jaws two was a hit. Animal House changed comedy. Yeah. Clint acted with an orangutan and John Carpenter reinvented the horror film genre. Important year. Days of Heaven came out. It did? Yes it did. I was just doing some I mean, a lot of stuff in Sonata was, you know, it's not necessarily New Hollywood, but yeah, that was looming there. But yeah, days of Heaven is a huge. Well, I just I didn't pick that because we've done Malick. That's the only reason you know. Yeah, it's true. But I'm just saying if you were like, you're your favorite movies of 78 like these are here. The Last Waltz still arguably considered to be the greatest movie concert movie of all time. Movie? Yeah. Movie. Concert movie. Yep. But about the band, a movie. Martin Scorsese. He does not remember filming or editing because he said he was too high on cocaine the entire time. Go watch that. Which is why I meant. I mean, he got he was in that he was hospitalized after that because of his drug use. And then, you know, De Niro came and visited him, handed him a book. I think we should make this. It was Jake LaMotta. It was Raging Bull, written by Jake LaMotta, yada, yada. And then, yeah, here we go. Movies, history. Yeah, yeah, the other movie, banned movie. All right. The one everyone waits for, the white W and T the Nicholas Doe. So hot take of Halloween. Give it to us. The harder the better. All right. This isn't necessarily a hot take. This is taking it up to a whole other level. Well, I'll be the judge of that. I had an idea. And this idea is. We remake this movie. No one's ever done it. Wow. Great idea. Nick. No, no, no. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Okay, it's all done through the first person literal first person experiences of Michael Myers. Okay, but it's a comedy. So the way that we do it is that we actually follow every single, like, like, like reel to reel, everything that the movie does. This is supposed to be shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. Just shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut, shut a great idea. So from now, if there's any time that we are in real time, we are following what Michael Myers is doing. But if. If there's times where we're asleep. Because you know that when that drive is just going from where he's gone from escaping the asylum back to his house, this is the time where he goes and pulls up the gravestone. This is the time where he probably robs the bank or at the bank. The the hardware stores and everything like that. And but the thing is, is we get like a, like, a first person narrative voice over. Or maybe he talks out loud to himself the entire time. So is all those things that you were saying where it's sort of like when all these being are served up to him, where he's like giving himself like these thoughts, but then also, like, you see in real time, like maybe like when he's stepping out into a certain spot, like he knows he's like, all right, I'm going to stand right here and then this is going to get her. But then like that one where he's like outside the bushes, like when he comes back, like maybe he trips and it's just sort of like, shit, shit. Got to get away. You got to get away before they see me. Like he's trying the entire time to not lose his cool. And so he always, he's always going to present the terrifying killer. But every step of the way, it's probably like, really, really ill formed in every single way. Like him trying to pull up the gravestone is like the biggest challenge ever. And he's tripping over everything. He the alarm gets set off in the in the hardware stop because he can't turn it off and no one else can. So that's how it's going on forever is because no one can figure out how to turn off the alarm, and then you just keep going. Like when he ends up, when he ends up in the car with all the, like the, the breathing thing happens. He's going to he's like, oh, shit, really, really hot box in this car. So he's going to know something's up. But then it's like she comes in, it's like she doesn't know God and then he gets her. And then like, the same thing happens for all of it. Like there's an in there. A lot of when he first sees his sister outside is like, he's like my sister, oh, God, I'm going to kill you. This is. He was going and going. Docile pitch meeting. This is a hot take. This is about Halloween. The hot is not that. This movie's money, this idea. Everyone knows that there's 13 fucking sequels. Everyone knows this movie is money. No, but this is this is a spoof on the actual. But you end all the same dialog, so. So no, you know, but this is a real time, like, you're seeing everything from his scary movie like, meets in a violent nature. So it's sort of like in a violent nature, scary movie, but not really in that spoof spoof way. It's just this idea of what Michael Myers is actually really like in a more bumbling sense. Not in so much is like we're we're trying to do like these, like farcical things. It's just like, how is he really pulling all this off? And like, one of my favorite things is like when he's carrying the body that Tommy Doyle sees, that could be like a moment. Yeah. Where no one was supposed to see that. Like, maybe he couldn't get her out of that, like the garage because the door was locked. So he's like, fuck, I actually have to carry this girl out in, in, like, the actual, like, world is like, this is this is this wasn't going according to plan. And then he stops and sees Tommy. At one point he's like, oh shit. And then just keeps going. But then there's other moments where it's like girls kind of. And then he's like, it's all going according to plan. One thing I didn't it's a great idea. And it's not the same dialog. Not everything is used the same. So listeners are going to love to know. I didn't even include the sound on the outline because I don't want him to see it. The end is always supposed to be the last category I have sneakily added in a new category. It's it's number nine. The final category is Alex's take on the y w, and this is the first one we're doing. So it's my take on your hot take that is a fucking f that is has nothing. This is to say that is. No this is the best idea ever about the movie. The sexuality one was closer to this. You just went on like a six minute rant where you could have said it should be Halloween meets scary movie, meets in a violent nature meets presents. Yeah, I know, that's scary movie. I don't like the scary movie. This is its own. You don't, they know violent. You're literally like, he goes and goes, When he trips all the time. Scary movie. That's what you want. But he's got like an. Yeah, but but there's something that's so over-the-top about scary movie that where this isn't going to be over the top. It's more grounded in the funny reality of when you're trying to kill somebody. Well, I don't know what's going to be called. I think you workshopped all this shit, but you didn't. You can't give me a title, us a title. No, I know the the title comes, the title comes, it. You know, it's got to be right. It'll come when it comes. But the idea is right here. And, you know, and I work it out at you. I am surprised at you. I thought you wouldn't say you were already listing some of this shit. And I was in my head. I go, oh my God, he's going to love this listing. Because you already like saying first person. What? Yeah. When you know, he's like, oh, that's how was, I'm not a fan of looking at this because what happened to my sister right here you were even talking about in the car where he's, like, waiting for her. These are all the things, like, how does he get in the car? He's like, I'm going to set this up right here. And then I'm going to go right here, and I'm going to do all this, okay? And you're actually seeing it's amazing. So you want a like a remake following same story, same script, but we just follow Michael the whole time. That's it. And we see all the time, at times bumbling. We see efforts to get into places. Yes. Okay. Yes. Because. Because then when finally we get no, I was I was giving the final product for you. Okay. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Like, are you like, the movie always ends up exactly as the movie does. Right. But then it's all the things that we don't see, like, you know, so like when he literally is, like, in the bush and he, like, he's standing up now I'm not even joking. I'm standing up. He's standing up and out of this chair. And like, he knows that he needs to move because you think this movie scary effect should have made it. That should have gotten any Oscar nominations, should have been nominated for an Oscar, anything. It wasn't nominated for any. I don't like how you're just just you just get your drifting over this idea. Seven minutes you've been going. Oh, yeah, this is a great idea. This is one of the best ideas I've ever had. This is all. And it's all done in real time. Go! You're matching the exact movie. You love this shit. You love these. Feel the real, like, real time Nick. It can't be in real time. You'd have to pick 90 real minutes. You just went through his whole fucking day. How do you want this to be? A 14 hour movie? What are you talking about? No, it's not real time like that. But like, everything that we see in the movie is done at the time it matches itself. The only things that we don't see are the things when everyone's asleep, like, for example, in the, in the, in the, in this, in this sequence between when he's stalking them throughout the day. Right. The girls are walking home, but we're seeing they're constantly conversation when we see it. Right. He hasn't pulled up with the car yet, but we follow the way the editing of the original Halloween goes, and we matched for match all the editing. It's just in between all the things that we're not seeing Michael Meyers doing. That's what we're experiencing in the movie. And then when it's lined up with how it actually happens in the real movie, that's what we get. So we get the kills we get every time that he's sharing the screen with these other characters is matched up. But then everything that we don't see him do, we're accounting for his whole entire, like, step by step process of how he's doing it. I think that's a great idea. I really love it. Yes. Your best take ever. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I thought you going to come around. You just started. You just didn't get it at first. You should start to speak like you just. You needed to be explained. Yeah, but I mean, this is I came around to. This is so good. So good. You're you're you're, you know. No. I'm serious. I did way more from you. I could say the same. I was like, this is going to be a homerun. Great. No. Great job. I really like it. I really like it. You clearly have put a lot of thought. A lot of a lot, a lot of. I literally made an outline while I was watching the movie, and all the things you guys do with this should develop it into a spec script and send it to me. You're shooting at or what? No. Oscar nominations. Oscar nominations should have been nominated for anything. Seriously. Score should have given it score. Cut me fucking break. Score and cinematography. Oh, wow. You're going to go cinema. Okay, okay, I like it. I yes, I mean, it was a good year, but yeah, it should have been nominated for both, but they weren't ready to do the indie thing yet I don't think cinematography. Absolutely. Legacy. What influence is Halloween had on other movies? I don't know. It kind of changed an entire genre of film. And again, these are things we've already talked about. It's okay. It's you know, some the categories are a little spoiled. Friday 13th. Freddy, here's a good question. What's your favorite of all these like favorite horror franchise Halloween. Same here I didn't you know what I agree, but I also sense that I've lost you because I shut down. I mean I, I embrace I mean I mean, you're going to be but you didn't I mean, I'm allowed to feel however I feel and I am I, I am reject. He's in his feelings. I'm in my feelings. Well, I'm that is what the entertainment industry is all about. Rejection. I mean, I have to I have to allow this to. So he should be used to it. No. Oh that's how it should be. You should every any single person in the business should be used to. Fine. You know, so I'm used to being rejected by the industry. I'm not used to being rejected by you. Would you agree that this is a relatively new idea that you're, you know, working with like yesterday days yesterday? Yeah. Okay. What I'll say is with respect, just put a little more time into it. That's all. I like the roots of it. But I think when we talk a week from now, it'll be fully fleshed out into this immaculate, like 90 page screenplay. You'll probably have casting ideas in mind, I think, and then I'll really be interested in shooting it. So yeah, just flesh it out a little more. It's really good. We cast Mike Myers, Mike Myers plays Michael Myers. It's funny you said that they tried to do that in Halloween H2O as a few jokes. Like have her walking by him on the street and he was like, fuck you. So they I mean, they asked like multiple times. Jamie Lee Curtis reached out to him personally and asked and he said no. All right. Mike Myers yeah is in it. We're it it's his movie going to play. I know you want to be in it. I'm Ben Kramer, Bob I bet Ben Kramer's not in it man. That's right. Because I'm directing. This is why. Yeah. This is why you need to work. You need to. Well, I got it working out a little, I got it. The wheels are spinning. Oh, this is going to be the best thing ever. I'd say they are. You're shooting it. I would say they're spinning. Okay? Cause you're gonna shoot it just like Dean Cundey would. You're going to shoot just like that. It's going to be your own Halloween or your own personal Halloween. Right up to. What are you watching, I think. What are you watching for? Nick is his Halloween. What is it? Mike Myers? Scared. Stupid is probably what you want to call it. You're you're just not getting it. You're not getting. You're not getting the tone. It's really difficult for me to understand the narrative conceit of movies. It's really difficult. I have a lot of trouble understanding them. So that's why I'm saying maybe if you flesh it out for like a couple of days, I'll understand it better, because this is a me problem. I don't understand your idea. I don't fully get it. You're explaining it perfectly. I don't understand it. I'm probably not explaining it perfectly. I'm probably not explaining it perfectly. It's not you, it's not you. It's me. Well, I feel like that's, That's, yeah. Patronizing. You know, it's just the way it is. Just the way. All right. What are you watching? I'm actually curious as to what you're going to. I can go first if you want. I'm related. I'm not doubling down, but I'm related. I think I have an idea where you're going. Maybe if it's not related all to Halloween, I can go first if you want. And we can. You have like, you're. I need a break. Okay. There you go. You need to tag out. I mean, you fucking stood up. You're standing up. Here we go. I'm going to keep it really, really quick here, folks. What are you watching? Well, it's not going to be too quick. I just love it. Okay. You need a break. Find every sequel for Halloween, which is kind of what Nick is talking about here. Not all of them just cycle through seven. Not it's just two through seven that I'm focused on for this. What are you watching? Because it's kind of, I don't know. I didn't go into Burger King situation because I've seen every sequel, but I have not had a chance to study resurrection, which is often considered the worst of any Halloween movie. Then I got the zombie movies, the Rob zombie movies I did, and I got the David Gordon Green movies, and then that'll be that. Halloween two takes place directly after Halloween one. The beginning of Halloween two is the end of Halloween one. We're in a hospital. Bigger Haddonfield presence, cops, press, hospital staff. We get Laurie's having flashbacks. And this is, the big reveal. Laurie and Michael are brother and sister. That's why he's hunting her. Didn't really need it, but they added it. Halloween three season. The witch lot of fun. Has virtually nothing to do with the first two films. This is they. I don't think they really Hollywood that is knew what franchises were yet. I don't think they knew that. Like, oh, we can just keep going and telling it. They go, why don't we do these spinoffs? And like maybe it lives in the same world ish, but it doesn't because he's, like forced to watch the original Halloween at one point. But still, I was noting all that lot of fun. It's the song playing over and over on TV. It makes people turn into these cult like killers. It's it's just it's a good movie. It's a lot of fun. It's just crazy. It's just crazy. Now we go back to The source. Halloween four Return of Michael Myers ten year. I'm just doing Cliff notes bullet points here. Ten years after part two. Michael here is yeah, he's been in a fucking coma for ten years. He got shot twice in each eye at the end of part two. He's fine and blew up. He's fine. Mike. He hears he has a niece that wakes him up. Danielle Harris is Jamie. She's Laurie Strode daughter. Apparently, Loomis is alive. Even though he blew himself up at the end of part two. He says minor burns on his face. No problem. No big deal. Yeah. Loomis hunts my Michael in Haddonfield. New sheriff helps a town mob forms, and I'm bringing the stuff up because this is like, what, happens in Halloween Kills. The second David Gordon Green thing. The town form, the mob forms, civilians are killed. Don from Dazed and Confused. Is there to help out. They go to a school at one point. Michael has white hair for no reason out of nowhere for two shots. It's fucking hilarious. Just jet white hair because they couldn't find the mask they were using, according to the director's commentary. Fantastic ending to part four. Like great callback to the to the intro to the opening scene of part one. Really good ending. I love the ending of part four. Part five revenge begins right after part four. Kind of like how part two begins right after part one. Michael's escaped again. He floated down the river. He got taken in by a hermit. He's recuperating for a year. Wakes up. Boom! ISIS out the hermit. What a way to say thank you. That's right. Poor Jamie's mute in a hospital. She's all fucked up. She's still traumatized. Can't speak. There's some weird shit going on. Like if Michael moves, she moves. A lot of I. It's it's weird. It doesn't. I don't really. Family bond. There's a tattoo on Mike's wrist. Very, very fucking, cartoon sound effects. When the cops show up in the movies, it it feels like a mistake. It is so fucking out of place. This franchise put so much faith into the police. Have Haddonfield, and now they're like, these two people are Barney Fife. They're idiots. They're accompanied by bizarre music. It's really, really strange. And then this man in black is showing up. Black shoes, black as straight, black attire, smoking, wearing a hat. We don't see his face in part five. This person is never explained. But you see in the end that he, busts Mike out of jail. So Mike is free by the end of part five. Jamie called him uncle at one point. Tried to get through to him. Kind of worked okay. Halloween six. Yes, Halloween six is absolutely fucking fascinating because The Curse of Michael Myers, the theatrical version is the worst film in the Halloween franchise up through H2O. I'm now counting resurrection, yet I will do that at the end of this year when I've taken all those into this theatrical cut. It's fucking terrible. It doesn't make any sense. It's so over the top. Gory. So I'm watching it in my 4K. I bought all these on 4K, but the whole shout factory collection, all of it. Love it. Great. Bye. Great. Bye. I'm watching it and I'm like, man, this is so as I do digging. And there's another cut on the disc called The Producer's Cut. And I'm like, in the there's only one commentary, but it's for the producer's cut. So I watch the theatrical and I'm like, man, I've been willing to forgive for willing to forgive. Five when you watch these movies repeatedly, I forgive them a little bit. I understand what they're trying to do. The theatrical part six is dog shit. What? I figured out the fucking Weinsteins were in charge of this. The movie tested, and they did not like a lot of things about it. So they butchered it. New ending, all these editing choices that don't make sense. Truly terrible. Paul Rudd voiceover. Just all this bad shit. These terrible guitar riffs on editing cuts. That's what they relieve and that that's what they release and that's the reputation it's head. And then for like years, if not decades, fans had bootleg cuts of the of the producer's cut because it had aired and they chopped it up and did their own little version of it, did the original ending, and it made more sense. And then, you know, this is this is the Halloween fan shit, like working because now it's on a major release, major DVD. It's not cobbled together, it doesn't look bootleg cut. And this, it's still Halloween six, it's still Halloween six, but it's not a bad movie. The producer's cut of Halloween six is not that bad. They're not making Paul Rudd do the voiceover. Donald Pleasance is doing it. Different ending. You still get a lot of talk of druids, thorn, Celtic legends, magic. Michael's influenced by this thorn legend. Okay okay. But I like six. The producer's cut way more than than the theatrical. So I would really encourage people if you care, if you care to go check out that producer's I like you ever seen that one? Yeah. See, I don't like it at all. I really don't like that one. It when you watch it, just as I have, like being obsessed with all these movies in order, it is so much gorier than the rest. And when you watch the producer's cut, you see where the Weinsteins made those editing cuts to add the gore. And it's like, man, you didn't need to do her like that. Like Jamie has grown up. And the way they do her, man, she's got like, it's so gross. And the producer's cut, she get shot in the head with the silencer while she's asleep. You know, I'm just saying it's a little more subtle, and I don't know, I like it more. And the ending of the, the theatrical cut. It's fucking stupid that we're trying to understand Michael and control his evil for science. It doesn't make any sense. None of that is in the producer's cut. None of it. Yeah, I hear that. The end of the theatrical cut. Paul Rudd, like, find some, these giant needles with, like, green serum. It looks like we're in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He stabs Michael and then, like, beats him with a lead pipe. Yeah. He survives. Michael's subdued, is subdued, and I'm like, this dude's been shot 40 fucking times. And that hasn't stopped him. But Paul Rudd with a lead pipe subdues him. No. Come on, that's none of that's in the producer's cut. So I'm saying I'm saying it was cool. I would appreciate I appreciate that Paul Rudd, is one of the few people do, fight Michael Myers in Live to Tell the tale. This is a part of the thing, though, with the sequels. Is that, like in the end of five, he. I believe Loomis, like, beats him to death with a wooden board, and it's not to death. He beats him to where he subdues. Yeah. I'm like, dude, you've shot this guy six times before, and he's gotten up and kept moving, but now you just hit him with a board a few times, you're like 80. Whatever. I like all of them. It's true, it's true. Brings me right up to, as mentioned, Halloween seven, though it was called Halloween H2O. I love this movie, and I'm about to blow your fucking mind. Guaranteed. Because I never knew. This comes with the commentary, the 4K. Listen to it. Jamie Lee Curtis, the director, Steve Miner, he did Friday the 13th two and three did House. He did Forever Young, starring Jamie Lee and Mel. You were not allowed to legally kill Michael Myers. Couldn't do it. Halloween based off of the, Mustafa Assad who owned the character. You weren't allowed to kill him. So when Halloween H2O was made, they were already going to do resurrections. They already knew Michael was going to list Jamie Lee Curtis, as the actress already knew that because we shit on like, why the fuck would they make resurrections? The end of H2O was perfect. They were a package deal. Both movies were. They were already going to do both. So Jamie said, I will come back if you find a way to write it. In that Laurie Strode knew definitively that she had killed Michael Myers by the end of the movie. If you can do that, then I'll do the movie, and they and they go, okay, but we're going to do a sequel that like throws all that out. I don't care, I don't care as long as Laurie Strode thought she was killing him. I'll do the movie. That's why we get one of the best endings ever at H2O. Resurrection sucks. But like that ending in eight shows. Awesome. I just thought every. I thought it was all retrograde, like in, resurrections. I thought they went back in. They were like, oh no, that was a paramedic. Nope. They agreed on that while they were filming. It's really awesome. Yeah, straight up decapitation, great decapitation with an ax one chop boom. All right. What are you watching for? You. That's so that's, you know, Halloween. If you want to go on the journey with me. Halloween through Halloween, H2O. That's what I've been doing, I do, I love it, give it to us. I know you got something. I mean, it's it's it's it's it's it's the only it's the only offering that I have and it I'm here for and it's not and it's not an offering that, is in this level or in this arena whatsoever. Yeah, this is our next episode. So this will be topical, like, people are going to hear what you're about to recommend and they will be able to find it soon, I hope. Well it depends when it's available. Sorry. It depends when it's available. But yes. So I, went and saw Celine Song and so her movie materialists, I was a very big fan of past lives, and I was very excited. I was very curious. I was very interested to see what she was going to do with this next movie. I didn't know anything about it, just knew the cast. And I was like, okay, all right. I absolutely love this movie. I, I, I texted you right after I saw it. I can't necessarily give it a recommendation in terms of where, like, you must go see this. This is like, this is vital viewing. It's not that I did this movie did mean quite a bit to me, being a single guy in their late 30s, living in a big city. There was a lot here that I, that was expressed in this movie that I had not really formed for myself in a lot of ways, and it was, it was a it was almost a cathartic experience watching it and then kind of reviewing it. And, I really thought it was it did something very, very special for me. And it seems like it's also done doing well critically. So I, I recommend it, but not with that stamp where it's like, go rush out and see it. If it's if it's on streaming by the time this comes out. If you're curious at all as to why it piqued someone like my interest, then check it out. I certainly don't think it will be a waste of anybody's time, but, I, I, I very much I it's been a long time since I've seen a movie, particularly a new movie that, personally spoke to me in such a way that, that I needed. It was one of those movies that I needed to see at the particular time I'm at in my life. And that is part of the reason why we talk about movies the way that we do is because, they have the power to be that meaningful. They have the power to actually reach out at certain times in our life when we don't know, we never know when a movie comes along that we needed to see because it's touching on something that we're going through in that particular moment. Or it's it's, it's it's scratching the itch on questions or it's expressing emotions that I have not been able to express myself. So the movie kind of gave me permission to do it. So that is what the materialist movie did for me. And I, really, really enjoyed it. And I kind of want to see it again. So that is my what are you watching recommendation. I do want to see it. It I didn't it wasn't. I've seen previews and everything. It didn't really look like it was for me. But as you said, I don't think it's going to, like, knock you out or be one of the best movies you've ever seen. But. But it is the type of movie that we talk about on this pod a lot, which is to say it meant something to you. It hit you, you found it, it found you. There was a connection that. So I will go in watching it, knowing that. And if it's not for me, it's just cool to know that movies are still being made that are finding us. Because, you know, they're. I don't think you would maybe talk like that about any other 2025 movie. I certainly wouldn't yet, you know, it's been it's been tough. It's been a tough year. But I'm so truly, genuinely so glad you found this one or it found you however you want to say it. Halloween. Halloween. I'm not done with you. I still got the whole year to go, and we're going to check back in in some fashion or another. Whether it's a commentary, I don't know, but I'll let everyone know how we a commentary. The rate. Yeah. Yeah, that's I mean that's what I said from the beginning. So I think that would be good. I would just never stop talking. I have so, so much to say, so much to say on this pod. Would I like to go a lot longer? But stay tuned for our next episode where we fully game out Nick's new Halloween quasi comedy sequel remake real time farce. Let us know what you think of that idea at Wawa. Underscore podcast on social. Oh Jesus Christ, he just ruined this whole podcast with that. He just really just ruined it. But as always, thanks for listening and happy watching. Hey, everyone. Thanks again for listening. Send us mailbag questions at What Are You Watching? Podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter, Instagram and Letterboxd at WDW underscore podcast. Maybe I should rethink these categories. I don't know. I don't know what the hell he was talking about. He's been having a great time with Halloween so far this year. We are not done with conversation on John Carpenter's Halloween. I'll do something at the end of the year when I finish this insane movie challenge. Next time we're going to keep the new Hollywood film project going. I have a theory that pretty much anyone listening to this will be able to tell what movie we're doing next, just by hearing a few music notes. That's it. Just a few chords, a few notes. You ready? Here it is. Boom boom boom boom boom. Pretty easy right? One of my top ten favorite films of all time. Wow. Stay tuned. What's the boogie man? As a matter of fact, it was. You know, it's totally insane. I'll be totally wiped out. I don't think you have enough to do tomorrow. Totally, totally. Never show. That's not true. Totally, totally, totally totally silly. Yeah. It's totally dark. Yeah, well, she's totally not here. Yeah.