The Halloween movie poster is from Wikipedia. Although it's copywrited, I'm claiming "fair use". 🙂

I planned on writing a blog post, but instead got sucked into a two-hour bio show on the making of the movie “Halloween”.  I always loved that movie and now  I love it even more!  A few things I learned:

  1. The Michael Meyers mask is actually a re-worked William Shatner mask.
  2. It had the longest single shot in movie making (4 1/2 minutes which they actually admit did have one break, but they do have an uncut version of the shot).
  3. The movie was shot in California so all of those October leaves are painted Maple leaves that had to be gathered after each shot.
  4. The whole thing was made for $325,000.  $25,000 of that was Donald Pleasence’s pay.
  5. There’s a shot where you can see John Carpenter’s cigarette smoke.
  6. John Carpenter wrote the score.

As far as writing goes, this solidifies my belief that simple is best.  Think about “Halloween”.  Do you remember any extra people on the streets?  Was there much in the way of background in the original movie?  Think about the score.  Just a simple one-fingered melody.  Did we need to know motivation for it to be scary?  Of course not.  Bare bones simple can work just as well, sometimes even better, than all the explosions and CGI in the world.

The same is true in a book.

In honor of Halloween, tell me about your favorite spooky movie.  Is it a simple, terrifying concept like “Halloween” or a more complicated plot, like “The Ring”?  I know this is a book blog, but this time of year makes me crave cinema.  Have a safe and happy Halloween!