The Christmas movie that heavily inspired John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’
Everyone loves a good holiday-themed movie, and as Christmas approaches, the time comes once again for films littered with white beards, tinsel, and gifts under the tree. The festive season comes more or less hot on the tail of that other holiday period, Halloween, in which movies of the spookier kind are on offer, for the likes of which John Carpenter is well known.
After all, Carpenter has handled some of the best horror movies of all time, certainly The Thing and Halloween, the latter of which remains a genuine classic of the genre. Introducing the world to escaped mental institution patient Michael Myers on Halloween night as he chases down babysitter Laurie Strode was a stroke of genius from Carpenter, and the film remains burned into the minds of horror fans all over the world.
Halloween feels like a genuinely unique work, but the truth is that the classic horror movie had actually been inspired by another holiday-themed slasher movie released four years prior, Bob Clark’s 1974 movie Black Christmas, starring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea and Margot Kidder.
In an interview with Icons of Fright, Clark explained, “I never intended to do a sequel [to Black Christmas]. I did a film about three years later, started a film with John Carpenter. It was his first film for Warner Bros. He asked me if I was ever going to do a sequel and I said no.”
“I was through with horror; I didn’t come into the business to do just horror,” Clark added. “[John] said, ‘Well what would you do if you did do a sequel?’ I said it would be the next year and the guy would have actually been caught, escape from a mental institution, go back to the house, and they would start all over again. And I would call it Halloween.”
Black Christmas focuses on a gang of sorority sisters who receive a series of threatening phone calls as they are stalked by a murderous stranger throughout the Christmas period. The parallels between Clark’s film and Carpenter’s are plain to see, and from Clark’s comments, it’s clear that Carpenter had been turned on to the idea of directing a Halloween-themed slasher movie because of Black Christmas.
Clark admits, though, that Carpenter did not merely rip off Black Christmas but rather created the entire movie of his own volition. It was just the initial idea through which Clark helped. “The truth is John didn’t copy Black Christmas,” Clark said. “He wrote a script, directed the script, did the casting. Halloween is his horror movie and besides, the script came to him already titled anyway.”
The director signed off, “He liked Black Christmas and may have been influenced by it, but in no way did John Carpenter copy the idea. Fifteen other people at that time had thought to do a movie called Halloween, but the script came to John with that title on it.”
Check out the trailer for Black Christmas below.
