William Shatner’s odd connection to the classic horror movie ‘Halloween’
The horror genre was utterly transformed by the release of Halloween in 1978, leading to a wave of highly successful slasher movies which dominated the following decade. The film, directed by John Carpenter, remains one of the most vital scary movies ever made, unsettling audiences by disrupting suburbia, suggesting that anyone could become the unfortunate victim of a bloodthirsty killer.
However, Halloween was not the first slasher; instead, it helped popularise the genre. The origins of the subgenre can be traced back to movies such as Psycho and Peeping Tom, both released in 1960. Then, movies like Black Christmas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre emerged in 1974, encapsulating most of the tropes associated with slashers.
These films inspired Halloween, which Carpenter made on a small budget of $320,000. The movie has a simple premise, yet it reinvigorated the genre due to Carpenter’s innovative cinematic techniques, including shots from the killer’s point of view and a distinctive score.
Carpenter’s film begins with a haunting opening scene, where we witness the murder of a young woman in her bedroom, carried out by a child named Michael Myers. Years later, Myers escapes the sanitarium and embarks on another killing spree, targeting a babysitter named Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, and her friends. The movie is one of the most prominent early examples of the final girl trope, common in the slasher genre, with Laurie escaping relatively unscathed.
Halloween was particularly frightening upon its release because, for the first time, the events seemed like they could happen to anyone for no reason. The killer has no personal connection to his victims, and the events take place in a seemingly quiet suburban town. Thus, the movie suggests that no one is truly safe from evil.
Additionally, one of Myers’ most terrifying attributes is his mask, which follows the tradition of the masked killer as seen in movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The emotionless mask makes him even scarier, stabbing his victims with a vacant appearance that suggests he feels nothing.
The iconic mask was one of the cheapest elements of production and has a surprising back story. It is actually a Captain Kirk mask based on William Shatner’s face, which was bought for just $2. The mask was made due to the characters’ popularity in Star Trek, yet the Halloween production team saw the darker potential within the cheap costume piece.
The mask was painted white to achieve the distinctive Myers look, and the facial hair was removed. Moreover, production designer Tommy Lee Wallace made the eye holes bigger to give the mask a more ambiguous appearance. The result was the perfect disguise for one of horror’s most iconic villains, who helped spawn countless other masked killers, from Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13th) to Ghostface (Scream).
In an episode of The Movies That Made Us, Wallace revealed: “Up on the shelves were these full face masks of Richard Nixon, and down at the end was Mr. Spock. And right next to it was this blank face Capt. Kirk” suggesting that Myers’ mask could’ve looked very different.
Appearing on Jake’s Takes podcast, Shatner once shared his initial reaction to the mask. “I recognized it as the death mask they had made for me,” he explained. “So somewhere along the line, someone got that mask and made a mask of it for [the holiday] Halloween.” Upon seeing it in Carpenter’s film, Shatner thought, “Is that a joke? Are they kidding?”
