Halloween (film)/Trivia

"Laurie: We made it. We made it!"
 * Author Existence Failure: The death of series producer Moustapha Akkad effectively erased the chances of a ninth film in the original series.
 * Creator Backlash: Rob Zombie's reaction to the studio's intent to resurrect Michael for a third film, despite his insistence (and refusal to direct) that the 2 was the end of the franchise.
 * Dawson Casting: The series seems to love this:
 * 17/18 year old Laurie Strode played by 20-year old Jamie Lee Curtis. Which isn't too bad, except that in Halloween 2, Laurie was the same age, but Jamie Lee Curtis was now 23.
 * Teenagers Annie and Lynda were played by actors in their late 20's/early 30's in both the original and the remake.
 * Ellie Cornell and various other actors in their early/mid-20's were cast as the teenage Rachel and friends in Halloween 4 and 5.
 * Quite more funnier is when they get one of the Trope Namers, Michelle Williams of Dawson's Creek fame and one of the few actors to avert this trope, to play one of the main teens in Halloween H20.
 * Deleted Scene: Played straight and subverted at the same time - due to content cuts, the original film actually received a few additional scenes for its network TV premiere (which were filmed during production of Halloween II).
 * Doing It for the Art: As hard as it is to believe, Zombie's vision of the series.
 * Enforced Method Acting: Averted. During the filming of part 4, much care was taken to ensure that Danielle Harris, who played Jamie, was not frightened, especially by the actor playing Michael, who repeatedly removed his mask in order to reassure her that he was not going to hurt her.
 * Executive Meddling: The Curse of Michael Myers really got butchered.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Borders on You Look Familiar in that it occurs between the original and remake continuity. Danielle Harris, who played Jamie Lloyd in the Thorn films, takes the role of Annie in the remake and its sequel.
 * The 2007 film has Alex the Droog as Dr. Loomis, Billy Bibbitt as Sheriff Brackett, and Peter Washington as Big Joe Grizzly.
 * Name's the Same: Michael Myers. And we don't mean comedian Mike Myers!
 * Sam Loomis, the Badass psychologist, has the same name as Marion Crane's lover in Psycho. Considering all the parallels the two movies have, it was probably a deliberate Shout-Out.
 * No Budget: Only $200,000 was spent for this film, which is pretty amazing considering that it made $35,000,000.
 * Playing Against Type: Donald Pleasence had been primarily playing villains (most famously as Ernst Stavro Blofeld) up until this point. Also, the remake had Danny Trejo, mostly known for playing badasses, crooks, gangsters and assassins as the kindly janitor in the asylum holding Michael.
 * Re Cut: The Halloween films had many TV Cuts made:
 * During the filming of the sequel, John Carpenter shot more scenes for the ABC broadcast of the original to help it pad out the allotted time. While largely just character exposition, one scene serves to help validate the twist of the second movie..
 * The sequel itself has a few new things for the TV Cut. These include some alternate cuts of scenes, some scene and dialogue extensions, and a scene added to the end that takes place in the ambulance.


 * Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers has the most stunning example of this. Apparently, the film ran over time and budget, so the suits decided to take it over to see how they could screw it up. Their version is the Theatrical Cut. When the film was shown on TV, someone got a hold of the now infamous Producer's Cut. While the violence and cursing were trimmed, an assload of alternate takes and different opening narration were shown, and the entire last 20 minutes of the film is RADICALLY different from the Theatrical Cut. The main change is that the explanation for Michael's killing ways is altered: The Theatrical version offered a scientific reason, but the Producer's Cut says the reason is supernatural (which also explains why Michael is also growing bigger in each previous film. It's because his power is growing). It also shows a final scene with Dr. Loomis realizing that he has been cursed by Thorn. This was likely altered when Donald Pleasance died. An early trailer showed that the film was originally going to called "Halloween 666: The Curse of Michael Myers." This version is only available through bootleg video releases.
 * Halloween: H20 has a TV Cut that does the violence and cussword trim, but also has some alternate scenes fun. One added scene gives the counselor played by Alan Arkin some development by revealing that his mother cheated on his traveling salesman father, and he got blamed for knowing, but doing nothing.
 * Shout-Out: A large number of them in the first film. To give but one example, Sam Loomis was the name of a character in Psycho.
 * By coincidence (or perhaps not), Jamie Lee Curtis is Marion Crane's daughter. In fact, Janet Leigh has a cameo in the seventh film playing a character named "Norma".
 * What Could Have Been:
 * Christopher Lee turned down the role of Dr. Loomis and said it was biggest mistake he ever made in his career.
 * Before the "Cult of Thorn" plot was fleshed out, the writers of Part 6 toyed with the idea of having the Man in Black be revealed to be Michael's father.
 * Donald Pleseance died during the shooting of The Curse of Michael Myers, so we never got to see his personal confrontation with Michael.
 * An early version of H20 didn't ignore the previous three films.
 * The plan for the third film was to turn Halloween into a Genre Anthology film series, as Carpenter and Debra Hill felt that the story laid out in the first two films was finished.
 * There was also some discussion of killing off Michael for real at the end of Halloween 4, and making Jamie the new killer.
 * Danielle Harris wanted to reprise Jamie in the sixth movie, but was turned down because they would've had to pay her more money.
 * Bill Paxton was offered the role of Bob (Lynda's boyfriend) since he was dating P.J. Soles at the time but had to turn it down due to work on another movie.
 * Carpenter did pen a script for the fourth movie, though it was far more cerebral and Michael was more akin to a psychic force (as in this version, he was actually dead).
 * Melissa Joan Hart auditioned to play Jamie.
 * The series was originally supposed to be an anthology of unrelated stories about Halloween, but the villain of the first movie became so popular that the 'Halloween series essentially became the Michael Myers series. Carpenter tried to resurrect the concept with Season of the Witch'' (which is why Michael, Laurie, and Dr. Loomis aren't in it), but audiences were so baffled by the In Name Only sequel that the idea was dropped.
 * Also, Peter Cushing was the first choice to play Dr. Loomis, but after recently appearing in another little independent film, his asking price went higher than the studio was willing to pay. Not that Donald Pleasence didn't do a stellar job, but one wonders how Cushing would have tackled the role...