S1E9 - Halloween (1978): A slash at greatness

Hey y'all, we are back with a few episodes that have been sitting in the archive. We're getting ready to start recording new episodes, but we wanted to get these out there. These were also a bit of an experiment with new styles and new equipment, so there may be some glitches along the way, but we appreciate you joining us and hope you enjoy them. Welcome to Coolidge After Dark. I'm R.C. Weiler.

And I'm Jen Evans.

And we just got out of seeing, uh, the Coolidge Corner Midnight Flicker Treat of the 19—

Uh, this is your favorite movie?

The 1978 classic Halloween by John Carpenter. It's my favorite horror film, and it was Jen's first time ever seeing it. So I guess, Jen, we'll start with your first impressions then.

No, no, I really want to know why you like this movie.

Because it's a simple, straightforward good versus evil. Uh, it's a, you know, a force of nature. Very— it's a simple setup with a very— with very large implications.

Okay, it does have like all the horror tropes of—

Yeah, they came from this movie pretty much. Well, except for a couple. of them from Psycho.

Like potentially the devil and a child, and then babysitters, and then everyone getting killed while they have sex.

And then there's a couple other films that like kind of dipped into this, but like this is really the start, the precursor. Yeah, to all of that.

Was this Jamie Lee Curtis's first movie?

It is, yes. Jamie Lee Curtis playing Laurie Strode.

She got so much better at acting.

Yeah, this is her— like, I believe this was her first role.

It did say introducing.

Yeah, it may have been— she may have had maybe some small parts before this, but it was definitely her first major role.

Okay.

But Laurie is— no shade on Jamie Lee Curtis— not my favorite character in this.

No, they made her such a square!

Well, no, I mean, that's very much on purpose.

I know.

Like, she is supposed to be like, you know—

The good girl final girl.

Yeah, although I don't remember— I didn't remember her as much, like how much she talks to herself.

She's kind of like—

Like, I feel like, I feel like her teachers call her an old soul.

Yeah, she's kind of a dud. Oh, Lord.

No, I don't think she's a dud. I mean, why is she a dud? She's a dud.

'Cause she's just kind of like humdrum, like—

She's focused on her schooling, she has a bunch of hobbies, she likes to—

Dude, she knits, which saved her life, but her friend like revealed her crush to her crush, who was also like, yeah, I like her too, and she was like, take it back! It's too much!

I don't know, man. If someone did that to me back in high school, I wouldn't have been happy about it. I don't think I want to try to take it back. There's no going back from that.

No, I just—

I don't know.

I feel like she had a hard time accepting the good things that happened to her.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. She's definitely like— I wouldn't call her cool. I'm just saying that I wouldn't call her like a dud.

No, she wasn't cool. But she lived.

No, again, I'm not saying she was cool. I'm saying like, I could imagine like that she isn't like a terrible person to hang out with as a character.

She can rip a joint once.

I forgot about that too. I also picked up on the fact that like they make her like bad at it.

Yeah. She's like struggling. Yeah, well, the other friend's so fucking cool at it though.

Yeah, so Annie, her best friend— I guess I'm presuming it's her best friend. They never say that like out loud, but she's the daughter of the sheriff, and they definitely— yeah, they make her out to be like, I think, somewhere in between Laurie and The blonde one? Yeah, what's the other friend's name?

I don't know. I was thinking about that the whole time and I was like, wait, what's her name? Linda, Laurie, and Annie.

Yeah, yeah. So I think Annie kind of is supposed to be kind of in between. Like, she doesn't seem like ditzy or anything like Linda is, but she is clearly cooler.

Yes. So was this one of the first horror movies you ever saw? Is this a nostalgia thing for you?

No, I just really like— I think it's a well-made film. I feel like it has a lot of archetypal characters. Realistically, the thing that makes this for me is Loomis. He's my favorite character.

by far. Who's Loomis?

The doctor.

Oh, okay. I did not catch that either. Loomis is your favorite character though?

Absolutely.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Yes.

He spent half the movie just looking into the distance, thinking about how he fucked up, shouldn't have gotten out of the car.

I like Loomis. Like, again, he's the only— he made it believable that he looked into a child's eyes and said, the devil is here.

I guess. I don't know.

I was like, he was right though. He spent 8 years trying to reach him and then the correct amount trying to keep him locked in a psych ward.

Yeah, I sat there and had to do math for a minute. I was like too tired for that one.

It would have been 15 years.

He was 21 years old.

Yeah, yeah, he was 21.

The music in this film was absolutely incredible.

Yeah, yeah, no. John Carpenter is amazing.

I don't— no, that's not what I mean.

Fuck you is all I'm going to say about that.

Every time that he popped on screen, you got like a little stinger. Do do do. There he is. Or or the like weird little like I don't know. He just had like a jingle every time he appeared.

So the stinger effect was ridiculous.

Well, his stingers were a lot.

I mean, I was really when I referred to the music, I meant the main theme.

I mean, the Halloween theme is the Halloween theme.

Yeah, it's the best. Is it? I don't really know of a horror movie that has a comparable theme.

I guess. No, I'll give you that. I'll give you that.

Except, you know what, I take that back. Except for Hello Zepp for Saw. That's the only other really good theme.

Yeah.

And it took them 40 years to get another good one.

Nothing happened in between Halloween 1 and Saw.

What are you gonna do? You're gonna do the fucking Nightmare on Elm Street 1, 2, Freddy's Coming for You?

No, I can't even see it. The thing is, before I had seen— for tonight, before I had seen Halloween, I still knew what the Halloween song was. I don't know what the fucking Nightmare on Elm Street song is.

I'm not saying it's the best film, but I am saying, like, it is a quintessential horror movie, and it stands out to me. And I also like the fact that Michael is ostensibly supposed to be— like, this is not a super— like, this is not an overtly supernatural film in this one.

No, no, not until the end.

But I was saying—

Or you're just like, did he just, like, dodge a bunch of bullets?

The filmmaker has always said that he is meant to be a human person.

Right. But he turned supernatural in the other ones, though.

Uh, the 6th one is where that really, uh, they tried to do that, and then they basically undid that in all the other future ones.

Jesus Christ. So, as someone who's, before tonight, has only seen a quarter of Halloween II: Rob Zombie—

Fuck that movie.

Terrible movie. These don't even line up.

No, they don't.

They very much, like, it's a very different kind of movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Zombie's Halloween remains the film I walked out of.

I get it. I get it.

Because they took what I thought was a pretty easy to replicate formula to modernize and said, no, I'm going to Rob Zombie it.

Yeah, it was very bad. There was a horse. I don't know. There was.

Wait, also, I just—

But now it makes more sense.

You've only seen the second one. Yeah.

A quarter of it. Because you said you hated it and I saw it on Tubi one day. So I said, but he's just a fucked up 6-year-old for no reason. Also, he's a little fucking freak. Why?

Go on.

What the hell is his issue with just like watching everyone?

I think that's the other thing is he's not meant to have a motive. He's just like this.

He's just a little weirdo.

Yeah.

But he like had to watch his sister and then he had to like watch everyone else. I will say the scene where he planted the tombstone in the bed with the friend was ridiculous.

I'll say, the thing I appreciated that I was really paying attention to this time is, like, none of the characters are completely inconsequential. Everyone is given a moment to have, like, a personality. Like, you don't have to like all the characters, you shouldn't. Bob, who sucks, still got a few moments to, like, generate a personality before they killed him off.

Bob doesn't suck.

Bob sucks.

I mean, they were driving drunk, but they were both doing that.

But no, Bob was driving. Yeah, but Linda was just in the car.

Linda didn't have an issue with it.

Yeah.

They both equally sucked to me.

I'll say, I also get the feeling, I have, this is not confirmed, but based on the way, just the van and everything that Bob had, I'm pretty sure he was like a college student dating a high schooler.

Well, he probably fucking was.

Yeah.

I wanna know if Ben Tramer shows up. Also, he's blonde. Yeah. Blonde Bob. Blonde men are, hmm. And also when he got stabbed into the wall, your human body would never just stay there. You'd just like slop around the knife.

It's such a good shot.

The tip of the knife was in the wall.

Yeah.

Also, the—

Also, the—

I like the one— the one stab got him.

Yeah, that's all he needed.

One stab kill.

Straight through the sternum.

That was ridiculous.

The reason I also love that shot is suspension of disbelief. Obviously that wouldn't work, but it looks so cool. And I— and again, the, uh, the head tilt that—

And he just stands there and looks at it.

The head tilt that he does becomes like his signature, one of his signature things.

'Cause he can't talk.

He admires his own work.

But he took the mask off at the end. We did see Michael's 21-year-old face. Yeah.

Well, it was taken off of him.

He didn't take it off. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was saying, that actually, like, that becomes a recurring motif of, like, clearly he did not like having it. Like, that— he stopped it instantly.

Do we ever see his face again?

That's probably the best shot you get of it.

Wow. Okay, it was a pretty good shot, though. Yeah.

'Cause he's not a person. He's just a cipher for murderous intent.

Yeah. He's the devil.

Well, what Rob Zombie tries to do in the original, like, his remake, is the first half of the movie is all of the stuff leading him up to— leading up to him killing his sister. And then the second half of the movie is a remake of this movie, but not as good.

Okay. I mean, I'll watch the rest of them, but I would recommend watching it with me.

I don't know if we have to watch it in a theater.

No, we can watch the rest of them like Sawdust, but November, how long?

We're gonna do this all in one month?

Maybe. I don't know. We did it last time.

That's true. Also, I really wanna go back to like, why didn't you like Loomis?

I just thought he was stupid.

What do you mean?

He was just fucking wandering around.

Well, yeah, he didn't have a job.

I know he was like looking for him. I just got a weird vibe from him.

I mean, he's clearly insane is another thing. I mean, yeah, he's clearly been driven mad by needing to take care of this.

And he knows he can't defeat Michael. He couldn't like rein him in and treat him.

Yeah, well, no, he knew. I was like, he learned eventually. He knew he couldn't be treated. And that's what I was saying. The one thing they've never answered in the films is like, what the— which flip moment is where he spends 8 years and then 7 years. Like, why did he suddenly be like, I gotta keep him locked up?

Because once you reach 14, man, if you don't turn back, you're not gonna get better.

Yeah, basically. Yeah, once you're 14, you're either gonna work out or you're fucked.

Dude, I'm a lot better than I was at 14.

Yeah, but you also didn't—

there's hope.

You also didn't murder someone at 6 and then remain silent.

Yeah, it took me till the end of the movie when they said it to realize that he was 6 in that scene. And you knew he was young, but like, Jesus.

Well, I also feel like the actor— I don't know this for sure, but I feel like the actor in that scene is a little older.

I think so. 'Cause I think he looks like a 6-year-old. Like a 9 or 10-year-old.

Yeah, exactly. Like, that's something I would change. I think I would age him up slightly if I were to change that. Oh yeah.

6 seems a little young, but that's fine. Did this movie do well when it came out?

Oh yeah.

Okay. People loved this movie.

And I should say that they did not want to make a sequel, but the producer demanded a sequel basically.

Because it did so well.

Because it did so well. And so Halloween II is really a I need to get out of my contractual obligation movie. Which is why you don't like it. No, no, no. Halloween II is great.

Oh, they're playing it tomorrow and you're not sad?

No, no, that's the Rob Zombie one. Oh, that's the Rob Zombie one.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Different whole story. I'm saying I think that the Halloween II, the classic one, is a fantastic film.

Okay.

That's why I'm really surprised that they did that, because I feel like they are a perfect pairing. Because the main thing about that film is it takes place on the same night. It's immediately following what we just saw.

Oh, so we see what Michael goes and does?

Yeah, for the rest of that night.

Well, I'm glad we did that on Halloween.

Also, we should mention, this was in Movie House 1.

It was in Movie House 1. There was a little costume contest. I got a picture, we'll post it.

Well, not even a contest, but just a random thing.

Yeah, there was a cute little thing where they had everyone get on stage in their costume. But it was very cute, and Mark was dressed as something from WWE.

Good job, yeah, man down.

No, no, no, Phil told me.

Oh, wow.

I had no fucking clue. So thank you, Mark, for another fun programming night.

Yeah, but if you could get Halloween II, the real one, next time.

Yeah, he did stand up with his full chest and say that Halloween II: Rob Zombie might be a masterpiece Some people.

And I leaned over to Nessa and said, and those people are psychotic. Listen, I, I, I like the idea that, that they have the 35mm print though. That's fun.

Yeah, no, that's cool.

I'm not saying like, if I was gonna be here tomorrow, I would consider going.

To Rob, you'd sit through the whole movie or would you leave again?

No, I wouldn't leave again. I wouldn't do that to the Coolidge. Oh wait, I was gonna say, we're not gonna do both of our segments, but what do you think the box office was for this?

Oh, and this was in the '70s?

Mm-hmm.

Oh, I'm so bad at this.

We'll start with budget.

Budget was $400,000 and box office was $900,000.

Um, not too bad with the budget. It was estimated between $300,000 and $325,000.

Okay. All right.

Uh, box office according to this is $70 million.

See, I was gonna say mil, but I felt like that was a little, but like, damn, dude.

I was gonna say, it also really took off. They, uh, they made an edit for TV.

Okay.

Uh, that really helped spread it. Um, 'cause that was like the burgeoning TV market at the time. Okay. I say that $70 million seems too high to me. It's one of those things where I wonder if that's supposed to be like all time or initial release.

Yeah.

Feels like an all time kind of number.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but it doesn't specifically say on here, so. I'm glad you were able to go with me.

Yeah. I'm glad we did this tonight. I'm glad Halloween was on Halloween.

And we'll also post a picture of our amazing costumes cuz we had a Halloween party immediately before going to this.

So we just went in costume.

Yeah. Well, for Coolidge After Dark, I'm RC Byler.

Don't let the boogeyman get you. I'm Jen Evans.

Keep it Coolidge, everybody.