The summary and note for this entry were completed with participation from the AFI Academic Network. Summary and note were written by participant Michael Thielvoldt, a student at University of Texas at Austin, with Tom Schatz as academic advisor.

Executive producer Irwin Yablans conceived of the basic story for the film, which he originally titled The Babysitter Murders. When he changed the setting of the story to Halloween night, Yablans presented eventual director and co-writer John Carpenter with the final concept and title. Carpenter and Debra Hill, who would also act as the film's producer, co-wrote the screenplay in 1977. According to Carpenter and Hill, the writing collaboration was an even split, with Hill writing the babysitter characters and Carpenter writing "Loomis" and "Michael." With the screenplay in place, Carpenter brought the idea to financier Moustapha Akkad, who advanced $300,000 for production.
       The title of the film, as listed in the opening credits, is John Carpenter's Halloween. Part of Carpenter's contract stipulated that his name appear over the title. Jamie Lee Curtis ("Laurie"), who made her feature film debut in Halloween, was "introduced" in the opening credits; however, she had previously appeared in various television programs, among them, brief appearances on two television series, Charlie's Angels and Columbo, and a recurring role in the television comedy, Operation Petticoat. The character Annie is credited to Nancy Loomis, a pseudonym used by Nancy Kyes. The actress is credited as Nancy Loomis in three other Carpenter projects (Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, and Halloween II), as well as the 1978 Stewart Raffill-directed picture The Sea Gypsies. In 1982, Kyes discarded the pseudonym for her real name, starting with Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and has maintained the credit "Nancy Kyes" ever since.
       Mickey Yablans, who portrays the character "Richie," is the son of Irwin Yablans. Carpenter's long-time friend and former classmate Nick Castle is credited with playing "The Shape" (i.e., the masked Michael Myers and the name given the character in the original screenplay). However, cast members revealed that numerous cast and crew wore the mask during filming, including producer Hill, who also provided the hands for six-year-old Michael in the opening point-of-view shot. Additionally, actor Tony Moran played Michael for the brief moment he is unmasked during a struggle with Laurie. He is credited as "Michael age 23" in the closing credits, but in the film, the timeline provided by character, Dr. Sam Loomis, states that Michael was six years old in 1963 and he escaped from the sanitarium fifteen years later, putting his age at twenty-one.
       Although the performance credit for the film's music is attributed to "The Bowling Green Philharmonic," this is a name fabricated by Carpenter specifically for this film. Actually, the music was performed by Carpenter and various musician friends. The only other musical credit listed is "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult, which plays on a car radio.
       In Halloween, character "Tommy Doyle" watches an excerpt from the 1951 sci-fi thriller, The Thing from Another World (also known as The Thing), which was produced by Howard Hawks. Carpenter identifies Hawks as one of his idols, and, in 1982, he remade the picture (see entry).
       In an interview with writer Gilles Boulenger in the book, John Carpenter The Prince of Darkness, Carpenter acknowledged that Hill originally suggested Curtis for the role of Laurie, and she was cast based on a reading and in part because she is the daughter of Janet Leigh, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (see entry). Jamie Lee Curtis reprised the role in Halloween II (1981), Halloween: H2O (1998) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002). At Curtis's insistence, her mother appeared in a brief cameo in Halloween: H20. In the DVD commentary for Halloween, Curtis revealed she was hounded by women's groups that called her an "exploitation queen" for her nearly exclusive work in horror movies for five years, starting in the late 1970s. Curtis resented what she saw as unfair treatment, arguing: "I never took my clothes off, never swore, never smoked dope. But I had every women's group in the country after me. Then I do two movies in which I take my clothes off, and now I'm considered legitimate. You tell me where the morality is."
       In various interviews, producer Yablans revealed that Carpenter originally offered Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing the role of Michael's psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis, despite protests by Yablans, who was wary of the actors' association with the British horror films of Hammer Studios. However, both actors rejected the offers. Donald Pleasence, also British, finally agreed to play the part because his daughter suggested that he work with the director after seeing Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (see entry).
       According to a 23 Apr 1979 Box article, Halloween was an independently-produced, non-union picture shot in four weeks on a budget of $320,000. An unsourced news item found in AMPAS Library's file for the film stated that principal photography began 24 Apr 1978. Portions of the film were shot in various Los Angeles area locations, including South Pasadena. According to a 27 May 1978 LAT article, parts were shot in a nearly 100-year-old abandoned house located on Meridian Ave in South Pasadena. The house was partially remodeled in preparation for shooting. Today the "Myers House" is a tourist attraction visited almost daily by fans of the "Halloween"series. Because the film was shot in the spring, rather than the fall, the crew had to devise paper leaves, painting them autumn colors, to coincide with the narrative timeline. The leaves were scattered before every scene and collected afterwards for reuse. The same article reported that Carpenter and cinematographer Dean Cundey had to frame shots to avoid southern Californian palm trees, in order to maintain the look of a mid-western town.
       The film's crew was unusually young. A 27 May 1978 LAT article puts the average age at twenty-six. David Ansen of Newsweek reports in a 4 Dec 1978 article that Carpenter was thirty years old when he directed the film. Carpenter's first film was the science fiction, black comedy Dark Star (see entry), which he directed at the age of twenty-two, as a recent graduate of the USC film school.
       According to added content in the DVD release of the film, Pleasence was paid $20,000 for his five days of shooting. A 22 Aug 1979 HR article claims producer/co-screenwriter Hill received no salary and worked only for a percentage of the film's net profits, which, after the immense success of the film, turned out to be a lucrative arrangement.
       The ghostly, white mask worn by the older Michael has become a staple Halloween mask at costume stores across America. Production designer/art director Tommy Lee Wallace created the original mask by modifying a William Shatner/"Captain Kirk" mask, widening the eye holes, altering the hair, and painting it pale blue so as to reduce the identifiable features, in accordance with the description of the mask in the screenplay. According to the documentary Halloween: Unmasked, Wallace also proposed an alternate mask patterned after the droopy-faced hobo clown, Emmett Kelly.
       A 27 May 1978 LAT article recognized that Carpenter borrowed the character name, Sam Loomis, from a character of the same name played by John Gavin in Psycho. Carpenter took the name "Michael Myers" from the British distributor of the same name who distributed the director's earlier work, Assault on Precinct 13, getting it into the London Film Festival where it received great praise and attention from press and audiences alike. Carpenter credits Myers with getting his career off the ground.
       An 11 Dec 1978 Var news item reported Yablans priced Halloween's television rights at $3 million. NBC picked up the television rights, though it is unclear how much the network actually paid. In Boulenger's book, Carpenter explains that he shot additional scenes with Pleasence, who was in town filming Halloween II, in order to extend the film to a running time appropriate for broadcast. Although the twist of Laurie being Michael's sister was not conceived for the first film and not revealed until Halloween II, the additional scenes Carpenter shot with Pleasence for the television cut included a moment when Dr. Loomis discovers the word "sister" written on one of the walls of Michael's room in the sanitarium. Pleasence reprised his role as Dr. Loomis in five sequels.
       Halloween was the first film released by Compass International Pictures. A 23 Apr 1979 Box article reported that the major Hollywood studios initially turned down Halloween, forcing executive producer, and then-head of Compass International Pictures, Yablans, to "bring the picture in through the back door," via fringe theaters. However, a 10 Nov 1978 HR article noted that Warner Bros. acquired the distribution rights for Italy, Germany, and France following the picture's early successes in the US.
       The film received an extremely limited initial release, opening in four theaters in Kansas City. Yablans recalled the opening Friday night gross was an underwhelming $200 per theater, but positive reception brought daily grosses to between $1600-2000 per theater within a week. According to a 27 Oct 1978 DV news item, the film also played on Halloween 1978 at the San Diego Film Festival. Producer Hill and lead actress Curtis attended the screening at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Arts.
       A 23 Apr 1979 Box article claims the film was rushed into New York and Los Angeles for Halloween 1978 after its early success. A 10 Nov 1978 HR article puts the film's first two weeks' earnings at more than $2 million, with an additional $1 million in advance from foreign markets after a single screening at MIFED (Mercato Internazionale del Film del TV Film del Documentario), the international cinema and television market held in Milan. Some time later the film opened in six perimeter theaters in Boston to an impressive $200,000 first week gross. Because of its success and setting, the picture lent itself to annual Halloween reissues for a number of years.
       A 5 Nov 1980 news item in Var reports that a "highly unusual marketing combination" was employed for the film's Halloween 1980 re-release in New York City. Local sub-distributor Aquarius Releasing employed a 3-media day-and-date release formula, screening the film in eighty-three theaters across the city, playing on pay cable, and making it available for purchase on video cassette exclusively through Video Shack stores. The unorthodox release formula paid off, earning a reported $450,000 opening week gross with second week holdovers expected at all eighty-three locations.
       Critical reception for the picture was generally positive. In a 4 Dec 1978 Newsweek review, David Ansen called the film: "A superb exercise in the art of suspense," while predicting big things for the film's director and eventual cult status for the film itself. Another 25 Oct 1978 Var review similarly praised the director, stating Carpenter has "a good feel for timing and thrills," and "an offbeat, almost perverse sense of humor." In contrast, The New Yorker's Pauline Kael wrote a scathing 19 Feb 1979 review calling the film "childish" and unsophisticated. Although she acknowledged Carpenter's visual sense, she emphasized his filmmaking weaknesses, claiming Carpenter "isn't very gifted with actors" and his "amateurish" script displayed a lack of logical motivation.
       Halloween was nominated for a 1979 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Award for Best Horror Film, but lost to The Wicker Man. In addition, the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival in France awarded the picture the 1979 Critics Award. Although not up for award consideration, Halloween along with Carpenter's previous feature, Assault on Precinct 13, screened as invited festival entries at the 1978 Chicago International Film Festival, where Carpenter received a Special Silver Plaque, according to a 4 Dec 1978 article in Box. In 2006, The National Film Preservation Board selected Halloween for preservation in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry, deeming the film "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
       Various sources put Halloween's domestic gross at around $50 million and its world wide gross between $60-70 million, which, according to 23 Apr 1979 Box and 22 Aug 1979 HR articles, made the film the most lucrative independently-produced picture to that time. Halloween is generally considered, along with Tobe Hooper's 1974 film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (see entry), to have initiated the 1980s horror/slasher craze in the U.S.
       The Halloween film series includes two remakes written by Rob Zombie (Halloween, 2007, and Halloween II, 2009, see entries). The eleventh installment, Halloween, was released in 2018, and featured Jamie Lee Curtis reprising the role of Laurie.
       A 16 Jan 2008 HR news item reported that Carpenter sued Yablans and Compass International Pictures in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming Yablans and CIP failed to provide him quarterly accounting and payments for the picture since 2004. The outcome of the suit has not been determined.
       A 10 Nov 1978 HR article reported that two "major publishers" were bidding for the novelization rights to Halloween. According to the 11 Dec 1978 DV news item, Compass International Pictures brokered a publishing deal with Bantam Books for the film's novelization set for an Oct 1979 publication date to coincide with a re-release of the picture.
       The Halloween franchise also made the jump to comic books. In 2000, Chaos! Comics published a trilogy titled Halloween, Halloween II: The Blackest Eyes, and Halloween III: The Devil's Eyes. The series, written by Phil Nutman, centers on an adult Tommy Doyle who discovers the personal diary of late Dr. Loomis and must again confront Michael. Halloweencomics.com lists several additional titles written by Stefan Hutchinson, director of the 2006 documentary, Halloween: 25 Years of Terror. These include One Good Scare, which was created and sold as a collectible for the twenty-fifth anniversary convention of the film held in Oct 2003 in South Pasadena, CA, and Autopsis, which was inserted into the DVD jacket of Halloween: 25 Years of Terror. Hutchinson also wrote Nightdance, 30 Years of Terror, and The First Death of Laurie Strode, which were released by Devil's Due Publishing in 2008.
       A 8 Mar 1983 DV article announced that Arista Films planned to unveil a video game adaptation of Halloween for the Atari gaming system at the 1983 American Film Market. The game, created by Wizard Video and developed by VSS/MicroGraphic Image, was to be sold in foreign markets along with a similarly themed video game adaptation of the 1974 Tobe Hooper-directed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. According to AtariAge archival information, the Halloween video game was released in North America on the Atari 2600 system to poor sales. Today it is an extremely rare collector's item.