Is Halloween Based on a True Story? All About the Real Person Who Inspired Michael Myers

Halloween is considered one of the most influential horror films of all time, and the authors of the film, John Carpenter and Debra Hill, based the story on real-life experiences.

The script — which follows nanny Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) as she is stalked by an evil killer named Michael Myers who recently escaped from a mental hospital — took about three weeks to write, as Hill revealed in a 2003 documentary. Halloween: A cut above the rest.

“The idea was that you can’t kill evil,” she said The Guard 2002 “We went back to the old idea of ​​Samhain, that Halloween is the night when all souls are let out to wreak havoc among the living, and then we came up with the story of the baddest kid who ever lived.”

In terms of details, Hill drew on her background to create the fictional town in the film, while Carpenter took inspiration from a boy he met in college to create the character of Myers.

Here’s everything you need to know about the real stories that inspired you Halloween.

Is Michael Myers based on a real person?

Tony Moran in ‘Halloween’.

Fotos International/Courtesy of Getty

Michael Myers was named after a real person that Carpenter and Hill knew.

As Hill explained in a 2003 documentary Halloween: A cut above the restThe real-life Myers was a filmmaker’s distributor Attack on station 13. “Michael Myers pushed him to the London Film Festival… I felt I owed him, so that was my confession,” Carpenter said in the documentary.

When it comes to Myers’ personality, the screenwriter said he drew inspiration from several sources, including a patient he met while in a psychiatric hospital as a student at Western Kentucky University.

“We visited the most difficult … patients,” Carpenter said Halloween: Cut above. “There was one kid, he must have been 12 or 13 years old and he literally had this look… It’s a really mean look. And that was disturbing to me. And it was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Carpenter further described that look through the character of Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), who says in the first film, “I met this 6-year-old kid with this blank, pale, emotionless face. The blackest eyes. Devil’s eyes. I spent eight years trying to get to him, and then another seven years trying to keep him under lock and key, because I realized that what lived behind that boy’s eyes was pure and simple evil.”

As for Myers’ inhuman strength, Carpenter said his resilience was intentional and reminiscent of Western worldYul Brynner, who plays a killer robot incapable of destruction.

“I thought it might be a good idea to elevate this Michael Myers character to mythic status,” the producer said in the documentary. “Make him human, yes, but almost like a force… a force that will never stop. There’s no denying that.”

Carpenter said Deadline in 2014: “[Michael Myers] he is part person, part supernatural force.”

Who was Michael Myers’ mask modeled after?

Donald L. Shanks in ‘Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers’.

Magnum/Kobal/Shutterstock

Before Michael Myers’ mask became associated with the monster known as “the shape,” it was designed to embody Star TrekCaptain Kirk, played by William Shatner.

According to Carpenter, production designer Tommy Lee Wallace found the accessory at a mask shop on Hollywood Boulevard. “There were two options – one was a clown mask, which was a better mask,” he said Deadline in 2014.

Wallace revealed in a 2003 documentary Halloween: A cut above the rest that Captain Kirk’s mask “didn’t really look like anyone” despite its branding, making it better suited to the filmmakers’ preference for something “pale” and “featureless”—characteristics Carpenter said he found in the French movie from 1960 Eyes without a face.

“This girl had her face burned so she wore this face mask, and she was [really] eerie because it was featureless and motionless, except for her eyes,” he explained.

Wallace ended up cutting out the eye holes of Shatner’s mask to make them bigger, plucking out his eyebrows, pulling back his hair “so it looked crazy and weird” and removing his sideburns. He also painted the mask white, turning it into the face of Michael Myers.

Who inspired the character of Laurie Strode?

Jamie Lee Curtis in ‘Halloween’.

Mary Evans/COMPASS INTERNATIONAL PICTURES/FALCON INTERNATIONAL PRODUC/Ronald Grant/Everett

Like Michael Myers, the name Laurie Strode probably comes from a real-life person. Business Insider reported in 2021 that Carpenter named the film’s heroine after an ex-girlfriend.

However, Strode’s background and personality were more likely influenced by Hill. “I was a nanny and I knew what it was like to be … all those characters,” she said in a 2003 documentary. Halloween: A cut above the restadding, “I really contributed to the girls’ dialogue.”

Like Strode, Hill also grew up in a small town— HalloweenIts fictional location in Haddonfield, Ill., was modeled after Hill’s hometown of Haddonfield, N.J. “I really had a sense of what a small town was like,” Hill said in the documentary.

Where is Michael Myers’ real house?

James Jude Courtney in ‘Halloween Kills’.

Ryan Green/Universal Pictures/THA/Shutterstock

Carpenter said Myers’ home in the film is based on small-town folklore. “Most small towns have some kind of haunted house story of one kind or another, at least that’s what teenagers believe: there’s always a house down the street where someone has been killed,” he said in A cut above the rest.

The exterior of the house where Myers lived is a real place, though not in the Midwest, but in South Pasadena, California. “There’s an old house there, the children are outside in front, that’s where we retreat… . It’s right off Sunset Boulevard,” Carpenter confirmed in the film’s documentary.

Can you visit Michael Myers’ house?

A general view of the atmosphere at the Michael Myers House, the filming location of John Carpenter’s classic 1978 horror film, on November 4, 2020 in South Pasadena, California, USA.

Barry King/Alamy

Home in South Pasadena where Halloween was recorded and still exists today, although in a different location.

According to Florida and Georgia-based real estate firm Watson Realty Corp, the house was moved from 707 Meridian Avenue to 1000 Mission Street in 1987 to make way for the hospital.

While the house was saved from being bulldozed, the company reports that in the process it was converted from a private residence to office space and does not allow visitors inside.

The nearby hedge on Montrose Avenue in South Pasadena where Michael is first discovered is also still a popular attraction for visitors, NBC writes.

What happened to the boy who inspired the character of Michael Myers?

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (aka The Shape) in Halloween Ends, co-written, produced and directed by David Gordon Green. Ryan Green/Universal Pictures

While it’s unclear what happened to the patient Carpenter met in college, the fate of the fictional Michael Myers is finally sealed in the latest Halloween sequel, 2022 Halloween is endingwhich (spoiler alert!) shows Myers being killed by Strode and her granddaughter before his body is put into an industrial-sized chopping machine.

As Carpenter explained in Cut abovethe character was never supposed to have such a definitive story.

“This guy is human, but he’s not, he’s more than that,” he said. “He’s not exactly supernatural, but maybe he is – who knows how he got that way. It does [original] ending surprising.”

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Source: HIS Education