Carpenter and Curtis Reunite to Revisit 'Halloween' at the Academy Museum

John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis returned to "Halloween" at the Academy Museum this weekend, opening the museum's new exhibition "The Horror Show" with a screening of the 1978 film and a wide-ranging conversation about its making.

"The Horror Show," which the museum launched this weekend, spans horror from the beginning of cinema and earlier through hundreds of pieces: an original face-hugger from Ridley Scott's "Alien," storyboards from "The Exorcist," and costumes and props from "Scream," "Saw" and "Us." The exhibition runs alongside a month-long retrospective, "John Carpenter: Prince of Darkness," which includes "In the Mouth of Madness," "Big Trouble in Little China," "The Thing," and a double bill of "Vampires" and "Memoirs of an Invisible Man." There was only one acceptable choice to open, the museum's curatorial logic dictated: "Halloween."

Carpenter and Curtis appeared at the museum to introduce the film alongside special effects master and "Halloween" enthusiast Howard Berger. Curtis recalled that the role arrived after she lost her job on a TV series adaptation of Blake Edwards' "Operation Petticoat," the film that had starred her father Tony. "They fired me, and that's why I was available to come in and audition," she said.

Carpenter credited co-writer and producer Debra Hill with championing Curtis, and said he recognized her talent immediately. "I remember after the first day of shooting, I thought, 'My God, this girl has got it. She is great,'" he said. That night he called Curtis at home — she assumed he was calling to fire her. "The only time in my career I have ever had a director call me after a day of work," Curtis said.

The conversation covered the film's production lore: the Michael Myers mask, famously a William Shatner-Captain Kirk mask modified by production designer Tommy Lee Wallace, and the low-budget workarounds for shooting a film set on Halloween in March — the prop master constantly tossed old, painted leaves into frame to disguise the surrounding green trees.

Carpenter, who composed the film's iconic score, scored it himself out of necessity. "We didn't have money for anybody else," he said. "I scored the movie we made before 'Halloween,' 'Assault on Precinct 13,' in one day. 'Halloween' took three days. It was a lot bigger."

Much of the film's ambition rests with director of photography Dean Cundey, whose fluid use of the Panaglide, an early variation on the Steadicam, produced some of its most famous sequences — including the opening long take, actually broken by two hidden cuts, showing the first murder from the young killer's point of view. The prologue was shot on the final day of production, after the entire cast and crew painted and fixed up the house that earlier scenes had depicted as dilapidated. Curtis stayed to watch, then asked Cundey if she could keep the clapperboard.

She made an amusing discovery at home. "Dean had been using that clapperboard for years," Curtis said. "Back in the day they would just put another piece of tape over the name of the movie and write the new one in. Dean had done a lot of porn, so underneath the 'Halloween' piece of tape are a bunch of porno movies." Forty-eight years later, the clapperboard, along with her shooting script and personal copy of the one-sheet, sits in the Academy's horror exhibition.

Carpenter reminded the audience that success was not immediate. "It came out and the reviews were awful," he said. "I remember one that said, 'John Carpenter does not have talent with actors.' But it grew. It had word of mouth." Curtis said she understood Carpenter's direction to be more vulnerable only when, during a public screening, a woman stood up and screamed, "Don't go in there! There's a murderer in there!" "That was the minute where I understood what vulnerability meant," Curtis said. "Because she cared about Laurie. She wanted to protect Laurie."

Despite a career in horror spanning nearly 50 years, Curtis said she cannot watch scary movies. "I've given my entire life to horror movies, and yet I don't like them," she said. "I don't like to be scared. I wouldn't go to this exhibit. I have no interest in knowing any of it." Carpenter's response: "You're a chickenshit."

Curtis closed with a tribute to the production itself. "This was made fast," she said. "The crew was tiny. Everybody was under 30. It was fantastic. It was independent filmmaking in its marrow. It was just beautiful. It was such an incredible experience."

"John Carpenter: Prince of Darkness" runs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures through October 25; "The Horror Show" remains on view through July 25, 2027.