The lack of actual Halloween decorations / trick or treaters, or anything to suggest that it’s actually Halloween lol. Anyone else feel this as well?
When Laurie is walking to school towards the Old Myers house, there’s not one house with any Halloween decorations up outside.
Nothing at the high school. No Halloween decorations, or anything at all to even suggest it’s Halloween.
When the girls walk home from school. Again, none of the houses on any streets have decorations outside the front yard.
Both the Doyle and Wallace house have no Halloween decorations up. You would think with kids living in both houses, the parents would have decorated for Halloween lol. Yes there’s a Jack o Lantern outside the Wallace house, but that’s it.
Trick or Treaters: Apart from some kids waking in the street during the day, and some at night walking past the Doyle / Wallace house. There wasn’t really a lot of kids out and about. Plus, no trick or treaters knock on the Doyle door while Laurie is babysitting, or the Wallace house while Annie was there.
I think the only thing that really is Halloween-ish, is:
The kids at Tommy’s school dressed up in costumes.
Laurie watching some kids trick or treating while waiting on Annie.
The leaves on the ground, and some Jack o Lanterns
Maybe its because it was a low budget film and they decided they didn’t need to spend the money. After all they only paid a couple of dollars for what is now the most iconic mask in horror history
Just to play Devil’s advocate - I live in a pretty small town and there are NOT many people who put up decorations. I could realistically walk a route as long as they did in the movie in several areas of my town and not hit any decorations. Most people are like, “Porch light? Check. Alright, we’re good.”
Lol.
What Jamie Lee Curtis said on the Blu-ray commentary is that back then, people didn’t really put up lots of Halloween decorations. She said, maybe a pumpkin/jack o lantern and that was about it, so really the movie is not too far off from that. Also, Halloween 1978 has a wonderful atmosphere, as others have mentioned. Despite the fact it was filmed in spring and had green trees, it still felt like Fall. Also, don’t forget the horror movie marathon the kids were watching, as well as “don’t fear the reaper” playing on the car radio
It’s definitely the only thing in the film that I think could be fixed.
I think with modern technology they should do a separate fix up. Scan the negative and answer print at say 8K resolution, make sure one mastering looks just like the answer print so it looks just like the theatrical version; and have a separate master with color correction on the foliage and such to make it look autumnal. That alone would be a huge boon, but potentially they could also fix the palm trees so they are no longer there, add in some Halloween items shot on a similar camera and film as the original was made on (so everything matches) and paste them in the film, etc.
not to seem rude in any way, but I would have to agree. Editing Halloween in such a way would take away from it’s charm in my opinion. I think it’s the imperfections that give it that charm.
There is a part at the beginning where there were trick or treaters during the day as Jamie lee stepped out of the house. It was during the day which i found odd.
Yeah, in 78 Halloween was mainly a kids holiday, parents didn’t go all out. Halloween wasn’t as gory, costume shops were way different, most decorations were a pumpkin and maybe a paper witch or something on door. It wasn’t until later on towards the 90’s that the haunted houses started popping up everywhere and people started making home haunts. Really the Halloween holiday we know today was different in the 70’s
I’m a child of the 70’s. My parents went all out with decorations. Sure it wasn’t like today but it was still a blast! That’s why to this day, me & my bro are HUGE Halloween fans I’ll have to look for some pics from back in the day here in Illinois
I was 8 years old when Halloween was released and I definitely remember trick-or-treating in those days and I can’t recall ever seeing any lawn decorations like you see nowadays. I too grew up in a small town and remember seeing some cardboard window decorations (bats, skulls, spiders, witches), pumpkins on porches and there were always a few creepy looking houses that you were always freaked out to go ring the doorbell. I think overall, the movie gives a great halloween vibe similar to what I experienced in that time period.
I am from Illinois and even though the movie was shot in California I’d swear some of the scenes were filmed in my town in the fall. Genius!
Cool! Yeah not so much lawn decorations. It was all in the window decorations & cornstalks. Trick or treating was awesome! I was 12 in '78 and I remember seeing the preview of Halloween on TV. Even that scared me! Reminds me of the first time I saw the original Star Wars trailer at the movies. I knew they were both gonna be right up my alley! Golden days…
not to seem rude in any way, but I would have to agree. Editing Halloween in such a way would take away from it’s charm in my opinion. I think it’s the imperfections that give it that charm.
I’ll have to look for some pics from back in the day here in Illinois