was having a think. in the halloween canon, is there a reason that “the mask” is the way it is? was ther a reason ever given for Myers selecting that one?
i know from a visual slant its so the viewer projects their thought and emotions on to and behind the blank mask. but IN the story of it all is there a reason myesr has that look?
also i’d like, of if its ok with all, to have this as a wee bit of a debate about it. also what you think the Man himself thinks of it? as seen in RZ:H2, he only wears it when its “gane time”.
Not so sure what their might be to debate, but from what i have gathered it was either a clown mask or the kirk mask…So once TLW painted it white & all that he showed John Carpenter & it reminded him of a old B&W French film called “Eyes without a face” where this lady had to wear this blank mask & it creeped JC out so he went with the Kirk. Im sure a few others have some fun facts for you too.
The scripted called for a ‘pale looking features of a human face.’ It was essential that the audience was to know that it was a ‘Halloween’ mask that you could buy in a store, or steal from a store. I wanted the mask to have a phony Halloween-mask look. I thought the face of evil should be an eerie, featureless mask. Tommy Lee Wallace went out and purchased 2 masks, a clown mask and a ‘Kirk’ mask that didn’t look like William Shatner at all, basically it was a human face with hair on it. Wallace took off the sideburns , widened the eye wholes and painted the mask a ‘pale blue’; I thought it looked creepy, almost like ‘Myers’ was wearing human flesh.
-John Carpenter on the mask from ‘Halloween’
The Prince of Darkness by Gilles Boulenger
There’s a very famous book that I read years ago called ‘The Mask of Sanity’. It’s all about psychopaths. It describes in really incredible detail that they wear this mask, that to us they appear human, but underneath they are just machines. They don’t have any regard for us. I was always chilled by that. So it’s kind of a literal interpretation. And that went along with Halloween of course. Everybody is dressed up in costumes. I had a choice between a clown mask, which was obvious, and this one, which was really creepy.
-John Carpenter on the mask from ‘Halloween’
Going to Pieces-The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986 by Adam Rockoff.
Has anyone ever painted up a Myers mask in a pale blue before?
I think you, Kirkus, has said that if the Myers mask was all white that it would show up as a blur on camera because of all the reflected light.
I think he means why Michael chose the mask or why he got it not why it was chosen for the film. I don’t think there’s really a reason behind it, he just walked in a store, grabbed the first mask he saw and put it on.
if you know the story of Halloween just take it for what it is. no explanation was ever given in any of the films as to why Michael ‘choose’ the particular mask he was wearing. the white emotionless face started it all in 1978 and theres was no looking back after that. now all the masks in the sequels are different and not near as effective as the original but they all resemble in nature that they are white and seemingly expressionless.
Don Post has said that the mask that was brought back in to the studio for touch ups had blue features added from the set. Dean Cundey, when helping with the 25th Anniversary DVD for Anchor Bay saw my Nightowl ‘Nightmare Man’ and stated several things about it; one being it needed blue for photography reasons. If you look at the behind the scenes pic of the masks at the wrap party, you will also notice bluish tints to the masks in the neck lines and other areas. If Carpenter and Cundey say’s blue was used, I don’t really question them; they were there and I wasn’t.
yeah th mask of sanity. dead on the outside, and need to “act” like their alive, fake emotions (usually over the top) so they can still move around in society.
