‘Halloween’ at 40: Their ‘horrible idea’ became a horror classic

Bruce Fretts, New York Times:

John Carpenter had only shot and scored two semi-obscure features when the executive producer Irwin Yablans came to him with a proposal: make a low-budget movie about babysitters being murdered. “It was a horrible idea,” Mr. Carpenter said in a recent telephone interview. “But I wanted to make more movies, so I said, ‘Great!’”

And:

Mr. Carpenter, Ms. Curtis, four of her co-stars and others spoke about their memories of making the original film. “It’s the greatest experience I’ve ever had professionally,” Ms. Curtis said. “It gave me everything in my creative life.”

A new version of Halloween, also starring Jamie Lee Curtis, is hitting theaters next week, just in time for, well, Halloween.

If you’ve got any love for horror films, and for this movie in particular, take a read of this New York Times interview. It’s scary good (sorry, not sorry).