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Carpenter's psychiatric-hospital inspiration; the fear meter; The Babysitter Murders script; California locations; Carpenter's $10,000 fee; character-name origins; the station wagon's fate; the Orange Grove Avenue houses
In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:05Read transcript
- The hosts report that Carpenter toured a psychiatric hospital in college and met a child who stared at him with "a look of evil," the source of the blackest-eyes idea.
- The hosts report the film was shot out of sequence in 20 days, so Carpenter created a fear meter for Jamie Lee.
- The hosts report the original script, The Babysitter Murders, took place over several days and became one day for budget reasons.
- The hosts point to Southern California shooting visible in palm trees, California plates, and a hardware store on Genesee.
- The hosts report that the producer heard as "Yoblins" and Akkad paid Carpenter $10,000 to write, direct and score, that the same producer suggested Halloween, that Carpenter pictured an old haunted-house film, and that the script took 10 days.
- Name origins as the hosts give them: Haddonfield from Hill's New Jersey hometown, Bowling Green street names, Laurie Strode an old girlfriend, Michael Myers a producer, Tommy Doyle a Rear Window homage, Sam Loomis a Psycho homage, and Brackett after a screenwriter.
- The hosts report the 1978 Ford LTD station wagon was rented from the Illinois government, auctioned in 1981, left in a barn for 37 years and restored; the host wants it and guesses $95,000 to $100,000.
- The hosts say the two homes are on Orange Grove Avenue, chosen for few palm trees, between Sunset and Franklin.