Halloween (1978) was shot in just 20 days.
The mask that was used was a mask of William Shatner as Captain Kirk from Star Trek.
The original draft of the screenplay was titled The Babysitter Murders and The Night He Came Home.
Will Sandin (Young Michael Myers) became a police officer in Los Angeles. He had no interest in pursuing a full time acting career.
The story is based on an experience John Carpenter had in college touring a psychiatric hospital. Carpenter met a child who stared at him "with a look of evil, and it terrified me."
Tommy Lee Wallace who was the production designer hand painted the leaves you see in the film.
They would collect all the leaves that were on the ground and recycle them for another scene.
The house that was the Meyers house was originally dilapidated as you would see it in the later scenes. The crew eventually fixed it up so they could film the opening scene with Judith and her little brother Michael Meyers.
Of the female leads (all the girls are supposed to be in high school), only Jamie Lee Curtis was actually a teenager at the time of shooting.
John Carpenter came up with the idea of having his name in the title as John Carpenter's Halloween. He was ahead of his time when it came to branding.
The first scenes with Judith and Michael were filmed using a Panaglide, allowed the camera to be rigged to the operator for long, unbroken shots.
Jamie Lee Curtis admits she made up the "Just the two of us" song she sang to herself at the movie's beginning when she was walking home from school.
The car that was used when Michael escapes from the asylum is a 1976 Ford LTD station wagon and it was rented. The car rental company was never told that the car was going to be used in a film.
The kids that were trick or treating in the film were local kids, not actors.
The movie that Tommy and Laurie are watching is The Thing from Another World (1951).
The stabbing sound effect is actually a knife stabbing a watermelon.
The co-creator and producer of Halloween (1978) Debra Hill was a the one who killed Judith Myers. The hand that we see from Michael's POV stabbing his sister repeatedly is that of Hill, as she was the only one small enough to fill the part.
Debra Hill wrote most of the dialog for the female characters, while John Carpenter concentrated on Dr. Loomis' speeches.
Originally, Dr. Loomis was supposed to have a phone conversation with his wife. Donald Pleasence didn't do it, saying he thought the character shouldn't have a family or a past.
John Carpenter composed the score in four days.
Inside Laurie Strode's bedroom there is a poster of a painting by James Ensor (1860-1949). Ensor was a Belgian expressionist painter who used to portray human figures wearing grotesque masks.
According to screenwriter/producer Debra Hill, the character Laurie Strode was named after John Carpenter's first girlfriend.
Donald Pleasence suggested the ended that was created for the film. It was filmed with Loomis discovering the body is gone. Rather than register any shock, he stares fixedly down, resigned to the fact that this battle is not over.
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