HALLOWEEN MASK

John Carpenter’s most celebrated film is his 1987 slasher Halloween. Bringing Michael Myers to the big screen was not an easy feat on such a low budget, and it fell onto the films production designer and art director Tommy Lee Wallace. Wallace bought a bunch of masks from a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard, but It was a William Shatner Mask, from the original Star Trek series, that was finally picked for Micheal Myers terrifying look.

Terror Bytes

• The William Shatter mask cost $1.98
• The mask was spray painted white, the eye-holes were widened and hair changed
• An Emmitt Kelly mask was also considered
• New masks had to be bought direct from the supplier for the sequel, as the original latex mask had degraded

“The other thing was the making of the mask. All I knew was that it was pretty interesting looking. The time I got the glimmer was in pre-production and we tried out another mask, an Emmitt Kelly mask, and then the Shatner mask.

 

The Emmitt Kelly mask created a kind of a sensation. It looked cool and it would have worked in its own perverted way.  But when the guy came out and modeled The Shape mask, it just took our breath away it was so scary looking.

 

To this day, I can’t quite explain why. It’s just really primal. But we knew at that point that we had a horror movie, because man you could just set up the camera and shoot that guy standing there and you’ve got a scary scene already.”

–Tommy Lee Wallace

Ref: Startrek.com, Halloweenmovies, wikipedia