PRO HALLOWE’EN COSTUME tip.
Don’t go as Peter Venkman, Harley Quinn or
Archbishop Of Canterbury Justin Welby. Instead,
go as Michael Myers Dressed As Bob In Halloween.
It will not only bestow you with instant fi lm buff
kudos but also earn the seal of approval from the
Horror Master himself, John Carpenter.
“It’s the cheapest of the cheap,” he suggests.
“You want to go to a Hallowe’en party and you
don’t have a costume, just put a sheet over you
and off you go.” And glasses, too. Otherwise
people will think you’re cosplaying as Casey
Affl eck from A Ghost Story.
You’ll remember the scene from Carpenter’s
1978 slasher classic. Party girl Lynda (P.J. Soles)
sends her boyfriend Bob (John Michael Graham)
to the kitchen for a beer after some obligatory
horror fi lm rumpy-pumpy. A waiting Michael
Myers, aka The Shape, impales Bob on a door
and visits Lynda covered in a white sheet but
incongruously sporting Bob’s big ’70s specs.
“What’s the matter?” coos Lynda. “Can’t I get your
ghost, Bob?” Within minutes, she meets a nasty
death via a telephone cord, pulling Myers’ disguise
off as she croaks to reveal the iconic bone-white
inverted William Shatner mask underneath.
The man under the sheet is Nick Castle. He
was Carpenter’s buddy from USC Cinema school
and had form playing creatures for the director,
operating the beach ball in Dark Star (“I put my
hands as the claws”). In his words, he became “a
horror icon out of circumstance”. Hanging around
the Halloween set to get insight into fi lmmaking,
Castle was asked out of nowhere by Carpenter
to don the mask and become The Shape. For his
part, Carpenter chose Castle because “there was
nothing monsterish or creature-ish about his
walk”. Whatever the motivation, an icon was born.
For the shot of Ghost Michael Myers,
Carpenter plays down its iconic quality. “It is
pretty conventional,” he says. “There’s not much
to it. It’s a guy in a sheet in a doorway. Dean
Cundey’s lighting is beautiful. The only odd
thing about it is that he is wearing glasses like the
character of Bob.” The glasses were a perfect
detail added in the writing by Carpenter and
co-writer Debra Hill. “It’s strange that Michael
Myers puts on the glasses as a part of a
deception,” he says. “Michael Myers isn’t really a
human being. This is the fi rst time he does
something that is funny.”
Castle would continue his relationship
with Carpenter, co-writing Escape From New
Yo rk before going on to direct the likes of The
Last Starfi ghter and Dennis The Menace. Now
retired, he will be most remembered for his
huge impact on horror history, something he
was paid only $25 a week to do. “They could
pay me off the books because who knew I was
getting anything?” Castle laughs. “I don’t speak
so I didn’t obviously have to be a SAG actor.
I was a guy in a mask.” Or for one funny, scary,
strangely beautiful moment, a guy under a sheet.
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