A few evenings ago, I stopped at a Spirit Halloween store near the really awful Colonial Park Mall *(that place is looking like the Schuylkill Mall on its worst day ) .. But the Spirit was abundant regardless of closed down stores.
It is hard to believe we are traveling quickly into the season of the witch!
Goblins and ghosts are beginning to showcase themselves in windows across our area–the spirit of the season is lit with an orange hue..
As the weather begins to chill and the darkness creeps in once again, the movie HALLOWEEN ENDS is just about ready to get released into theaters along with our hearts and minds.
We have heard some really awful stuff about the film–test screenings that are able to be Google-searched will tell you that audiences were not keen on the movie, so much so that some of it had to change ..
Some loved HALLOWEEN KILLS.. we just kind of got grossed out by it. With the exception of the first few minutes that included a 1970s homage and Dr. Loomis lookalike screaming like he did in the good old days of the 20th century, we didn’t like it much either.
Just imagine an ENTIRE film based on the same night of the first film, well that could have been magic!
But that mask.. the mask.
No matter the year or generation, just about every kid knows who Michael Myers is..
It is crazy to consider a few things. First off the white pale face of Michael Myers could have been a clown! The Babysitter Killer movie, eventually HALLOWEEN in 1978, actually considered the use of a clown face instead of what we have now.
Legend and lure tells us that some last minute shifts gave us the haunting face we have today. And the haunting face, for the few who still don’t know, is William Shatner.
A 1970s STAR TREK mask was sprayed white, hair torn a bit, and eyes cut larger. It created the most visceral image of HALLOWEEN the movie–and Halloween itself.
The newest Halloween film coming out in mid-October is going to use a mask that is supposed to be the same mask of 40+ years back, along with burn marks from Halloween in 2018. Fans will realize immediately you need to eliminate Halloweens 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 from all of this in order for Halloween, KILLS, and ENDS to make sense.
Take a breather.. you got this.
But it got us to thinking.. with the popularity of the mask itself, whatever happened to the actual real life mask from 1978. The Halloween Hollywood mask that John Carpenter and Debra Hill created?
It’s an interesting and somewhat tragic story when you consider the way history has eroded the fright of the SHAPE’s face..
So let’s go through some quick Halloween history..
We know, and just reminded everyone, that Michael Myers is really William Shatner. Not just Shatner, but William Shatner’s face that was used in another horror film – The Devil’s Rain from 1975..
Yea, that was scary in itself:
So the real mask looked like this after it was painted and dolled up pretty:
The emotionless pale face. As Loomis said, “the darkest eyes. The devil’s eyes.”
In the movie, Nick Castle did a fine job playing the Shape. The movie made certain that the original Halloween kept Castle’s eyes darkened in each scene to illustrate a monster, not a man, wielding the knife killing the teenage babysitters.
Incidentally, Nick Castle is back in the newest 2018-2020- and ENDS trilogy ..
Dick Warlock eventually replaced Nick Castle for John Carpenter’s Halloween 2 (remember, the newest movie ignore Warlock’s incarnation.)
Movie goers at the time noticed something a little off about the mask. It looked yellow. It looked more crunched..
It was for a few reasons.
It was actually the same exact mask–honest, this is what all movie experts tell us. But there were two big differences. Warlock’s face was rounder while Castle’s was longer. That gives you the rationale as to why the shape of the Shape was differing in each film .. but the color?
Halloween 2’s mask looked like it had a deeper hue of yellow. Like it.. was deteriorated somehow?
It was!
From Debra Hill’s cigarette filled bedroom!!
Here is the story on how the mask went from bright white to a mellow yellow: Debra Hill took the mask home after the first movie wrapped and kept it in a shoe box under her bed for three years where it was exposed to a lot of cigarette smoke which caused the mask to discolor and have more of the yellowish look that we see in part 2..
Stalwart Halloween fans will debate this claim, with some citing references made at movie and horror conventions over the previous ten years to establish a basis for their argument that this Debra Hill smoke did or did not happen. You can do your own research and find your own sources. But it pretty clear: The mask was yellow. Somehow.. and smoke sure made sense. Debra Hill died at a too-young-of-age 54 in 2005–of cancer.
From this point, the masks change. Halloween 3 took us to a different path.. and while Halloween 4 and 5 used the original mask for the posters and VHS sleeves, the mask in the individual movies could not have been more different and even .. ridiculous. The mask became more ridiculous in Halloween 6.. Halloween H20 had a few masks, including a weird CGI mask that just was … stupid?
The original movie, and even the Warlock worn mask in the second, are the best of all of the series. While the newest films are using a prototype of the same original mask, it just isn’t the same, right?
So … here is the big question .. the million dollar one: Where is the original mask, today? Like right now?
We can find information that dates back to 2017 on this (a few years back so who knows what it looks like at the moment?)
In a few year ago, it was not pretty.
Materials that were used to create the mask way back then have deteriorated over the years, the mask is showing its age.
Mark Roberts is the man who has been in possession of that original, screen-used hero mask since 2003.. in 2017, Benjamin Hall interviewed him for Michael-Myers.net .. a few quotes at the time:
“I have been building and running haunts for the last 26 years. About 20 years ago I got in contact with an agent who represented Dick Warlock and asked about booking Dick for an appearance at my haunt,” Roberts recalled. “So I set up to have Dick at the haunt and his agent said he had the mask and costume from the movie and would wear it at the appearance. When Dick came to the haunt, he was mad at his agent because he said he does not wear the costume for appearances. He did tell me that he still had the costume, boots, mask, butcher knife and scalpel and that he would sell it; he just didn’t bring them out for appearances.”
He added:
“Dick was great with the haunted house customers and hanging out with Dick and Cathy for the weekend was a lot of fun and it went so well we set it up for him to come back the next year. I’m not sure if it was after the 1st or second year but I called Dick up and we made a deal for me to purchase the mask, costume, boots, scalpel and knife. My wife and I went to Dick’s house and picked up the mask and costume. It really is amazing that Dick thought to keep that stuff and take care of it; when I went to pick it up, he had kept the mask stored in a Elvis Presley tin container.”
And this is what the damages look like:
The mask is showing its age.. We have been unable to find relevant sources giving us a real time view of how the Shape is aging..
But it is fair to say, with each passing day, we are aging with it, aren’t we?
Time beats on..
One Halloween at a time..
We would love to know what the mask looks like now, like today.. calling Mark Robert.. contact us bryan@coalspeaker.com or through Facebook if you ever see this post! Happy Halloween season 2022.
