Saturday, October 05, 2013

Horrific Road Trip - John Carpenter's Halloween

Welcome faithful reader. I don't mean to boast, but I just came back from a kick-ass work trip 

I was given the opportunity to travel to LA for a commercial shoot. if being on a real LA set wasn't cool enough, I stayed right in Hollywood within walking distance of Hollywood and Vine. I could see the Hollywood sign from my window and - on my morning jog - I ran down the Walk of Stars. I also sat in on a taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and saw all the sights that are normal for a tourist in Hollyweird, Karloffornia - as old Forrie Ackerman used to call it. 

However, I am a bit of a whore when it comes to business trips and I always make some time to see the sights before I finish. On the company dime, as it were. 

So, when I was done with my work responsibilities, and before I flew home, I did what any respectable horror geek would have done. I made a pilgrimage to South Pasadena - the heart of John Carpenter's Halloween! 

Carpenter's Halloween, as I've said many times before, is the PERFECT horror film. With the thousands of horror films Doctor Zombie's ingested over the years, Halloween remains my favorite horror film.

So, it was only natural that I would want to follow in the steps of that timeless, immortal, unstoppable fiend -- Michael Meyers! 

As I've done before with my Horrific Road Trip Series, I'll alternate screen grabs of the film with my own photos. 

BTW - This is going to be a pretty lengthy post. Sorry about that. Hang on to the end... it'll be totally worth it, I promise... 

Enjoy! 

I started my quest for The Shape in the Shatner mask in Hollywood itself as the homes where Annie Brackett and Laurie Strode are babysitting - and where the lions share of mayhem takes place - was actually in Hollywood. 

On North Orange Ave, off of Sunset, are gorgeous houses with well manicured lawns. The homes where the girls babysit can be found there. 

As I rolled down the crazy busy streets, listening to the dulcet tones of Gwyneth - the British voice of my GPS - the first of the filming sites hove into view. I squealed with geekish delight as I saw the distinct two story where Laurie babysat Tommy Doyle and where Loomis shot Michael. 

Here's a shot from the movie...



And here's how it stands today...

And there, across the street... it's the Wallace house! 


There's a pretty big difference between how it looked in 1978 and today. Sometime in the last 35 years, the house has had a huge addition added on as well as a garage. Check it out.



On the ladder in the first shot are the current owners. I spoke to them briefly and asked if I could take photos of their lovely home. They were really nice and accommodating and the lady, a pretty woman with an English accent much nicer than Gwyneth's, said it was amazing all the attention their home received. In fact, she said, tour busses were constantly driving by. I commented on how awesome their Halloween decorations were. You can see them in the second photo. All in all, they were really great about a weird, fat, horror nerd showing up on their driveway in an Eric Pigors t-shirt. 

After that pleasant exchange, I got back into my rental car (a brand new Dodge Challenger!!!) and left the craziness of Hollywood and its incomprehensible traffic for the 101 and the 20 minute or so trip out to South Pasadena. 

South Pasadena is a gorgeous little suburb of LA that John Carpenter chose as the setting of his quiet, Illinois town of Haddonfield. 

After the incredible opening scene of a young Michael Meyers killing his slutty sister, the camera settles on a quiet neighborhood. The opening scene establishes the small Midwestern hometown of our killer and his victims, and South Pasadena is the perfect Californian amalgamation of this. 

In fact, South Pasadena actually reminded me very much of my own hometown - Willoughby Ohio. It had gorgeous, well maintained craftsman homes, a quaint downtown area, and even a pumpkin patch...


Anyway, here's Carpenter's establishing shot...


And here's how it looks today, with Doctor Zombie! Muwahaha! 



Cool, huh?!?

From here, it was only a short hop to another of the iconic scenes from the movie. As Annie and Laurie walk home from school, Michael plays peek-a-boo with Laurie behind a distinctive looking hedgerow. It only took a little bit of searching to find it about 5 or 6 houses down from the intersection in the opening shot above. 


And here's how it looks today... wait, what's that behind the hedge?!? Oh, it's just Doctor Zombie! Whew...


In the movie, Annie investigates and finds nothing. She calls Laurie over mockingly, and shows her there's nothing there... 


Or is there?


By the way, if you watch the movie, during this scene, you can see smoke drifting into frame from the left - the other side of the bush. That's cigarette smoke from Carpenter, who was standing just outside of frame! 

Two doors down, we find Annie's house. Annie goes in, and Laurie runs into Sheriff Brackett, who laughs, telling here 'It's Halloween. Everyone's entitled to one good scare!' You'll notice the distinct lattice on the facing of the porch...


It's changed little in 35 years...


After this successful shooting site stalking... it was on to more sites in South Pasadena. 

Next, I made my way downtown. If you'll remember, on their way to the babysitting jobs, Laurie and Annie drive through town and run into Sheriff Brackett again. The local hardware store had been broken into by The Shape, where he stole 'some masks, some rope, and a few knives'. The Hardware store then... 


And today it's a string of shops and restaurants.



In that very same scene, after the girls leave, Dr. Loomis arrives to speak to the sheriff. Behind him, Michael slowly drives over the railroad tracks in the town square and away after the girls....


Today, the square is much more developed, but the commuter trains into LA remain...


Oddly, there was a jaunty sort of statue in the square now. It doesn't look anything like Michael Meyers. I think the residents of South Pasadena are negligent in their disregard for their most famous resident! I suppose if one squints, the statue might look like Michael. That's how I'm going to look at it. I mean Detroit is getting a Robocop statue... Haddonfield should have a fucking Michael Meyers statue. Amiright?!?



After ruminating on the travesty and injustice of no Michael Meyers statue, it was time for the piece de resistance! The ultimate in horror geekdom. Much like my visit to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre House... it was time to visit the Michael Meyers house! 

The actual house was moved from its former residence to the downtown area and completely remodeled. It was saved from destruction... which makes up in a small way for no Shape statue. Across the street - seriously, RIGHT across the street  - from the Hardware store, sits the Meyers house. 

Originally, it looked like this...



And today this house of horror, this den of grotesquerie, this abattoir of death... is an insurance agency.


Apparently, I'm not the first horror geek to make this particular pilgrimage... and I'm thinking some other people have ruined it for the rest of us. 




So, after much geekiness and the posting of a selfie of myself in front of the house to Facebook, it was on to other scenes! 

Which brings us to another iconic scene. Early in the film, the girls walk home from school and have their first run in with old Michael.  I tracked down the scene next...

As they leave school, they walk past a distinct brick wall. Soon after, Michael comes around the corner in his stolen station wagon... 


And today... 


And look, it's Dr. Z just wandering along in the footsteps of Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J. Soles, and the heavenly, still sexy Nancy Keyes.



The girls cross the street, and The Shape cruises slowly around the same corner... where Annie yells at him. He jams on the brakes... ominously.


And my humble attempts to recreate the shots...




Awesome, right? (I added the first shot of mine above to mostly show off my kick ass rental car. A Dodge Challenger, in LA, is balls!!! ) As you can see, there's quite a bit of construction behind the wall, and the pachysandra is mostly gone. It looks like they recently redid the sewers on the street and tore them out, sadly. 

Finally, I wandered over to the Strode house. 

There were several scenes with Laura and her own home spread throughout the movie. Nowadays, across the street, is the South Pasadena library.  It was weird really - there were high school students going in and out, moms with baby carriages and picnics on the lawn, and this iconic house of horror across the way! 

I've a few shots of it...

Then...

Now...

Then...



Now...


I don't know... if I was living in Laurie Strode's house, I'm not sure I'd tempt fate by having Halloween accoutrements so brazenly displayed. Would you?!?


So, having spent a thoroughly enjoyable day walking in the steps of the greatest slasher killer of all time, I got back into my Challenger and headed for LAX for my return to the Autumn-gripped, October  coolth of Northern Ohio. It was the first day of October, and I feel I did a great job of living up to the awesomeness of what is - to Doctor Zombie - the best month of the year. As Halloween approaches, I relived the movie that helped redefine horror movies and spawned an entire new horror genre. 

It was a good trip before that, considering why I was out there in the first place. To visit the scenes of cinema history was an added bonus that only a ghoul like myself could appreciate. 

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

By the way, here's the real reason I went out there in the first place. I was out for my work at Evil Corporate world. That's why I was on set and met this really great, funny, smart actress - who is not at ALL involved in horror films. 


Look at Dr. Z - hanging with a celebrity! 

Until next time, my dear, undead minions!




















2 comments:

Scott Tauser said...

That was an awesome post! So cool that a lot of those houses still exist and look almost the same.

Scott Tauser said...

Loved the road trip post. Great to see those houses still exist and look the pretty much the same.