Terror times three: Your top three horror movies

Happy Halloween! Once you’ve recovered from the sugar rush via all the work treats — tell the truth, you’ve already pushed your face into those bags of candy you bought for trick-or-treaters, haven’t you? — and crawled home from that Halloween party, what better way to relax than to curl up in front of the TV to watch shrieking and bloodletting.

Two of the top three horror movies you posted, under the “favorite horror movies” Scream Queen entry, I’ve already blathered on and on about — and, lordy, you don’t want me to do it again, do you? — and you’ve likely seen these movies numerous times anyway. So here are some interesting tidbits about these films you may not have known. All the information is cribbed from the Internet Movie Database’s Web site (imdb.com).

“THE SHINING”

Fun with Stanley

During the making of the movie, director Stanley Kubrick would call Stephen King at 3 a.m. and ask him questions such as, “Do you believe in God?”
Stanley Kubrick decided that having the hedge animals come alive was unworkable, so he opted for a hedge maze instead.

Stanley Kubrick, notorious for his retakes, demanded 127 takes from Shelley Duvall in one scene.

Coulda been a tourism contender

The Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon was used for the front exterior, but all the interiors as well as the back of the hotel were specially built at Elstree Studios in London, England. The management of the Timberline requested that Stanley Kubrick not use 217 for a room number (as specified in the book), fearing that nobody would want to stay in that room ever again. Kubrick changed the script to use the nonexistent room number 237.

Pick your cliche

The book that Jack was writing contained the one sentence (“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”) repeated over and over. Stanley Kubrick had each page individually typed. For the Italian version of the film, Kubrick used the phrase “Il mattino ha l’ oro in bocca” (“He who wakes up early meets a golden day”). For the German version, it was “Was Du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf Morgen” (“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today”). For the Spanish version, it was “No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano” (“Rising early will not make dawn sooner.”). For the French version, it was “Un ‘Tiens’ vaut mieux que deux ‘Tu l’auras’” (“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”).

Alternate ending

When first released, the film had an alternate ending: The party photos shot (now the last shot in the film) dissolves to a scene in a hospital, where Wendy is resting in a bed and Danny is playing in a waiting room. Stuart Ullman (the guy from the Overlook who hires Jack) tells her that they have been unable to locate her husband’s body anywhere on the property. On his way out, Ullman gives Danny a ball — the same one that mysteriously rolled into a hallway earlier in the film, before Danny was attacked in Room 237. Ullman laughs and walks away while Danny “shines” the Overlook Hotel. Stanley Kubrick had the scene removed a week after the film was released.

Here’s who?

Jack Nicholson ad-libbed the line “Here’s Johnny!” in imitation of announcer Ed McMahon’s famous introduction of Johnny Carson. Kubrick, who had been living in England since before Carson took over “The Tonight Show,” had no clue what “Here’s Johnny!” meant.

But who’s counting

Danny croaks “Redrum” 43 times before his mother wakes up and Jack starts to break into the apartment.

D’oh!

When Wendy hits Jack over the head with the baseball bat on the staircase, the bat flexes, revealing it to be made of rubber.

“ROSEMARY’S BABY”

Deja boo

This was director Roman Polanski’s very first adaptation, and it is very faithful to the novel. Pieces of dialog, color schemes and clothes are taken verbatim.

Eww

Mia Farrow (who portrays Rosemary) actually ate raw liver for a scene in the movie.

Two words: Hair Masters

The script called for Rosemary to explain to Guy (John Cassavetes), that she’d “been to Vidal Sassoon” for her dramatic new haircut. Thus, Vidal Sassoon was in fact flown to the set to arrange Mia Farrow’s hair into the now iconic pixie cut she sports during the second half of the film.

Don’t try this at home

According to Mia Farrow, the scenes where Rosemary walks in front of traffic were spontaneous and genuine. Roman Polanski is reported to have told her that “nobody will hit a pregnant woman.”

Um, what year is it?

When Rosemary is in downtown Manhattan during the Christmas season of 1965 (her baby, we are told, is due to be born in June 1966), the title of the movie on the marquee of Radio City Music Hall is “The Happiest Millionaire,” which didn’t open until the Christmas season of 1967.
At the funeral, one of the limousines is a 1968 though the movie is set in 1965.

“HALLOWEEN”

Here’s your No. 1 favorite movie pick, that classic that’s 30 years and 6 days old, Jamie Lee Curtis’ first feature film and, made on a budget of $320,000, the highest-grossing independent movie ever made at the time. Excellent choice, my loyal subjects.

Zipping from pregnancy to birth

Halloween was shot in 22 days in April 1978. The opening POV sequence took 2 days to film.

How “Halloween” became, well, “Halloween”

The original script, titled “The Babysitter Murders,” had the events take place over the space of several days. It was a budgetary decision to change the script to have everything happen on the same day (doing this reduced the number of costume changes and locations required) and it was decided that Halloween, the scariest night of the year, was the perfect night for this to happen.

Sunny, balmy Illinois

As the movie was actually shot in early spring in Southern California (as opposed to Illinois in late October), the crew had to buy paper leaves from a decorator and paint them in the desired autumn colors, then scatter them in the filming locations. To save money, after a scene was filmed, the leaves were collected and reused. However, in the movie, the trees are quite full and green, and even some palm trees can be seen when Tommy and Laurie are going to school.
The crew had huge difficulty in procuring pumpkins in the California spring. Most of the pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns seen are squashes painted orange. As a result they often look somewhat flat or misshapen with the wrong textured skin.

Yul never guess

Yul Brynner’s robot character from Westworld (1973) was the inspiration for the character of Michael Myers.
Aside from dialogue, the script cites Michael Myers by name only twice. In the opening scene, he is called a POV until he is revealed at age 6. From the rest of the script on out he is referred to as a “shape” until Laurie rips his mask off in the final scene. “The Shape”, as credited in the film, refers to when his face is masked or obscured.

D’oh! again

When Laurie sees “the shape” near the bush, cigarette smoke from director John Carpenter’s cigarette can be seen floating into view.
When Laurie goes into the living room of the Wallace house, you can see the arm of a crew member protruding from the left wall.
When Laurie runs back into the Doyle house after being chased by Michael, she notices the living room window is open. When you look closely you can see a fan that is being used to blow the curtain.

With this blog entry and the end of October, I abdicate my Scream Queen throne and slink back into the dungeon to resume my role of Editorstein’s Igor. Thank you — big time — for sticking it out with me. Writing this blog was a blast for me, and a fabulous excuse not to clean house or vacuum. I expect to need horror-moviehab after tonight.

As a humble thank-you for your patronage, the video to the right (scroll up) is “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) in its entirety. Have fun, horror-movie fans, and stay scary.