Further upping the horror quotient, Halloween’s central threat is referred to as “The Shape” in the end credits. And much of the original film’s shape belonged to Carpenter’s friend Nick Castle.
“He was probably paid a few hundred dollars or something,” Curtis told Castle’s Rotten Tomatoes. “I mean, no one was getting paid. I think we got paid $8,000 for the whole movie. Back then, starring in a movie was $2,000 a week.”
Carpenter explained, “I liked the way he moved. He came from a family of dancers, so he had a grace, a strange grace. And he was free. Things were cheap. So he put on the costume and I said, ‘Okay, go from here to here.'” That was it. ”
Tommy Lee Wallace, who co-edited the film with Charles Bornstein, also spent some time wearing a mask to help make ends meet, and Anthony Moran played Michael in the brief moments where his face was visible. But Castle instinctively tilted his head in horror.
“The first one had zero direction,” Castle recalled to Movie Web in 2018. “It was really just, ‘Cross the street and walk this way.’
In closing, he said, “If there’s a lesson to be learned from this, it’s that sometimes things happen for no reason, and you need the right elements at the right time.”
Since then, more and more burly stuntmen have started wearing masks, starting with Dick Warlock, who played “The Shape” in Halloween II. He was replaced by George P. Wilbur (twice), Don Shanks, Chris Durand, and Brad Lowry. Wrestler Tyler Mane took over for the Rob Zombie-directed reboot, and James Jude Courtney, who teamed up with Castle, was honored in the last three films starring Curtis.
