Wayne Byrne on his new Halloween Book: "The original movie is perfect in every way"

One of the finest film writers around, Naas author Wayne Byrne has enjoyed huge acclaim for a series of books on a variety of cinematic subjects, including Burt Reynolds, cult directors Tom DiCillo and Walter Hill, and the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise.

In its latest book, You Can’t Kill The Boogeyman, Byrne examines the history of the Halloween series, which started with John Carpenter’s 1978 original, and has grown to become one of cinema’s biggest franchises. With an iconic villain in Michael Myers and a celebrated heroine in Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, Halloween continues to enthrall and terrify audiences, and also make a sleighing at the box office, as evidenced by the recent reboot trilogy, which culminated with 2022’s Halloween Ends.

I recently caught up with Byrne to discuss his typically insightful and entertaining book on the Halloween saga.

In doing this book, you wanted to uncover some new stories about the franchise – what was some of the stuff that stuck with you?

The director of Halloween 5, Dominic Othenin-Girard was such a pleasure to interview, because he was very generous with his words – not a shrinking violet by any means. And he went into his personal life, from his upbringing onwards, and spoke about his work in independent filmmaking. He was very much an artist and an aesthete, but had a certain workmanlike concept of himself – he was able to break down what he did in a scene.

Sometimes, you have your studio journeymen who give you a nuts and bolts take, and then you have your artists, who talk more about the themes and intellectual ideas. He was both, which was fascinating for me.

There were a lot of different factors that made the first Halloween movie a phenomenon – it’s the first slasher movie, it looks amazing, there’s a brilliant score, and Jamie Lee Curtis delivers an iconic performance.

It’s perfect in every way. And even though it has that auteur thing of John Carpenter’s name above the title, it’s because of who we worked with. It’s getting the legendary cinematographer Dean Cundey to shoot the film – the panaglide stuff in the opening scene is incredible. And when you talk about learning new things, Dean told me about how they had to prepare that sequence so precisely.

Whatever you don’t see in the frame, that house was totally different. They had the shooting of it down to a fine art – they literally only set dressed what you see. Dean said as soon as the camera moved, you could hear the crew jumping out of the way, so they could run back and be ready for the camera going up the stairs. To make the whole shot run smoothly, everybody had to be on their A game.

It’s also mentioned in the book that Michael Myers’ iconic face was originally a William Shatner mask.

Tommy Lee Wallace told that story. He was a multi-hyphenate: editor, production designer and occasionally Mike Myers. They needed a mask and he went down to a famous costume shop on Sunset Boulevard. He said there was a range of masks – there was John Wayne, Emmet Kelly, Richard Nixon, Spock and William Shatner.

Tommy said the William Shatner mask was bland enough that if he messed with it, nobody would know what it was. So trim the sideburns, take off the eyebrows, paint it white – and it’s blank. He said it was already bland anyway, so who’s going to know?! They did different screen tests, but when they painted the Shatner mask white, that gave everybody a chill. And it fed into Carpenter’s idea that this guy is pure, blank evil.

Halloween 3: The Season Of The Witch has deservedly become a cult classic in recent years, but it took a long time to reach that status, because it’s the only movie in the series without Michael Myers. In fact, it has a completely original story, about an insane toymaker who hatches a plan to kill children on halloween.

It’s ultimately the reason I did this book. It was an opportunity to write about that film, which in my mind is one of the most unfairly maligned – and underrated – films of the last 50 years. Largely because it’s so incongruous. If you’re a fan of the series, you get to Halloween 3 and it’s nothing to do with Michael Myers, and it’s completely bonkers as well.

But it’s such an original and unique movie. Again, Dean Cundey came back, but tonally it’s different, very bright and colourful. It’s set in an Irish community in Northern California, so they really play up the Irishness of it – it’s full of greens and browns. But it’s a fascinating movie, and a relic of a period in cinema that you don’t get these days.

Because you think of Tom Atkins’ hero in it, and he’s a doctor who’s a womaniser and a drinker. Just not a very nice guy, and he’s the hero of the movie. You can’t think of a movie these days where the hero can’t go on his mission without a six-pack of beer!

The movie also has a minimalist new wave vibe.

Finally, in the last 10 years, people have come around to recognising it. They look at it in the context of, ‘If it didn’t have Halloween in the title, it wouldn’t have the stigma of being the bastard child.’ If it was just Season Of The Witch, people would have less of a problem. Also, because of the rise of Blu-Ray, 4K and boutique labels, people have had a chance to really appreciate it. You can see it as was supposed to be seen, with the beautiful widescreen Dean Cundey cinematography.

It also has one of the best movie posters ever.

It absolutely does. That’s one of the things, when you look back to movies of a certain era, and the different posters from different territories, there’s great images. I think they were saying for one of the new Elm Street 4Ks, they used the UK poster for the still. Because it was just aesthetically better – sometimes the American posters weren’t always as good.

Halloween 4 is also now a bit of a cult classic.

Part 4 is an absolute cracker of a horror sequel and a Halloween movie – and just a movie in general. It’s an absolutely brilliant piece of work. It was directed by Dwight H. Little, who went on to do some really good movies. Where Dominic for part 5 was drawing on European cinema, Dwight was very much influenced by the more commercial side of New Hollywood.

Directors like Sydney Pollack, who were making very good movies within a mainstream studio context. That’s what he brought to Halloween 4, which is almost as much a detective thriller as it is a horror.

The recent trilogy has reinvented the franchise for a whole new generation.

They made Halloween a phenomenon again – the first one did massive box office. Jamie Lee Curtis was back, and Carpenter was involved at various levels, so it had a certain legitimacy to it. The first one I found very good, I wasn’t blown away by it. I think they made a mistake; the trailer was brilliant, but it was made up almost entirely of the first scene, which is the best in the film.

Of those three, I really liked the second, Halloween Kills. It shouldn’t really work, because it’s a placeholder, but it reminds me of 4 or 6, where it’s just a really good horror sequel with no pretensions.

People say, ‘Well, they’re not the first one’. But probably like a lot of people, I’m not going to see a landmark in cinema, I’m just going for a fun horror movie.

You adjust your expectations. Like I say, with Kills, all it’s trying to be is good enough, because the weight of the third one is to wrap everything up. And to satisfy the fanbase, and the general audience coming to this franchise for the first time, because you have to remember, this is 40 years later. A lot of people going to this trilogy are probably experiencing Halloween for the first time. They’re not bringing the weight of John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis – they’re just going to see a really good horror movie.

Why do you think horror is maybe the last genre to enjoy such resilience at the box office?

I kind of think of it like westerns back in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, where you know exactly what you’re going to get. You do get good and bad – and ugly, no pun intended! – but you know what to expect going in. It’s like comedy, in that there’s a certain set-up and pay-off. And sometimes a good filmmaker can throw them a little bit.

It’s usually a good time – even bad b-movie horrors can be fun. But then you also have the really good artistic ones. As a genre, it’s its own world. For me, speaking as a horror fan, there’s a certain comfort to it, which I find very hard to explain to people. It’s almost like a cinematic equivalent of comfort food.

Look at all the horror conventions – you don’t see them for romantic comedies or historical dramas. So it has a cultural currency that has transcended decades and generations.

Probably the biggest factors in filmmakers remaining relevant are these days are the work being shown on TV, being screened in the major repertory cinemas, and the big current directors citing them as an influence. For Carpenter, his big three seem to be Halloween, The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China.

Big Trouble has become the cult phenomenon. It took a long time to find that hardcore audience, but again, you probably have to give some kudos to physical media. People are able to find it in its format as it’s supposed to be – widescreen, good sound, all that sort of thing. So physical media is responsible for a lot of good films finally finding their audience.

• You Can’t Kill The Boogeyman is released on October 16.