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The Big Picture
- Halloween, the iconic horror film, was made on a low budget and filmed in California, but set in Illinois.
- Robert Englund, who later became famous as Freddy Krueger, helped spread dead leaves on the Halloween set to create an autumn aesthetic.
- Robert Englund’s role as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street solidified his status as a horror legend of the ’80s and ’90s.
In 1984, as the slasher craze of silent hulks wearing masks took over the genre, Wes Craven released a film that played into those familiar tropes, while also being something much more. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) may have been killing teens while wearing a glove made of knife blades, but with the supernatural dream aspect and the fact that Krueger actually spoke and had an over-the-top personality, it led to the creation of a franchise that set itself apart from all the clones. The slasher craze had taken off in 1978 with John Carpenter‘s Halloween. The minimalism and mystery of Michael Myers frightened suburbia to the core. It was the coming out party for a young Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in a role that would turn her into horror’s Scream Queen. But she wasn’t the only future legend on set. Robert Englund was actually there as well, doing something behind the scenes that, while small, was necessary for the images we saw on screen.
Halloween (1978)
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
- Release Date
- October 27, 1978
- Runtime
- 91 minutes
- Rating
- R
‘Halloween’ Is Set In Illinois but Was Filmed in California
Halloween was far from a big budget film. The original 1978 masterpiece was made for just $325,000, before making $47 million back at the box office. That amateur style is partly what makes it work. Halloween feels gritty and real, as if this could actually be happening. Even that cheap William Shatner mask painted white is scary because of its simplicity.
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Though set in the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois, Halloween was filmed in South Pasadena, California during the spring of 1978. While that was okay for the ease of the shoot, it was not adequate for the setting Halloween needed to create. Halloween in the Midwest is colder and grayer, with leaves falling off the trees. One of the few complaints about Halloween is that it didn’t always nail the aesthetic. The trees are often too full, too green, and in some scenes you can even see a palm tree and a mountain in the background. You won’t find those in Illinois. Halloween‘s budget was so low that the film crew picked up dead leaves, spread them around at the filming locations to make it look like autumn, and then, after the shooting was done, picked them all back up to use for the next location. That’s where Robert Englund comes in.
What Did Robert Englund Do on the ‘Halloween’ Set?
In the spring of 1978, few people knew who the 30-year-old Robert Englund was. He’d worked in the theater, and had parts in films like Stay Hungry and Eaten Alive. Then John Carpenter’s Halloween came to town. In a 2018 interview with Access Live, Englund talked about what happened next. He had a friend who had connections to the film. He said:
“And he conned me into going to Pasadena one day, with garbage bags full of dead leaves. And we were working on the set of the original Halloween, throwing the dead leaves around. So it looked like autumn… it looked like fall back in the Midwest.”
Robert Englund spoke about it further in the 2023 documentary about his life, Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story. He said his downstairs neighbor knew John Carpenter and Tommy Lee Wallace (the man who created the iconic mask for The Shape), and that’s how he got to work on Halloween. His job was to pick up dead leaves out of the gutter and throw them across the camera frame and past Jamie Lee Curtis. “It’s kinda cool,” he said. It’s cool indeed.
Robert Englund Became Freddy Krueger in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’
In 1984, Robert Englund hit it big when he was cast as child murderer-turned-supernatural-entity Freddy Krueger. Englund was so good in the role that Freddy became a pop culture sensation. He was one of the biggest characters of the ’80s and early ’90s. Even non-horror fans knew who he was. Over eight films — some great, some god awful — one thing was consistent: Robert Englund put his all into Freddy, whether the script called for him to be scary or funny. He made even the worst of the sequels watchable with his performances.
The next time you watch Halloween and see leaves blow across the screen, remember that Robert Englund, the future horror king, was right there off the side of the camera. While we may have once got a dream match called Freddy vs. Jason, sadly, this is as close as we’re ever going to get to a Freddy vs. Michael.
Halloween is available to stream on Shudder.
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