This year marks the 47th anniversary of the release of director John Carpenter‘s 1978 masterpiece Halloween (watch that HERE), and fan Billy Kirkus – who shared some behind-the-scenes Panaglide test footage from the making of the film way back in 2013 – has revealed that he has just unearthed a whole lot more test footage!
Kirkus wrote on Facebook, “You know, I get asked all the time about test footage from 1978’s Halloween. I knew there was a bunch of stuff in there but, I didn’t know exactly much. Thanks to my friend Jim, he trekked to the vault and got me some photos I needed. As Jim pointed out, this footage isn’t scene specific… so, these spools are tests of some sort. Much like the Panavision Camera Test Footage I posted a decade back, this could have numerous things on it: everything from camera tests with actors, locations, behind the scenes stuff, lighting tests, masks tests… walking down the street and their testing something… anything! How cool! There’s 42 spools of the stuff ranging from 30 seconds to 3 or 4 minutes. Hell, this could have footage of people sitting around eating lunch on the set… who knows. Probably at least 20 to 25 minutes of footage here. Now, the cool thing… since this is not scene specific… meaning, not in the movie of Halloween… I should be able to post it and not have any rights issues. So, the ‘newest’ releases of 1978’s Halloween, the steelbook and the Walmart 4K, has nothing extra to get excited about… well, this might just satisfy ya. Stay tuned.“
Kirkus also shared many pictures of the spools of film that have been located.
Directed by Carpenter from a screenplay he wrote with Debra Hill, the original Halloween has the following synopsis: THE NIGHT HE CAME HOME! 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. The film stars Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J. Soles, Nancy Kyes, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Brian Andrews, John Michael Graham, Nancy Stephens, and Nick Castle.
Are you looking forward to finding out what’s on these newly discovered spools of Halloween test footage? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
