By Tony Brandenburg
(originally posted 10.25.11 in Sierra Madre Patch)
Kersting Court is widely recognized by many horror and sci-fi film fans as the center of pod exporting in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). This is one of the truly great science fiction/horror thrillers of all time. However, there are other significant horror/suspense genre films that were also filmed- at least in part, right here in Sierra Madre.
Sierra Madre... terror town?
In October, 2010, Mat Harmon spotlightedPioneer Cemetery on the Sierra Madre Patchwith a wonderful piece which a focused on Alfred Hitchcock’s swan-song, the comedy thriller, Family Plot (1976). Hitchcock, known as The Master of the Suspense film, was most famous for his weekly television series, as well as a number of films.Rope (1948), Vertigo(1958), Rear Window (1954), and North By Northwest (1959) are universally recognized as celluloid masterpieces. For most horror fans though, his most important work was Psycho (1960).
Hitchcock’s admirers would come to prominence in the 1970s, and his taut suspense would reemerge in the form of a new generation of film makers- among them Brian De Palma, Tobe Hooper, and John Carpenter. De Palma’s admiration of Hitchcock’s form is somewhat easier to notice in his later work than in his seventies output (Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie) and Hooper’s debut, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1975) would be a hard stretch to align to Hitchcock. Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 looks nothing like a Hitchcock inspired film maker at all. All of that changed with his second film, Halloween (1978) .
Carpenter would utilize many of Hitchcock’s most notable techniques in the hugely influential Halloween. The tense frightening music is undeniably engaged as an instrument of tension. (For soundtracks alone, Halloween stands shoulder to shoulder with the soundtracks of Psycho, The Exorcist, and Suspiria). But Carpenter utilized other Hitchcockian techniques, most obviously the protagonist’s viewpoint- compare Norman Bates spying through the wall peephole to the first person point of view of the mask worn by “The Shape” (as Michael Myers would be known).
There were other interesting nods as well; Psycho’s Janet Leigh was the mother of Halloween’s Jamie Lee Curtis, and psychiatrist Sam Loomis (played by actor Donald Pleasance) was the name of a character in Psycho. The occasional locale such as the use of Pioneer Cemetery was probably more than just coincidental.
Ultimately, Carpenter would reinvent Psycho for a younger generation of horror movie fans, and thus popularize a sub-genre of horror/suspense known as the modern slasher film.
Modern slashers are rooted in earlier suspense sub-genres. Slasher films owe a debt to both Splatter/Gore- most notably Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Feast (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs (1964) and The Gore Gore Girls (1972)- and to Italian Giallo (most notably the Bavas, Argento, and Fulci). Both of these styles utilized motifs that would become staple in the slasher films that followed.
The first modern slasher was Black Christmas (1974). However, it would be Carpenter’s Halloween, and Friday the 13th (1980) which would popularize and define the sub-genre, and which would lay the foundation for the formula which followed.
Carpenter would utilize Sierra Madre a great deal for location in the 1980’s, but his initial foray in Sierra Madre was with Halloween, an independent film that has gone on to become one of the most successful of the slasher franchises. Filmed on a budget of $325,000, Halloween would eventually gross more than $60,000,000 in box office receipts worldwide making it one of the most profitable independent movies of all time. The film would be remade in 2007 by former White Zombie singer Rob Zombie.
In December, 2006, Carpenter’s Halloween was chosen to be included in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress who stated,
John Carpenter’s first commercially successful film not only became his most famous work, but it also ushered in the dawn of the slasher film. However, “Halloween,” unlike many later films of that genre, creates a chilling tension with minimal blood and gore. The setting is Halloween night, and homicidal maniac Michael Myers has escaped from his mental institution and is hunting teenagers in his hometown of Haddonfield, Ill. Although the numerous imitations and elements of the genre are now considered a cliché, Carpenter’s style of point-of-view shots, tense editing and haunting piano score make “Halloween” uniquely artistic, frightening and a horror film keystone. (Library of Congress, 12/2006)
That is correct, Sierra Madre. A slasher film on the registry of the Library of Congress was partially filmed right here. I dunno... maybe one day we can look forward to seeing one of those cute docent-led walking tours, led by a pod person, parading a group of tourists in hockey masks up Baldwin Avenue...
Sierra Madre’s Pioneer Cemetery (553 E Sierra Madre Blvd.) was the local shooting site for Halloween. It was a pivitol scene in which Loomis discusses the history of Michael Myers. In watching Halloween recently, I was impressed that most of the scene from Halloween was easy to locate, shot for shot. This same location would later be used by both auteur David Lynch for the funeral of Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks, and for a comedy slasher, Uncle Sam: Wants You Dead (1997). I wonder if we can look forward to seeing our beloved Sam waltzing down Sierra Madre Boulevard as the Grand Marshall in an upcoming 4th of July Parade.
Carpenter returned to Sierra Madre for locales used in The Fog (1979). The film utilized shots from both the inside and outside of the Episcopal Church of Ascension (25 East Laurel.) Because of Carpenter’s commitment to The Fog, he did not choose to direct Halloween II. However, Carpenter co-wrote the script, and co-produced the film. Sierra Madre was again used for location. The opening sequence of Halloween II was shot in Kersting Court, no doubt as a nod to the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It boggles the mind, though. Michael Myers walking by the pub. Imagine, the night “he” returned to Sierra Madre......
Halloween II earned a domestic gross of over $25,500,000, but received mixed reviews as the sequel had employed much of the predecessor’s formula, and using techniques which had already begun to appear cliche. Ultimately, it showed signs of being as derivative as the many imitators in the slasher film sub-genre which had already begun to manifest. Halloween II, though relying more on gore and on screen violence, and less on the style and subtlety that Carpenter’s direction had utilized- was still an immensely popular film. It, too, would be remade by Rob Zombie.
The success of the sequel resulted in the third film of the series, though this film would look and sound nothing like its predecessors. Halloween III- Season of the Witch was a markedly different film, utilizing what Carpenter had envisioned as a Halloween- themed story, and one that had no connection whatsoever to the Michael Myers story line. It would be the only Halloween movie to do so. This film would bear little of Carpenter’s influence -it was directed by Tommy Lee Wallace- except for the music, and one of the locales: Sierra Madre. That’s right, the “Three more days ‘til Halloween” jingle with the dancing pumpkin heads blasted from a tv set in the window of a shop at 17 Kersting, as well as some footage shot inside another shop- probably on Baldwin. There was also a scene inside the Buccaneer (70 West Sierra Madre Blvd.)
Alverno High School is listed as a location for and horror and suspense themed movies, including Tim Burton’s biopic of Plan 9 from Outer Space director Ed Wood (1994), and Poison Ivy (1992). It also was used for a couple of episodes of V, the Series. Bailey Canyon was listed as a film location for Nightmare on Elm Street VI: Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991). My favorite discovery, hands down, was learning that Sierra Madre was listed by IBDM as the single locale for the z-grade comedy horror picture The Worm Eaters (1977) which was directed by the late Herb Robins, alumni of Dennis Steckler films The Thrill Killers, Steckler’s send-up of- what else?- Hitchcock’s Psycho.
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