The Michael Myers Mask Is Actually A Replica Of This Star Trek Character
Horror movie villains come in many flavors, from the sadistically verbose to the silent and deadly. The killers in slasher movies in particular tend to fall into the latter category, especially since so many of them wear masks. At this point, it's almost a requirement for a slasher to wear a mask. Jason Voorhees started wearing his iconic hockey mask in "Friday the 13th Part III," Leatherface has worn a mask made from the faces of others from the start of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchise, and what would "Scream" be with the legendary Ghostface mask?
The use of the creepy mask transcends slashers, extending to horror franchises like "You're Next," "The Strangers," and, of course, the annual Purge Night from "The Purge" movies just wouldn't be the same without new masks debuting in every entry.
But it's hard to imagine horror movie masks, be they sincere or parody, existing in the form that they do without one franchise in particular — "Halloween." Yes, the iconic Michael Myers movies spawned by legendary filmmaker John Carpenter have always had masks at the core. Heck, even "Halloween III: Season of the Witch," which doesn't even have Michael Myers in it, is still about evil Halloween masks.
And while Jason would go from wearing a sack to multiple incarnations of the hockey mask (don't forget the weird, futuristic version from "Jason X"), Myers' mask has essentially always looked more or less the same since 1978 — just a plain, white, emotionless face thick enough to make his heavy breathing echo inside of it. But have you ever wondered where it actually comes from?
To boldly kill where no one has killed before
Many of the most iconic elements of pop culture standbys are tremendously deliberate in every way. Other times, things are discovered in the process. It may not be related to horror (unless you count the "Treehouse of Horror" episodes), but the iconic "D'oh" Homer Simpson utters on "The Simpsons" was never scripted to sound that way. It was Homer Simpson voice actor Dan Castellaneta who interpreted that nebulous "annoyed grunt" into the instantly recognizable sound it is today, via FlavorWire. And similarly, while much of the ways "Halloween" is scripted and shot by John Carpenter is quite deliberate, there wasn't a ton of initial thought placed into what Michael Myers' mask would ultimately look like.
John Carpenter's "annoyed grunt" equivalent was "the pale, neutral features of a man" — that was all that production designer Tommy Lee Wallace had to go on. Wallace didn't have a ton of experience at this point in his career, either. "Halloween" was his first gig as a production designer and his previous work as an art director on previous films Carpenter films like 1974's "Dark Star" and 1976's "Assault on Precinct 13" was totally different from "Halloween."
According to the documentary "Halloween Unmasked," Wallace purchased two masks for under $2 each. The one that ended up being used was a mask of Captain James Tiberius Kirk (William Shatner) from "Star Trek: The Original Series". The story was confirmed by Rick Sternbach, illustrator and designer for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Sternbach also worked as an illustrator on "Halloween 2." In a Facebook post, he explained how he discovered the mask really was of Shatner's face while looking for masks for the film. "It appeared that we'd need to go check out some of the toys stores and such, but I noticed that there was some wording molded into the neck area," he wrote. "There was a model number, and 'Don Post Studios.' I made a call, read off the model number, and the word came back 'It's our Captain Kirk mask.'"
Michael Myers' almost-mask and Shatner's side of the story
Somewhere out there is a parallel universe where everything is exactly the same except for Michael Myers' mask. There was, after all, a mask option other than Captain James T. Kirk. The other mask was that of the clown Weary Willie, a character created by Emmett Leo Kelly. According to "Halloween Unmasked," it was decided that the mask simply was not creepy enough. Imagine that — a clown mask wasn't creepy enough for a horror movie!
And, if you were wondering if Captain Kirk himself has anything to say on the topic of Myers using his face while committing his evil deeds, Shatner has actually talked about it. In an interview with one of his daughters, Shatner confirmed that there was an original death mask of his face created for "Star Trek" that was later used to make the Kirk Halloween masks. It turns out that Shatner was exactly ticked enough by what had happened that he actually took his kids out trick-or-treating one Halloween while wearing the Myers mask. That's right — William Shatner went out on Halloween as Michael-Myers-as-William-Shatner.