Halloween (1978) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - November 15, 1978

On October 25th my Facebook feed was peppered with posts celebrating the fact that John Carpenter's Halloween opened in theaters and drive-ins for the very first time on October 25, 1978. Because, more than likely, that is the earliest date that is listed on its IMDB page.

While this might be true, the number of theaters it played in was quite small. I was surprised to learn that Halloween never had a wide theatrical release. That it never played in more than 200 theaters at any given time. It would open in a market, play for a week or two, then move on to the next.

Which explains how and why Halloween first opened at a theater or drive-in near me on November 15, 1978. NOVEMBER!?! The celebration of Halloween would already have been a distant memory to 11-year-old me. My heart would be focused on Thanksgiving and, even better, Christmas.

So it should come as no surprise that I have no memory of this release, at all.

Halloween would first ping my blossoming horror geek radar when this issue of Newsweek arrived in the family mail.

Newsweek - June 18, 1979

This is where, buried amongst the coverage of the looming releases of Alien, Prophecy, and Dawn of the Dead, that I learned that a movie called Halloween existed. I am pretty sure that Phantasm, The Brood, and maybe even The Dark were also mentioned in the cover article.

Although the positive word of mouth of audiences, and the acclaim of critics, was beginning to grow around Halloween, the article's coverage was pretty basic. It stated that Halloween, a scary sleeper hit, would be getting another release in the fall and offered a single image from the film. That of a sheeted figure standing in a doorway. But it was enough to get me interested and excited about seeing this movie called Halloween.