Die-hard fans of the scary cult slasher franchise “Halloween” know that killer Michael Myers’ mask was actually a Captain Kirk mask stretched out and painted white.
But what does the real Capt. Kirk think about it?
William Shatner portrayed the space commander in the 1966 television series “Star Trek” and he recently revealed his initial reaction to the film series using his face.
In an interview with Jake Hamilton on his YouTube channel, “Jake’s Takes,” Shatner, 90, recalled his reaction when someone told him about the serial killer mask. “I thought, ‘Is that a joke? Are they kidding?’” Shatner quipped.
He explained, “I recognized it as the death mask they had made for me.” The face made its debut in the first film of the “Halloween” series back in 1978.
“They made a mask of my face on ‘Star Trek’ out of clay so I would not have to be available for the prosthetics they would have to put on my face to look old or evil or whatever it was they were making me look like,” Shatner said. “So somewhere along the line, someone got that mask and made a mask of it for [the holiday] Halloween.”
According to Netflix’s “The Movies That Made Us” docuseries, “Halloween” production designer and editor Tommy Lee Wallace went to a magic shop on Hollywood Boulevard in an attempt to find a creepy, serial killer-looking mask that would be perfect for the movie.
“Up on the shelves were these full face masks of Richard Nixon, and down at the end was Mr. Spock. And right next to it was this blank face Capt. Kirk,” Wallace said on the show.
For the Kirk mask, Wallace cut out the eyeholes to make them bigger, removed the eyebrows and sideburns, painted the face a pale, ghostly white and darkened the hair.
The newest installment of the franchise, titled “Halloween Kills,” is currently in theaters and streaming on Peacock. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her family must fight Michael’s obsession to kill her and cause chaos in the small town of Haddonfield again.