This weekend the Academy Museum launched “The Horror Show” exhibition, a celebration of horror since the beginning of cinema (and before) comprised of hundreds of pieces including an original face-hugger from Ridley Scott‘s “Alien,” storyboards from “The Exorcist,” and costumes and props from “Scream,” “Saw,” and “Us.” In keeping with the museum’s practice of supplementing its exhibits with carefully curated screening series, “The Horror Show” kicked off with a retrospective devoted to the greatest of all horror directors, John Carpenter.

“John Carpenter: Prince of Darkness,” is a month-long series featuring several of Carpenter’s best films (“In the Mouth of Madness,” “Big Trouble in Little China,” “The Thing”) as well as some of his most criminally underrated (the “Vampires” and “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” double bill is a must-see). But to open the series, and to kick off “The Horror Show,” there was really only one acceptable choice: Carpenter’s 1978 masterpiece “Halloween.”

Along with “Psycho” and “Alien” one of the most influential horror films of all time, “Halloween” was a low-budget indie with modest beginnings that became a classic thanks to Carpenter’s intense commitment and supreme sense of craft. Given the assignment to make a slasher movie about a killer going after babysitters, Carpenter and co-writer Debra Hill set out to create something more than just another exploitation movie; approaching low-budget horror more like Alfred Hitchcock or Howard Hawks than Herschell Gordon Lewis, Carpenter turned “Halloween” into a timeless nightmare where the quotidian collides with the mythic to yield relentless suspense.

Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis, who was propelled to stardom when “Halloween” became a massive box office hit, appeared at the Academy Museum to introduce the film alongside special effects master and “Halloween” enthusiast Howard Berger. Curtis noted that the film came along just when she needed it, after she had lost her job on a TV series adaptation of Blake Edwards’ “Operation Petticoat” (a movie that had starred Curtis’ father Tony). “They fired me, and that’s why I was available to come in and audition.”

Carpenter gave co-writer and producer Debra Hill credit for championing Curtis, and said he knew what he had as soon as production began. “I remember after the first day of shooting, I thought, ‘My God, this girl has got it. She is great,’” Carpenter said. When Carpenter called Curtis at home that night, she assumed he was calling to fire her, but in fact it was to let her know what a great job she had done — “The only time in my career I have ever had a director call me after a day of work,” Curtis said.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Curtis and Carpenter addressed everything from the origins of the Michael Myers mask (which, famously, was a William Shatner-Captain Kirk mask modified by production designer Tommy Lee Wallace) to the low-budget solutions to problems like shooting a film set on Halloween in March (the prop guy had to constantly toss old and painted leaves into the frame to distract from the green trees all around).

Carpenter also discussed the film’s iconic music, which he composed and performed in three days.”We didn’t have money for anybody else,” Carpenter said when asked his reason for scoring the film himself. “I scored the movie we made before ‘Halloween,’ ‘Assault on Precinct 13,’ in one day. ‘Halloween’ took three days. It was a lot bigger.”

While Carpenter was joking a bit about “Halloween” being a “big” movie, seeing the film on the Academy Museum’s huge screen in the Geffen Theater one can’t help but be struck by the movie’s ambition and scale — much of which Carpenter and Curtis credited to director of photography Dean Cundey, whose fluid use of the Panaglide (an early variation on the Steadicam) gave “Halloween” some of its most iconic sequences. Perhaps the most famous is an opening long take (actually broken up with two hidden cuts) in which we see the first murder from the young killer’s point of view.

That prologue was shot on the final day of production, and it takes place in the past the house in which it is set had to be spruced up after all the scenes depicting it in a dilapidated state. According to Curtis, the entire cast and crew joined forces to paint and fix up the house before the shot, which Curtis stayed to watch even though she wasn’t featured in it. Sensing she had just been a part of something special, Curtis asked Cundey if she could keep the film’s clapperboard. Once she took the clapperboard home she made an amusing discovery.

“Dean had been using that clapperboard for years,” Curtis said. “Back in the day they would just put another piece of tape over the name of the movie and write the new one in. Dean had done a lot of porn, so underneath the ‘Halloween’ piece of tape are a bunch of porno movies.” Curtis’ sense that the clapperboard would prove important was quickly confirmed when “Halloween” became one of the most popular horror movies ever made; 48 years later, her clapperboard (as well as her shooting script and personal copy of the one-sheet) is part of the Academy’s horror exhibition.

Carpenter reminded everyone, however, that “Halloween” was far from an instant success. “It came out and the reviews were awful,” Carpenter said. “I remember one that said, ‘John Carpenter does not have talent with actors.’ But it grew. It had word of mouth.” Curtis recalled going to see the movie with a crowd and finally understanding why Carpenter had spent the shoot directing her to be more vulnerable.

When Curtis’ character Laurie Strode crossed the street to enter the house Michael Myers occupied, a woman in the theater stood up and screamed, “Don’t go in there! There’s a murderer in there!” “That what was the minute where I understood what vulnerability meant,” Curtis said. “Because she cared about Laurie. She wanted to protect Laurie.” In spite of Curtis’ love for Carpenter, the character, and the movie — and in spite of the fact that her career as a scream queen has now spanned nearly 50 years — she said she personally can’t watch scary movies.

“I’ve given my entire life to horror movies, and yet I don’t like them,” Curtis said. “I don’t like to be scared. I wouldn’t go to this exhibit. I have no interest in knowing any of it.” “You’re a chickenshit,” Carpenter responded. But even if Curtis doesn’t like being scared, she treasures having been part of a movie that’s terrified several generations of filmgoers.

“This was made fast,” Curtis said. “The crew was tiny. Everybody was under 30. It was fantastic. It was independent filmmaking in its marrow. It was just beautiful. It was such an incredible experience.”

“John Carpenter: Prince of Darkness” runs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures through October 25. “The Horror Show” exhibition will be at the museum through July 25, 2027. For tickets and more information visit the Academy Museum’s website.