Where was Halloween filmed?

It’s one of the most iconic opening scenes in a horror movie to date.

The Myers home in fictional Haddonfield is where it all started. Here, viewers watch an intruder stalk the outside of the house, creep silently inside, take a knife from a kitchen drawer, and sneak up the stairs. Stopping to put on a mask before entering the room of a young woman, the intruder looks around the room before walking right up to the woman.

An aggravated “Michael!” is all that can be heard before she is stabbed several times, her screams echoing through the house.

Michael Myers, aged six in a colorful clown costume, murdered his sister Judith in cold blood. He then walks out the door only to be unmasked by his parents, still holding the bloody knife.

The house is located at 1000 Mission Street in South Pasadena, California. To get there, take Interstate 10 and exit on Orange Grove Avenue. Travel two blocks to Mission Street and turn left to number 1000. The owner allows photos, but asks visitors not to take them on the porch or walkways so as not to disturb the building’s business tenants.

Fifteen years after Michael was locked away in Smith’s Grove Sanitarium for murdering his sister, his doctor, Sam Loomis, and a nurse travel through a driving storm to prepare to move him to a court hearing the next day.

Viewers learn that Michael is unlikely to ever be rehabilitated – he hasn’t spoken a word in 15 years – and in fact, Loomis is actively working to ensure he never leaves Smith’s Grove again. While he seems completely hardened to his patient, even referring to Myers as “it,” Loomis is flatly telling viewers who he is: an unrepentant killer.

When asked by the nurse if he really didn’t want Myers freed, Loomis responded firmly in the negative:

“Never, ever,” he said gravely. “Never.”

While driving up to the sanitarium, Myers attacks the nurse while Loomis is out of the vehicle and quickly takes the car and disappears into the heavy rain. How did he learn to drive after being incarcerated since he was six? We’re not sure either, but it’s clear Smith’s Grove security measures are lacking.

Although Smith’s Grove Sanitarium is a fictional hospital and we never see the inside of it, visitors looking to snap a few photos of Michael Myers’ escape can head to North Hollywood. The Halloween film scene was shot on a stretch of empty, gated off road near the Upper Hollywood Reservoir.

If there’s one thing that’s consistent across the horror movie genre, it’s that ever film has a stoic, tough, skeptical character that just isn’t having any of whatever nonsense is going on. A reporter, a school official, a mayor, a parent – there’s always someone ready to downplay any real or imagined concerns, and in the case of Michael Myers, it’s Haddonfield’s sheriff, Leigh Brackett.

Dr. Loomis, who has been pursuing Myers since his escape from Smith’s Grove, has trailed him to his old hometown of Haddonfield, to his old home, even. After going with Brackett to the abandoned house and sharing what he knows about Myers, he’s met with slightly dismissive skepticism from the sheriff, who’s not sure there’s anything to worry about in the small, safe haven of Haddonfield.

Brackett agrees to patrol the streets on Halloween after some heavy convincing from Loomis, who tells him Myers isn’t any ordinary ruffian.

“Death has come to your little town, Sheriff,” Loomis says. “Now you can either ignore it, or you can help me stop it.”

The Myers home is located in South Pasadena, California, at 1000 Mission Street. Visitors can see the home, but it’s not the dilapidated mess or the middle class family home viewers will remember form the film. Photos are allowed, but not on the porch of the home, as it is now office space for various businesses.

One of the creepiest scenes in Halloween is just a few moments long – if you’re not paying attention, you could miss it.

As Laurie and Annie walk home from school through a quiet, middle class neighborhood, Myers peers at them from behind a tall hedge.

A blink, and he’s gone.

Although he’s not in the scene, viewers here Dr. Loomis talking in the background, fervently trying to convince the Haddonfield police that Myers is a force to be reckoned with. Death has indeed come to their small town, and he’s watching their children from behind unassuming hedge rows.

“You’ve got to believe me, officer, he is coming to Haddonfield,” says Loomis, presumably interrupted by an unimpressed policeman who wants to know why he’s so sure. Loomis continues to warn the officer of the impending upsurge in funeral services as Myers disappears.

How to get there: This is one of Halloween fans’ favorite photos to recreate, because it’s easily accessed, and there are number of ways from menacing to hilarious that photos can be created. The hedge is located on Montrose Avenue, about halfway between Oxley and Mission Streets in South Pasadena.

Although we only see it briefly throughout the entire film, Laurie Strode’s house is a great place for fans of the movie.

Viewers first see the house at the beginning of the film, in which Laurie’s father asks her to drop a key off at the Myers place, thus setting the entire night of terror in motion.

Later, we see Laurie sitting on one of the concrete pillars with a pumpkin in her lap, waiting on her friend Annie to pick her up to babysit.

The owners of the house appreciate the location’s role in one of the most famous slasher flicks of all time, and frequently invite visitors to take as many photos as they’d like. They even have a selection of fake pumpkins and a framed photo on the porch, inviting guests to sit on the pillar with a pumpkin in their lap to recreate the exact scene from the movie.

How to get there: The Strode house is located at 1115 Oxley Street in South Pasadena, not far from the infamous Halloween Hedge (seriously, it has its own marker on Google Maps). Visitors are welcome and even encouraged to pose for photos on the property.

After returning to Haddonfield, Myers pays a visit to his old home (we’re not sure for what) and sees local teenager Laurie dropping off keys to the abandoned house, which her father is trying to sell. It’s a momentary encounter, but from then on Myers stalks Laurie, as well as her friend Annie, the skeptical sheriff’s daughter.

Both of the girls are babysitting young children across the street from each other, and it’s here that most of the Halloween action scenes take place. After Tommy Doyle, whom Laurie is babysitting, sees Michael near the home across the street, he tells Laurie he saw the boogeyman. Thinking it’s just a silly story, Laurie tells Tommy it’s not real.

“What about the boogeyman,” Tommy asks.

“There’s no such thing,” Laurie drones, not looking up from her magazine.

After attacking Annie and her boyfriend, as well as Lynda (who was in the wrong place at the very wrong time), Myers moves across the street to the home where Laurie is babysitting. Having just discovered her friend is dead at the neighbor’s house, Laurie tells the children to hide and secures them inside the house.

A few bolted doors have never stopped Myers, though, and he attacks Laurie twice, earning himself a knitting needle to the neck, a coat hanger to the eye and his own knife through his chest. After sending the children to another neighbor’s house to call the police, Laurie is again attacked, this time saved only by a timely appearance from Dr. Loomis, who shoots Myers several times.

His death doesn’t last, of course.

Unable to find two usable houses in the South Pasadena neighborhood where much of Halloween was filmed, the producer settle on two houses just a few miles and a world away in West Hollywood. Sandwiched between the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the famous Chateau Marmont, the two homes are located at 1530 and 1537 Orange Grove Avenue. To get there, take Highway 2 to North Fairfax Avenue and turn Right. Take another right on Sunset Boulevard and turn left at the next street, Orange Grove Avenue.

These homes are privately owned, so either snap some photos from the street, or politely ask the homeowners if they mind you taking a few shots on their property.