Since being introduced in John Carpenter‘s Halloween 48 years ago on Oct. 25, 1978, Michael Myers has become one of the most recognizable horror icons in cinema history. The movie, now considered one of the most influential films of its kind, changed the horror genre forever, and that terrifying white face mask donned by the serial killer was actually modeled after a beloved TV character: Star Trek‘s Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner.
During production of the film, Halloween‘s production designer, Tommy Lee Wallace, found the Captain Kirk mask along with a clown mask at a mask shop on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Although the clown mask “was a better mask,” Carpenter told Deadline in 2014, it wasn’t creepy enough, so the production team ended up going with the Captain Kirk mask.
Despite the mask being modeled by Captain Kirk, Wallace revealed in the 2003 documentary Halloween: A Cut Above the Rest, that it “didn’t really look like anybody,” which made it the perfect choice for the filmmakers’ preference of something “pale” and “featureless.”
Wallace ended up customizing the mask by making some tweaks to it, including cutting the eyeholes to be larger, tearing off the eyebrows, poufing out the hair “so it looked demented and strange” and removing the sideburns. He also spray-painted the mask white, giving it a more ghostly appearance.
In 2021, Shatner, revealed his own take on the mask being modeled after his legendary character, and admitted he first thought it was a joke.
“I recognized it as the death mask they had made for me,” the actor explained in an interview for the YouTube channel Jake’s Takes (via The Hollywood Reporter). “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. So somewhere along the line, someone got that mask and made a mask of it for [the holiday] Halloween.”
On Halloween in 2025, Shatner also shared a cheeky post on X that featured a photo of the mask. “You can see if you add some make-up that the mask REALLY doesn’t look like me.Look at that neck! Have a wonderful Halloween to all those celebrating!” he wrote.
Since its release in 1978, Halloween has become a franchise that includes 13 films. The Myers mask, which has been altered into various versions over the years, is featured in all but one of them.
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