Halloween is set in fictional Haddonfield, Illinois. Haddonfield, Illinois could be anywhere in the United States: any quiet suburb is subject to the greatest terror. While Haddonfield doesn’t exist, the City of Angels does, an equally, if not more, terrifying location. Kids trick-or-treat on Genesee, a Los Angeles street that begins south of Hollywood Blvd in the Nichols Canyon neighborhood and ends at Beverly Blvd in the Fairfax district. The Haddonfield Hardware store is located at Mission Street in South Pasadena, a truly quiet and residential town.
People move to places like Haddonfield to experience a quiet and routine existence: to raise children, make a home, and feel safe. It’s where Laurie, Annie, and Lynda can walk to and from school unaccompanied, but it’s also where Michael Myers can lurk with a knife in between houses.
Halloween’s premise would be greatly altered had it been set in an urban landscape. This provides too many witnesses: a heightened sense of awareness due to the packed environment. Because the suburbs and surrounding rural areas are quiet, Michael Myers is able to escape and blend with the stagnant landscape, especially on Halloween when he can pass as a tall kid in a boogie man costume.
Haddonfield’s picturesque predictability is an opportune location for chaos. The pieces of the suburban puzzle fit perfectly together: Annie and Laurie–two teenage girls–are practicing domesticity on Halloween night as they babysit Lindsey and Tommy. The boys fulfill their roles as purveyors of alcohol and sex who are mostly out of the house. The supposed suburban heroes–the men of the house–cannot protect the women and children from terror.
The suburbs are the ideal setting for Halloween because of its genericism: no one expects a boogie man.
Film, Gender, Sexuality / Spring 2020 
This is a fascinating idea! It seems many horror films and slasher films rely heavily on setting to establish mood and increase suspense. Many modern day horror films rely on setting for their fear-factor, with one of the most popular being the “cabin in the woods” trope. (I.e. the characters are stranded in the middle of an unpopulated area, likely a forest, often without access to phone lines or outside help in their time of crisis). This trope was popularized by Friday the 13th, a film that was directly inspired by Halloween. Both Halloween and Friday the 13th feature suburban and rural landscapes respectively, and, as you mentioned in your post, these landscapes helped make them effective. As such, do you think it’s possible to have a successful horror/slasher film in a populated city? What would be more fear–inducing: facing a killer with the knowledge that there’s no one around to help you, or facing a killer with the knowledge that no one in your populated block cares enough to help? It’s an interesting thing to think about!
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I had no idea that the movie actually took place in our backyard. Now that you mention it, I totally recognize Fairfax and Pasadena. I totally agree with you when you said that that people move to places like this to feel safe and experience a quiet and routine existence. Although, I feel as If those areas might just be a mask for danger. No one ever sees peril ahead when they’re not looking. I also believe that the premise would have been altered If the movie took place in the heart of a city. No way could Myers ever go unseen in a crowd of people. He is a giant after all, standing at 6 foot 7 inches. But it rural Haddonfield, you’re correct, no one expects the boogie man.
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