Watched it last night after 40 years and it make no sense.

I never really paid attention to that stuff, although I haven't watched the film in over a decade (it's still disturbing, as
there's nothing more frightening than a man in black wearing a mask in the night).

I DO know the film was shot in spring '78, which is why all the lawns were green (they really had no money - JLC wore
her own Sears wardrobe, and the mask was like two bucks).

I think the film is much better than its idiotic sequels, and much better than "Friday the 13th", or "Nightmare on
Elm Street."

My one main issue with the original "Halloween" is how bad the acting is of the two teenage girls. It looked bad then,
and plays REALLY bad now. But other than that, I still think it's an effective piece of horror. Too bad they didn't know
when to stop. (I'm not wasting my money on the 2018 version).

It was an independent film with a 300,000 dollar budget. Even back then, that is a crazy low amount of money to work with in terms of making a movie.

They had ONE person doing the production design, and a limited amount of time to shoot it in (19 days I think).

All those things you listed are certainly valid in terms of making it look like Halloween, but with the resources they had, the time constraints, ect., I think they did the best they could.

Playing devils advocate..... or boogeyman's.

1) Trick or treating is done from 6-8. Laurie and Annie arrive close to 8.
2) Maybe they passed out candy earlier, and were now going to a party.
3) They could have earlier, but their parents made them come in before they left. And their candy stash was hidden in order to avoid them eating it all.
4)True. But we can chalk that up to the movies low budget.
5) It was later into the evening.
6) Very true on that. I grew up in Michigan and we picked our costumes assuming we would be wearing it over our winter coats.
7) It was filmed in the spring in Southern California.

Why are there no kids outside trick or treating ??
It showed kids trick or treating. Just because a few scenes in front of the set houses didn't have kids in front of them at that exact moment doesn't change that.

Why are the parents going out on Halloween night ?? Most may be home but people do go out so your parameter is too extreme and is absolute. Some people do go out.

Why weren't Tommy and Lindsey out trick or treating ? Valid point. Are they a family that doesn't celebrate Halloween? Did they not get to go trick or treating? Do they do a little earlier but had to come home early?

Where were the Halloween decorations on the houses ? I went trick or treating and I had no decorations at home. Some decorate, some don't, not a valid criticism.

Why is the town so dead on Halloween night ? You are assuming a lot. We only get a few glimpses in front of two houses. Neighborhoods have high traffic areas and low traffic areas. Houses that aren't in the main shoot and are further out. Some areas have lots of houses with kids and some areas that may have some retired people with no kids. Halloween II shows lots of kids out on that same night. We only get a view outside of the house for a couple of short instances. That doesn't mean no kids ever came by.

Everybody is dressed way too lightly for October 31st in the Midwest. True but some Halloween's are chilly, even winter like and some end up being a little warmer. October has both.

The leaves are still green and there is no indication that this is Autumn. This is valid. Illinois would have fall foliage. This is a detail they didn't cover while filming in California. It seems like they could have just made up a fictional California town instead of Illinois.

In my home city, in the Midwest, the average high for October 31st is 59. Temperature generally doesn't start to drop much until after dark. Fifty nine is hardly chilly. I often went out on Halloween as a kid without a coat or even a jacket.

Mmm'kay. It's about this dude in a mask who kills a bunch of people.

Now, you're all caught up. :-)

In one of the Halloween docsCarpenter said they had one bag of fall leaves that they moved around the scenes
Really low budget film but so was NOTLD And TCM which are two stone cold horror classics

Nitpicking much? none of that ruins the movie