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| 1537 Orange Grove Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90046, USA (Los Angeles, California)
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The Wallace House
This house in Los Angeles, California was the setting of a night of mayhem and murder in the classic 1978 John Carpenter horror film, Halloween. In the film, the house and connecting street, Orange Grove Avenue, are transplanted into the fictional city of Haddonfield, Illinois. Located in very close proximity to another house that appeared in the production, the house and the street play a critical role in the later minutes of the film.
Halloween (1978)
The film follows a group of friends that have the misfortune of becoming the target of an escaped mental patient by the name of Michael Myers. Exactly 15 years prior to the action in the film, Myers brutally murdered his sister in a nearby home in Haddonfield (see Halloween (1978): The Myers House). As the action in the film resumes, Myers has escaped from a mental asylum and returned to town to finish the job that he started that fateful night.
The house doubled as the home of the character of Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards) in Halloween. In the course of the movie, the character of Annie Brackett comes to the home to baby-sit Wallace, as her friend Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is babysitting across the road at the home of Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews) (see Halloween (1978): The Doyle House). Annie ultimately drops off Lindsey with Laurie after receiving a phone call from her boyfriend (voiced by the director John Carpenter) and arranges to pick him up. Before she gets the chance, Myers attacks and kills her in the car. Annie's other friends, Lynda van der Klok (P.J. Soles) and Robert Simms (John Michael Graham), later show up and are similarly dispatched after a sexual tryst in the now-empty house.
The characters and subsequent murders are often credited as laying the foundation for the slasher sub-genre of horror and establishing certain conventions that would later play out in other films in the genre. These tropes include having teenage characters that recklessly use drugs and/or engage in premarital sex becoming quick targets of the killer and/or point-of-view camera angles from the vantage point of the killer. Others point out that similar conventions had already been used in the 1974 Bob Clark film, Black Christmas, four years before Halloween was even filmed. However, due to its financial success (at the time, it was the highest grossing independent film of all time), Halloween is often credited as kicking the slasher genre into full gear and making it a dominant presence in the horror genre for decades to come. For their own part, co-writers Carpenter and Debra Hill insist that the morality of the teenage characters had nothing to do with whether that character lived or die and that such an implication was completely unintentional.
As with the house that doubled as the Doyle residence in very close proximity across the street, only the exteriors of this house appeared in Halloween. According to Horror's Hallowed Grounds (see Related Sites below), another house on Orange Grove Avenue filled in for the interior sequences. Carpenter has also stated that the interiors of the laundry room (where Annie goes to wash her butter-stained clothes and gets subsequently locked in) were shot at nearby Universal City. For the critical scene where the character of Laurie Strode flees the Wallace residence after finding her friends dead and being attacked by Myers, actress Jamie Lee Curtis reported that the scene was shot at 4 o'clock in the morning and that the crew had locked the street down from traffic. While filming the sequence, she said she felt rather odd stumbling down the street and screaming for help while the residents on the road were trying to sleep.
Production on Halloween took place in April 1978 and the film made its debut on October 31 of the same year. While the various roads of "Haddonfield" are presented as being intertwined and in close proximity to one another, Orange Grove Avenue is located near West Hollywood, which is actually several miles away from where the earlier scenes of the city were shot in South Pasadena. In fact, the houses that doubled as the homes of Annie (see Halloween (1978): The Brackett House) and Lynda (see Halloween (1978): The Van Der Klok House) are both located over on Montrose Avenue in South Pasadena. In the 2007 Rob Zombie remake of Halloween, the residence that appears as "Wallace House" is also located in South Pasadena (see Halloween (2007): The Wallace House).
While Orange Grove Avenue may be rather isolated from the rest of the production, it is interesting to note that it is in very close proximity to a couple of houses that were used in the production of 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street (see Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): The Thompson House). As a result, only a couple of blocks separate the fictional horror landmark cities of Haddonfield, Illinois and Springwood, Ohio.
Halloween II (1981)
The house would again reappear briefly in the 1981 sequel, Halloween II. The film, directed by Rick Rosenthal from a script by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, would pick up the action from where the first film ended. In the movie, the character of Laurie is taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital to recover from the attack. However, Myers again tracks her down and she is again forced to fight for her life as those around her continue to die.
The Wallace home makes its reappearance a short time into Halloween II, following the misidentification of a trick-or-treater in front of the so-called "Elrod House" (see Halloween II (1981): The Elrod House) that results in his death. The character of Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) is brought to the location where news crews have assembled after the body of his daughter Annie has been discovered.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
The house would again reappear (albeit briefly) on the big screen several years later with the release of the first-person horror film, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. The film is shot in a mock-documentary (or mockumentary) format and follows the exploits of a new horror icon in training as he prepares to unleash his night of terror. The film plays off various conventions found throughout the slasher genre and makes multiple references to Michael Myers and Halloween, as well as Freddy Krueger (from the Nightmare on Elm Street series) and Jason Vorhees (from the Friday the 13th series). In the movie, the well-known horror villains are presented as real-life serial killers that the character of Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) is hoping to emulate.
At the start of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, the exploits of the horror icons above are recounted with shots from some of the actual filming locations. It is during this sequence that the Wallace house makes its appearance. Re-set in the Halloween city of Haddonfield, the house is seen in a panning shot of Orange Grove Avenue. For whatever reason, the shot begins at the home directly next door (where Laurie initially ran for help after leaving the house), but slowly pans past the Wallace house and across the street until it comes to a stop at the residence that doubled as the Doyle residence.
The House Today
Following the success of Halloween (and its many sequels) and subsequent rise to horror classic status, this house has become a popular stop for fans of the series. However, the property has undergone extensive renovation that has dramatically altered its appearance from the one seen in the film. The small carport that extended over the driveway to the back of the house has been removed and been replaced by a full garage, with an additional level of rooms added above it. The house has also been repainted a different color and a white picket fence now runs alongside the sidewalk. The alterations were completed before 2006 and are evident in Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Despite its new look, the house continues to hold a special place in horror lore. Fans that plan on visiting the property need to remember that it is a private residence and that trespassing is not allowed. As always, please respect the owner's right to privacy. |
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| Related Sites |
HalloweenMovies.com
The official Web site of the popular Halloween series, including information on all of the sequels, as well as the recent Rob Zombie remake. |
Horror's Hallowed Grounds
Official Web site for Sean Clark's "Horror's Hallowed Grounds" - A comprehensive collection of actual locations that appeared in various notable horror films. |
Seeing Stars: Halloween Filming Locations
Seeing Stars's page dedicated to locations used in the making of the 1978 horror classic, Halloween. |
The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations
A thorough guide to movie locations around the world. |
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| Similar Destinations |
| Halloween (1978): The Brackett House |
| Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, Sierra Madre, CA |
| Halloween (1978): The Doyle House |
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| See Also on TheCabinet.com |
| There are no other pages on this site associated with this location. |
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| Available from Amazon.com |
Halloween: 30th Anniversary Box Set |
Halloween II |
Behind the Mask - The Rise of Leslie Vernon |
The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations (NEW updated edition) |
Creepy Crawls: A Horror Fiend's Travel Guide |
Halloween |
Halloween (Divimax 25th Anniversary Edition) |
Halloween [Blu-ray] |
Halloween: 20th Anniversary Edition - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack |
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