The mask would have been better if...

....plus, the ghostly blankness of that pale grey color was just so perfect. There’s a scene near the end of the movie where MM is in the house with Laurie, standing just behind her in the shadows. As your eyes start to get used to the dark....you begin to see that pale, white mask slowly come into focus. Just absolutely masterful.

Sorry, but an orange jackolantern mask would have made MM just another gimmicky movie psycho, like Jason. The mask Michael wore captured the pure blankness and evil he embodied.

Well, and the serendipity of it all is....the mask doesn't look much like William Shatner at all. I mean...no one would look at that mask, the way it was doctored, and ever think it looks like Shatner. So instead....they ended-up with a mask that just looks like a blank....lifeless....empty face. The face of evil. This film was a perfect storm of serendipity, great writing/vision and master craftmanship from Carpenter and team. The mask was just one example of that. I mean....just look at that PERFECT, creepy, expressionless mask! (Why mess with perfection)

-Originally an idea suggested by producer Irwin Yablans (entitled The Babysitter Murders), who envisioned a film about babysitters being menaced by a stalker, Carpenter took the idea and another later suggestion from Yablans that it take place during Halloween and developed a story.

-Director John Carpenter originally intended to call his movie The Babysitter Murders, but producer Irwin Yablans suggested that the story may be more significant if it were based around a specific holiday, so the title was changed to Halloween.

-While Carpenter and Hill began coming up with ideas for what would become the script – initially just what-if scenarios and imaginative deaths – Yablans called up with another idea: what if the story was set on Halloween night? For the two co-writers, it was the final piece of the puzzle, providing them not only with a theme for the story, but also its supernatural element.

-His idea revolved around babysitters being stalked at night, and when Carpenter and his late co-writer and producer Debra Hill began writing, Yablans suggested it take place on October 31st.

-Yablans' idea was simple enough: a psychopathic killer stalking babysitters. In fact, early in pre-production, the project had the working title The Babysitter Murders. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Carpenter remembered, "I was finishing [directing] a TV movie called Someone's Watching Me! when Irwin Yablans called and said, 'Why don't we set it on Halloween night—in fact, why don't we call it Halloween?' I have to give him credit. So Debra and I... began writing."

Should have sourced the rest of these, I suppose, but honestly this next one is enough
EW interview with John Carpenter quoted as saying such
http://www.oocities.org/j_nada/carp/interview/ew.html

Another great thing about the (Shatner) mask, with it's hollow black eye sockets and ghostly white paint.....is how it slowly is revealed from darkness. Carpenter was masterful in how he did this.

A great example is near the end of the movie, when Laurie is standing in the hallway at the top of the stairs, and behind her is a darkened closet. As your eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, you begin to see that white mask materialize from the darkness like a ghost, and you realize Michael is standing just inside that closet. Brilliant.