'Halloween' wasn't the first script that John Carpenter wrote which had a mysterious killer stalking and killing specific group of people. Around 1977, Carpenter wrote the script called Meltdown which was about a group of scientists exploring a nuclear plant when one night all of the workers in it disappear. Later in the script, it's revealed that they were killed by some psychopath who sneaked into the plant long time ago and who believes that he is sent by God to destroy the plant. Most of the script was just this killer stalking and killing all the scientists in various ways, using traps and weapons such as a flamethrower and a circular saw. The ending of this script was very dark, with only two people surviving and escaping from the plant before it explodes and creates a huge disaster which leaves most of the California infected with so much radiation that nothing will live there for half a million years. And just like Halloween had the song "Don't Fear the Reaper" as sort of a foreboding sign that something bad will happen, Carpenter's Meltdown script had the song "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum playing at one part when the bodies of the plant workers are found by the main characters and they realize the killer's plans, and also at the ending after the plant explodes. Meltdown was later rewritten in the mid-1990s and turned into a "Die Hard (1988) in a nuclear plant" type of thriller which was going to star Dolph Lundgren in a very dark role, but eventually production of that film was cancelled.