HALLOWEEN (1978)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Horror

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis / Donald Pleasence / Nick Castle

Plot

Escaped mental patient Michael Myers terrorizes and murders a group of suburban teenagers.

What I Liked

Those that try to propose that “Halloween” was the first slasher movie are wrong.  “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Black Christmas,” “Silent Night, Bloody Night,” "The Toolbox Murders," and yes, even Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” all established elements that would be common to the slasher subgenre years before John Carpenter and Debra Hill began writing the script for what would become “Halloween.”  Nonetheless, that script, brought to life with Carpenter’s deft direction, made “Halloween” the true benchmark for quality and scariness in all horror films for the next three decades.  There are certain films that, in hindsight, divide a genre’s history into before and after that film.  They alter the art form to define the tastes of a new audience and thus pioneer a new direction without abandoning the past.  In that sense, what “The Searchers” did for westerns, “The Godfather” did for gangster films, and “Star Wars” did for science fiction, “Halloween” did for horror.  In short, Carpenter and crew raised the bar (or the butcher knife) for all horror to follow and filmmakers would never again be able to make a scary movie without referring somehow, intentionally or unintentionally, to his masterpiece.

So what makes “Halloween” work so well?  For what is ultimately a simple movie, that question requires a surprisingly long and complicated answer that can and has been the subject of term papers and books.  I’ll try to slice it down to a few points that, for me, make “Halloween” not only definitive but undiminished over repeated viewings.  First and foremost is of course Carpenter’s directing.  Those familiar with the reputation for the slasher films that followed it might be surprised by the limited body count in the original “Halloween.”  Using shadows, camera angles, and pacing to compensate for his piano-wire budget, he emphasized eeriness and discomfort over shock and gore.  The key to that discomfort (and the film’s financial success) was the genius of Carpenter and Hill placing all the murder and evil dead-center in the middle of America, in a quiet suburban town that must have looked frighteningly familiar to millions of teenagers.

Place the hollow-eyed, white-faced, and silent Michael Myers behind every tree, couch, and closet door in that suburbia and you’ve got some seriously unnerving stuff.  Myers was not the first escaped lunatic killer in movies; he is just the best.  More believable than Jason Vorhees or Chucky, sneakier than Leatherface, and creepier than Freddy Krueger, Myers is the minimalist embodiment of evil: simple, ruthless, and without reason.  Before the sequels and remakes went out of their way to ruin him with origin stories and reasons for his actions, Michael Myers was perfect for not really having a reason at all.  He was just a guy who showed up one night and killed people.  He didn’t even appear to enjoy it.  He just did it.  Just because.  That’s scary.

What I Didn’t Like

*spoiler alert*

Wow.  Hmmm.  Well, they could have done a better job of casting.  Not Jamie Lee Curtis, of course.  She’s perfect as bookish/sexy Laurie Strode.  But the other teenagers around her being played by people in their late twenties and maybe even their thirties just don’t fit.

Something else that’s never quite sat right with me is that the otherwise brainy Laurie doesn’t think to leave the house herself to get help after killing (she believes) Myers.  She sends the kids away but decides to stick around, apparently to do nothing else but sit with her back to the man who just tried to kill her, ponder her evening, and wait for him to get up.  Which he, of course, promptly does.  But I’m reaching here and that’s really all I have for complaints.

Most Memorable Scene

The scene that I think of most whenever “Halloween” pops up in my head is the injured Laurie’s panicked rush across the street when she finds her friends dead in the Wallace house.  She begs for help from neighbors who simply stare at her through the window without making a move to aid her.  She is trapped outside as Myers comes ever closer in a casual stroll, knife in hand.  The tension mounts, aided by the pounding heartbeat of a simple piano soundtrack.  It’s very effective stuff that was put to use in every sequel, remake, and clone of “Halloween” for decades to come.  Yet the terror in this scene remains undiluted by imitation, which can also be said of the film as a whole.

My Rating: 5 out of 5