Halloween, John Carpenter, 1978

In my first post, I discussed my love of the horror genre. I discussed how I became enamoured by the monster movie at a very young age. Then, like many teenagers my views became different. I had a life changing experience that took me away from childish things. I had hit puberty and became a man.

This experience was John Carpenter's Halloween. I know I had some people going on that intro paragraph. I wanted to take people away from real horror and put it back into celluloid. Halloween, as many might say, was the beginning of the slasher genre. It had the man who could not be killed. The beginnings of the rules of horror movies(ala Scream) started here. It had the music, the tone and the setting that would be duplicated right up until today. There were jump moments, fake outs, and true horror with very limited gore. After Halloween, we would see an eventual ramping up of the gore and the loss of the tone.

For those who have not seen this glorious piece of cinema, I shall do a brief synopsis. 1963, a little kid kills his sister after she has had a tumble with her boyfriend. This is tragic and terrible and it happens in suburbia which makes it even worse. Kid ends up institutionalized. 15 years later, kid is grown into a psycho and breaks out. He goes home to his suburbia. Death ensues. He is chased by a doctor who has been his case worker. Doctor swears he is evil incarnate. Come to find out that the girl he is chasing is his long lost sister. He kills a guy on the way out and 3 of the heroines(survivor chick) friends. ------------spoilers--------------




He gets tossed out a window...but he disappears only to come back in a half dozen sequels.

Ok. By this day and age, we have seen this story a dozen times(more like a thousand). You have to remember this was 1978. This was not the common everyday horror movie. Eventually, we would run the gammut of slashers from the revenant style of Michael and Jason, to the supernatural of Freddy. All of them targetting sexually active teens who were all far from wholesome aside from the survivor chick. All would die horribly and the fear went away.

The review I give is horribly tainted by my love for the movie. All reviewers try to be objective. It really is difficult. I myself am subjective as hell. I am simply very up front about it. I can be critical though of the things that I love. So here it goes, Halloween 1978 was awesome and ground breaking. Damn...that didn't last long. Ok... lets see. The movie(like most) dates itself. Very rarely do you hear the terms "timeless classic" when referred to by horror movies. Jamie Lee Curtis is good as our survivor girl. She luckily dodged the scream queen bullet with this being one of her first roles. Donald Pleasance is very good as the doctor who is there to toss about psychobabble and words of wisdom on EVIL. The villain...well what can you possibly say is wrong with Michael Myers. He is an indomitable force. He cannot be stopped. He is evil. He has no soul and kills mercilessly with no thought other than where to hide the bodies for maximum fear of the survivor girl.

The setting of Haddonfield is wonderful. I believe the reason this movie worked so well was that it brought this horror into a suburban town. Death and violence was typically reserved for dark dank castles, rural areas or the like. Isolation was key. Now the slashing could take place on a nice city block.

Carpenters direction is wonderful. His musical score is iconic. There is a reason that he is one of the Masters of Horror(which will be reviewed at some point guaranteed)

I will always have a special place in my heart for Halloween. It doesn't have the same impact on me today that it did back so many years ago. Today, its like revisting an old friend. It is a nice comfy life preserver in the endless sea of shit that is the current horror genre. I still will toss it in the DVD player and blast it on 6 or 7 around Halloween. Hell, my ring tone for texts is the theme. Let me tell you, getting a text at 2 AM when you arent concious and hearing the theme by Carpenter really does get your attention.

I sound a touch like the grumpy old man yelling at the kids about back in my day. I know this. This is to be expected. At least I am not telling people to get off my lawn.

10 out of 5 stars (My rating scale is a sliding scale based on euclydian geometry, astrology and a bit of bias for this being the most awesome movie ever)