Directed by: John Carpenter
Premise: Years after he killed his sister, Michael
Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to his small town, stalking a
babysitter (Jamie Lee Curtis) and the children in her care.
What Works: Despite being such a low budget film,
the filmmaking craft of Halloween is excellent. The quality of the
cinematography is very good, framing the potential victims in lots of dark,
empty space and using camera movement to suggest danger. In its sound, Halloween uses music and sound effects to full advantage, allowing silence to do its work
in the build up and then punctuating the jumps. The score to Halloween is
terrific and one of the most memorable in the genre, especially the chase music
which builds so well. The villain of a horror film often determines its success
or failure, and Halloween has one of the most memorable of all slasher
films. Ironically, Michael Myers status as one of the great villains has little
to do with the acting of Nick Castle and much more to do with the way the
character is shot, the use of music to punctuate his presence, and the speeches
made by Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis, the psychologist who understands the
potential evil of Michael Myers. Pleasence’s performance is really the key to
whole movie, selling the gravity of the situation and filling in what we don’t
see about the killer. Also carrying in the film is Jamie Lee Curtis as the
Laurie, the lead babysitter. Something extremely important about Halloween that differentiates it from a lot of the slasher films that followed in the
early 1980s after the release of Friday
the 13th, is the sympathy of the film remains with the female
hero. Michael Myers and the terrible acts of violence that he commits are not to
be cheered or admired, something that happened in some later entries in this
sub-genre (although not to the extent that some film critics would accuse it).
Keeping the focus on the woman and the children under her charge makes the movie
a much more watchable experience and it makes it considerably scarier, and
Curtis’ performance as Laurie does not play into the stupid, overly hormonal
portrayal of teens of other films. Instead, she is sensitive and vulnerable but
her character also has integrity and intelligence, traits missing from a lot of
female characters across most genres of film. As an entry in the New Hollywood
pantheon, Halloween is a film that succeeds artistically and financially
in spite of the studio system, which itself makes the picture interesting. As a
New Hollywood era horror film, Halloween acts subversively as a story
about the return of the repressed and as Michael Myers stalks suburbia, where
everyone is supposed to be safe, he undermines the "white flight" of
the previous generation.
What Doesn’t: Those accustomed to the blood and
guts of later slasher films might be disappointed by the lack of it here. In
style, Halloween has more in common with Alfred Hitchcock than Mario Bava.
DVD extras: There are two cuts of the original Halloween:
the theatrical cut and a version extended for television. Both have been made
available on DVD. The Anchor Bay release of the theatrical cut includes
trailers, TV spots, talent bios, image galleries, and a documentary.
Bottom Line: Halloween is one of the great contemporary horror films. Although the critical regard for Halloween has started to shift more in its favor, it remains a subversive film that undercuts the illusion of safety and anthropomorphizes the fears of repressed violence and desire.