Halloween (1978)Most people don't believe the boogeyman exists; but after one terrible Halloween night in the quiet town of Haddonfield, Illinois, Laurie Strode (Jaime Lee Curtis) will never make that mistake again. Halloween (1978) is arguably the progenitor of teen slasher films as we know them today, and is the story of an escaped lunatic named Michael Myers (Nick Castle, credited as "The Shape", and Tony Moran), who returns home to the place where fifteen years earlier on Halloween night, Michael killed his sister. Convinced Michael is an incarnation of evil, his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) tracks him down to try to prevent history from repeating itself.
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Before you have a chance to react or prepare for Halloween, the first thing you get is the sound of the score emerging from the darkness, composed by the film's director, John Carpenter. The plinking piano and ambient tones worm their way under your skin in complex 5/4 time, like cold needles, the anxiety of being hunted. Halloween excels at establishing mood, unsettling you in the music, but especially in the camerawork. From the opening scene set in 1963, our point of view is almost exclusively that of the young Michael (Will Sandin), as he skulks around, digging up a chef's knife, donning a discarded mask, and killing his naked sister. Actually, until the mask is pulled away, the killer could be anyone, and not--more shockingly--a six-year old boy. This point of view persists when an older Michael stalks Laurie and her girlfriends, Annie (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda (P. J. Soles), placing us in the uncomfortable position of viewing the world through the murderer's eyes, even though we cannot understand what inscrutable malevolence possessed him to perform his killings. When Laurie and Annie are babysitting, both households have a monster movie marathon playing films like Forbidden Planet and Howard Hawks' The Thing from Another World; John Carpenter fans will no doubt appreciate the foreshadowing here of his own remake of The Thing a few years later. These movies are no coincidence, as both films feature an unknowable alien entity that targets and violently kills its prey, often from the cover of stealth, not unlike Michael Myers and his own mysterious motives to return to Haddonfield.
Michael Myers' arrival in Haddonfield and the events leading up to the dramatic climax feel like a spooky Halloween story put to film, the kind of tale told around a campfire to give you the chills and prompt someone to jump out from behind you to get you to drop your marshmallow. The evening before Halloween is literally a dark and stormy night as Loomis goes to escort Michael to a parole hearing which is itself nothing but a formality. The former Myers' home is treated as a haunted house by the local kids, who taunt one another to sneak inside. The details preceding the new killings--like the theft of Michael's sister's tombstone or the break-in at the hardware store, where a mask, knives, and rope are ominously the only things stolen, all get the gears working in the heads of the audience, piecing together the terrible horror yet to come. One of the biggest questions of Halloween is just why Michael returns in the first place. Loomis is convinced it is so that he can go on a killing spree, believing that prior to his incarceration, Michael acquired a taste for blood and killing, and has been patiently biding his time, waiting for the right moment to unleash his fury upon his hometown once more. Loomis identifies Michael as an "it"; what he's really thinking of is that Michael is like a predator, like a shark. His pursuit of Michael appears motivated by paranoid fear, making the doctor resemble Captain Ahab hunting this white-masked killer whale. People all around him don't want to believe such a being of pure evil--a real boogeyman--can exist, and that he can be cured. Loomis testifies that he devoted eight years of his life trying to do just that...only to finalize that Michael Myers must be buried away forever, because whatever may have once been human in him died before he killed his sister years ago, if it was ever there at all.
Just what is the relationship between Laurie and Michael? Why does he stalk her from the bushes, or more accurately, why is it she can see him more readily than others, and instinctively know something is amiss when he's around? Laurie can sense Michael for a few reasons. Laurie is intelligent but self-conscious, so she's more acutely aware when she's being observed. Her virginity is something Annie and Lynda tease her about, and she claims most guys likely consider her "too smart", although her wisdom proves to be her saving grace. It is also her ingenuity which keeps her alive; when attacked by Michael, she repeatedly uses on-hand implements to defend herself, giving her assailant a taste of his own medicine. Although Michael's killing spree is never outright justified, one suspects that he has been harboring a very confused sense of sexuality since the killing of his sister, and targets his victims according to how they arouse him. In the case of Annie or Lynda, he is spurred by their physical attractiveness and their resemblance to his sister; but with Laurie, she stirs something in him which is deeper. Some interpretations of Halloween have suggested that Michael Myers targets young girls who are at a sexual point in their lives as an arbiter of morality. On the contrary, Michael is more akin to a rapist, looking to dominate these women and ensure that his act of penetration is the last they will ever experience, making himself their "ultimate lover". There is a sympatico between Laurie and Michael, felt throughout Halloween, which reinforces why Laurie is more aware of her pursuer. Just as Laurie is shy, Michael stalks her like a shy, self-conscious boy, building up the "courage" to approach her by targeting her last. This also explains why Michael goes to the trouble of hiding the bodies of his prior victims when Laurie investigates, setting up a bloody tableau for her, a twisted demonstration--his attempt to "woo" her. Even the point of view camerawork which had been established to represent Michael's perspective is subverted at one point when Laurie goes to discover what happened at the house across the street, and suddenly the view is hers, implying a synchronicity between them. Michael's attraction to Laurie is not just because she is observant, but because like him, she is willing to kill, even if in self-defense. When Laurie thinks she has killed Michael (for a second time), there is a famously eerie shot of him in the background, sitting upright--erect--in a bizarrely turgid motion, as though his "resurrection" were a metaphor for his arousal. Earlier in the day, Laurie sings a song to herself: "I wish I had you all alone...just the two of us", and Annie teases Laurie when she spots Michael behind the bushes, saying he "wants to take her out tonight". Laurie appears to have found that "special someone", but what terrible luck that he's the boogeyman and he's trying to kill her.
Recommended for: Fans of an inspired horror film which itself went on to inspire numerous imitators. It is the kind of concentrated thriller which reminds one of the reason we're afraid to go into a dark house at night, and why we jump at spooky stories, the kind that creep you out and build up the tension for climactic scares.
Michael Myers' arrival in Haddonfield and the events leading up to the dramatic climax feel like a spooky Halloween story put to film, the kind of tale told around a campfire to give you the chills and prompt someone to jump out from behind you to get you to drop your marshmallow. The evening before Halloween is literally a dark and stormy night as Loomis goes to escort Michael to a parole hearing which is itself nothing but a formality. The former Myers' home is treated as a haunted house by the local kids, who taunt one another to sneak inside. The details preceding the new killings--like the theft of Michael's sister's tombstone or the break-in at the hardware store, where a mask, knives, and rope are ominously the only things stolen, all get the gears working in the heads of the audience, piecing together the terrible horror yet to come. One of the biggest questions of Halloween is just why Michael returns in the first place. Loomis is convinced it is so that he can go on a killing spree, believing that prior to his incarceration, Michael acquired a taste for blood and killing, and has been patiently biding his time, waiting for the right moment to unleash his fury upon his hometown once more. Loomis identifies Michael as an "it"; what he's really thinking of is that Michael is like a predator, like a shark. His pursuit of Michael appears motivated by paranoid fear, making the doctor resemble Captain Ahab hunting this white-masked killer whale. People all around him don't want to believe such a being of pure evil--a real boogeyman--can exist, and that he can be cured. Loomis testifies that he devoted eight years of his life trying to do just that...only to finalize that Michael Myers must be buried away forever, because whatever may have once been human in him died before he killed his sister years ago, if it was ever there at all.
Just what is the relationship between Laurie and Michael? Why does he stalk her from the bushes, or more accurately, why is it she can see him more readily than others, and instinctively know something is amiss when he's around? Laurie can sense Michael for a few reasons. Laurie is intelligent but self-conscious, so she's more acutely aware when she's being observed. Her virginity is something Annie and Lynda tease her about, and she claims most guys likely consider her "too smart", although her wisdom proves to be her saving grace. It is also her ingenuity which keeps her alive; when attacked by Michael, she repeatedly uses on-hand implements to defend herself, giving her assailant a taste of his own medicine. Although Michael's killing spree is never outright justified, one suspects that he has been harboring a very confused sense of sexuality since the killing of his sister, and targets his victims according to how they arouse him. In the case of Annie or Lynda, he is spurred by their physical attractiveness and their resemblance to his sister; but with Laurie, she stirs something in him which is deeper. Some interpretations of Halloween have suggested that Michael Myers targets young girls who are at a sexual point in their lives as an arbiter of morality. On the contrary, Michael is more akin to a rapist, looking to dominate these women and ensure that his act of penetration is the last they will ever experience, making himself their "ultimate lover". There is a sympatico between Laurie and Michael, felt throughout Halloween, which reinforces why Laurie is more aware of her pursuer. Just as Laurie is shy, Michael stalks her like a shy, self-conscious boy, building up the "courage" to approach her by targeting her last. This also explains why Michael goes to the trouble of hiding the bodies of his prior victims when Laurie investigates, setting up a bloody tableau for her, a twisted demonstration--his attempt to "woo" her. Even the point of view camerawork which had been established to represent Michael's perspective is subverted at one point when Laurie goes to discover what happened at the house across the street, and suddenly the view is hers, implying a synchronicity between them. Michael's attraction to Laurie is not just because she is observant, but because like him, she is willing to kill, even if in self-defense. When Laurie thinks she has killed Michael (for a second time), there is a famously eerie shot of him in the background, sitting upright--erect--in a bizarrely turgid motion, as though his "resurrection" were a metaphor for his arousal. Earlier in the day, Laurie sings a song to herself: "I wish I had you all alone...just the two of us", and Annie teases Laurie when she spots Michael behind the bushes, saying he "wants to take her out tonight". Laurie appears to have found that "special someone", but what terrible luck that he's the boogeyman and he's trying to kill her.
Recommended for: Fans of an inspired horror film which itself went on to inspire numerous imitators. It is the kind of concentrated thriller which reminds one of the reason we're afraid to go into a dark house at night, and why we jump at spooky stories, the kind that creep you out and build up the tension for climactic scares.