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Clearly the most influential horror movie of the past 30 years, Halloween is my favorite and is the standard by which I judge the genre.  I have been largely disappointed with almost every horror movie I have ever seen, mainly because I feel like scares are fairly simple to produce if you take the time.  John Carpenter took the time, with an extremely low budget, and came out with what would be the most successful independent feature of all time (probably until The Blair Witch Project).

The influence of the movie was more apparent in the next decade, where the masked killer genre was in full effect.  Friday the 13th and its many sequels began in 1980, and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Hellraiser (1987) soon joined the fray.  Halloween was the first, and best, and even its sequels had trouble matching it (especially the Michael Myers-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch).

Michael Myers (played by Carpenter friend Nick Castle when masked) slices and dices his babysitter sister Judith (Sandy Johnson) on Halloween night at the age of 6 (played by Will Sandin) in an awesome beginning scene that appears to be one full shot (although it does have a couple of edits).  He is then sent to a mental institution.  15 years later (although the credits list the grown-up Myers as 23, go figure) the little town of Haddonfield, Illinois has moved on and forgotten that day, but the Myers house still sits abandoned in the neighborhood and has become the test of mettle for young mischievous boys.

Myers breaks out of the institution, much to the chagrin of Dr. Sam Loomis (a name taken from Hitchcock’s Psycho played by series stalwart Donald Pleasence), who knows that Myers is no longer a man and refers to him as “it,” as a pure evil presence.  Myers wants to revisit his old home town and make some more babysitter killings.

Introducing Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, in her first big movie role, the daughter of horror royalty Janet Leigh of Psycho fame), a virginal teen who is saddled with babysitting Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews) on Halloween night while her friends Annie Brackett (Nancy Loomis) and Lynda (P.J. Soles) plan on screwing their boyfriends for the evening.  Eventually, Michael Myers, extraordinarily patient, comes in for the kills.  Meanwhile, Loomis has a hard time convincing the police department that he’s in town, mainly because nothing is happening even while kids trick-or-treat.

And here is the genius of Halloween: at the very beginning of the day, Myers is there in Haddonfield.  He could kill at any time but chooses not.  When Laurie walks up to the Myers house to drop something off, he’s there, behind the door, breathing (the trademark sound of his presence, very well executed).  He appears out of nowhere, not to kill (just yet), and creeps on the outside of the frame, leading a viewer to always be searching the background for his whereabouts.  So it gets to the point that when Myers does kill, it’s a genuine surprise because there are so many opportunities for him to do so.

If there is one thing dated about Halloween it would be those kills, which are unfortunately overacted by the victims.  But Myers is never cartoonish as he would be later, where you almost root for him to kill people.  The scene where he stabs a victim up against a wall and then just kind of observes what he’s done, with a slight tilt to the head, is extremely creepy and, as a movie watcher, satisfying.  You know with a scene like that, great care was put into the character of Michael Myers.

I can’t think of one horror film that comes close since this movie’s release in 1978, especially none of its aformentioned spawn.  I enjoyed Scream (1996) and The Blair Witch Project (1999) and have found certain other horror movies like The Descent (2006) good in places, but nothing nearly like this.  The use of the entire frame, where anyone could leap out at any minute, the use of sound, and a true filmmaker behind the camera (although Carpenter would later be unable to repeat the success he had in the eighties and now is nearly MIA) combine for a great experience.  Not to be missed.

Remade: Halloween (2007)

Next: Halloween II (review by Sam Loomis)