Halloween (1978)

Welcome everyone to the fifth annual “Halloween Month,” where this month I will be talking about the top three slasher franchises. Let’s get started with the first one, the 1978 classic, and one of the best, “Halloween.”

One of the more successful independent films in the slasher/horror film genre, it has become a yearly tradition to watch this film, and is a cult film. This was written and directed by John Carpenter, who also created the bone-chilling music, and was made on a low budget of $300,000. This is considered to be the archetype of the recent franchises of slasher films, while the others look like pale copies and lacks in comparison. “Halloween” gives the slasher series a better name than it probably got. This scary flick is well-made, and the gore is well-visualized and made second in its suspense. Another aspect is how it intelligently lets its forceful spark be shown in a frightening way against the background of the small town of Haddonfield. Dennis Schwartz stated in his review, “In a more amateurish and gruffer way it brings about the same tension that Hitchcock's "Psycho" did, though it's not up there in that film's stratosphere of greatness. What I appreciate most about this Carpenter flick, is that he goes for the suspense while showing as little blood as possible as he casually lets the viewer observe and even relate to the threatened teenagers without making a moral statement about their questionable behavior or trying to explain the enigmatic psycho on the loose except by borrowing from the manufactured Halloween tradition that he's the Boogie Man.” Carpenter definitely shows this, even if he doesn’t mean it to be looked at in this way, the film looks at the more middle-class America by having the one innocent teenager live through the Halloween massacre while every one of the girls desperate to be in bed with their boyfriends are the violent victims.

The film starts in the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, as Judith Myers (Sandy Johnson) just finishes making love to her boyfriend (David Kyle) in her family house and when he leaves, she’s stabbed to death by her 6-year-old masked brother, Michael (Will Sandin) for no reason. The film jumps 15 years later to 1978 in an asylum in another small Illinois town, where the 21-year-old escapes (Nick Castle) by stealing the psychiatrist’s car who is treating him, Dr. Sam Loomis (the late Donald Pleasence).

The confused Loomis arrives in Haddonfield with a gun on Halloween night to warn Sheriff Brackett, played by Charles Cyphers, about the escape and the trouble the town will be in. Loomis has taken care of Michael since he was arrested 15 years ago and believes he’s finishing off some psychotic business and does not speak a word since his imprisonment and has a deadly stare like he can look through walls in a warning way. Schwartz said, “For a reason I don't quite get, except I think the shrink might be incompetent, he gets the only seen cop in town to keep it a secret about the escape, and he plans to hide in the bushes by the abandoned Myers house and thereby trap the killer when he returns.” Loomis becomes a saving person, maybe because he feels guilty that Michael was able to escape so easily from his captivity when he was watching him.

Janet Leigh’s daughter, “Scream Queen” Jamie Lee Curtis makes her fortunate film debut as she plays Laurie Strode, the protagonist who is, as Schwartz describes, “the good virgin girl who is too socially backward and too smart for the boys in town and therefore has no dates.” She’s a great baby-sitter because of her patience around children, and babysits little Tommy Doyle, played by Brian Andrews, on Halloween. While her more desperate school friend Annie Brackett (Nancy Loomis), the daughter of the sheriff, will babysit three houses down for Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards). She’s only disappointed that her boyfriend (John Carpenter) got grounded by his parents for throwing eggs as a prank and can’t be with her while she babysits. Laurie’s other friend is the obnoxious but beautiful popular cheerleader Lynda (P.J. Soles) who starts every sentence with “Totally” and plans to be with her boyfriend Bob (John Michael Graham) on Halloween night and to join Annie later on where she’s babysitting for the little girl who is watching “The Thing” on TV.

The suspense builds as Michael becomes a shadowy figure seen for a moment in town by Laurie and then Tommy, but soon disappears into the night leaving Laurie uncertain if she really saw something and Tommy is not believed when he says he saw the Boogie Man. This leaves Laurie crying and going up against Michael alone. Nick Castle plays Michael and he is credited as “the Shape.” Schwartz describes, “He's viewed as an inhuman, zombie-like embodiment of evil who wears a painted white Captain Kirk mask that hides his features as he slowly kills without emotion and in silence, and with only the glint of his huge knife seen in the semi-darkness.” “Halloween” is definitely a good scary film to watch, if you like this somewhat pointless film. Schwartz ended his review by saying, “This genre always seems to be popular with movie-goers, and when this film got noticed by a film critic from the Village Voice it finally got a wide release and received some good box office (once in a while someone listens to a film critic).”

If you haven’t seen this film, it’s a must. You have to see it, especially if you’re a fan of slasher films. This is one of the best of the genre, and the first of the slasher villains. I can say that I was definitely scared by it, and if I ever got the chance to watch this again, I would, especially since I like how Michael is very “ninja like” with his murders.

Seeing how the first film was a success, check in tomorrow for how good the sequel is in my “Halloween-a-thon” for this year’s “Halloween Month.”