Image from http://backwoodshorror.com
The little town of Haddonfield is in shock when 6 year-old Michael Myers murders his older sister, Judith, with a kitchen knife. 15 years later, Halloween Night, the amoral Myers has escaped from his Asylum and returned home to commit more atrocities. His path crosses with that of Lynda, an amoral-blond-bimbo (Dead-Meat #1), Annie, an amoral-jerk (Dead meat #2 2), and Laurie, the responsible girl-scout who turns a blind-eye to their poor choices (Jamie-Lee Curtis). It’s a suffocating thriller as you watch Myers slowly stalk idiotic teenagers whose dumb decisions come back to bite them, and the relentless prowling of an evil man who just. Won’t. Die!
And then the sequels came and ruined everything, but that’s neither here nor there.
So I’m naturally biased here, as this was the first slasher-movie I ever saw, but the film has enough of a fan-following that I need not try to force myself to be negative. It is an entertaining and scary horror film that has several bragging points for it’s low budget: Mikey himself is a terrifying force with little more than a painted Captain Kirk Mask; For a film done near completely at night, it did an amazing job making sure everything was adequately visible, and the film uses that darkness well towards its jump scares. With some great piano tracks and camera angles, it’s clear that John Carpenter knew exactly what he was doing.
That said...perfection, it is not. We are, after all, talking about one of the core slasher films, and it did churn out the biggest slasher movie stereotypes. Sorry for spoilers, but Lynda and Annie, the two amoral teens I mentioned, are killed, and only responsible, ‘pure’ Laurie gets out alive. Mikey also has a tendency to move impossibly fast when the plot demands, and how he actually learned to drive in that asylum is still a little questionable:
There’s also a question of how someone who looks like this gets unnoticed for so long, but most of these are nitpicks.
Lastly, there’s one more elephant in the room that needs addressing. There have been several critics who claim the film promotes several terrible things, misogyny and sadism being just a few. They’re valid points, given the awful things that happen to the girls, but I don’t think they’re nearly as terrible as some would believe. After seeing the absolute torture-fest that was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, I can say confidently that Halloween isn’t in support of any of that. Annie and Lynda didn’t die because they were sexually promiscuous, they died because they were caught in an unfortunate situation. Furthermore, their deaths were not overly violent or drawn out, and unless you find suffocation and stab wounds titillating, you’re not gonna be too turned on when they’re finally axed.
So, my final thought is thus: This is a horror movie classic, and an awesome piece of October nostalgia. It’s the type of film that demands watching with a group of friends over a bowl of popcorn, lights down low, and sound up high. It’s spooky, unnerving, well acted, and very well directed. Just do yourself a favor and bypass the sequels...they’re not worth anybody’s time, even casually.
Since my next post will be on Halloween, how about we tackle my favorite horror movie, which just so happens to be classified as a cult film?
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