Image courtesy of wall.alphacoders.com
Hello, everyone. Guess who’s back… I may not have been able to do a holiday-themed review for Independence Day with Independence Day, but since the chance will come again, I figured to make up for that (and since it’d been a long time without any reviews), I would come back with not one, but two holiday-themed reviews. With said holiday upon us, I figured what better time to come back than with these?
So, without further ado, here’s the first of the two… the slasher classic known as Halloween.
On Halloween night in 1963, in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, a six-year-old Michael Myers, wearing a clown costume, picks up a kitchen knife and stabs his older sister Judith to death, after which he is locked up in Smith’s Grove Sanitarium.
Fifteen years pass, but on October 30, 1978, Dr. Sam Loomis, the psychiatrist assigned to Michael, has come with Nurse Marion Chambers to take him to court. However, it turns out that Michael escaped as he proceeds to then take their car and head back home to Haddonfield, with Loomis in pursuit. Loomis tries to warn the police about Michael’s arrival and that they have to be prepared for him.
The following day, Halloween has arrived once again… and so has Michael. His target is Laurie Strode, who he spotted outside his old home. She sees that he’s stalking her, although her friends Lynda and Annie don’t believe her. When Loomis arrives, he realizes that Michael is just getting started, and even with the help of Sheriff Leigh Brackett, he can only hope he’s not too late to stop him.
What Worked: The performances are really good, with the standouts being Nick Castle as Michael Myers (or “The Shape,” as listed in the credits), Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis, and of course Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. Nick Castle really leaves an impact with how menacingly he portrays Michael Myers. You know he could be anywhere, but you don’t know when he’ll show up. With Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis, their performances make their characters just as iconic.
Loomis’s determination to stopping Michael really comes across in Donald Pleasence’s performance to where it not only brings a sense of urgency to his character and therefore the movie, but also to where it leads to one of the highlights of the movie. There’s a pivotal scene when he has to explain to Sheriff Brackett that what they’re dealing with is the embodiment of pure evil that has a constant desire to kill, and, despite having been locked up for fifteen years, can never truly be contained.
Then there’s Jamie Lee Curtis, who gives an equally great performance as Laurie Strode in what was actually her first movie, which makes it even more impressive. It’s her first movie, and she still does a really good job. In a way, it’s kind of like how Linda Hamilton portrayed Sarah Connor in the original Terminator: the reluctant protagonist who doesn’t realize that what they’re up against isn’t human*.
Charles Cyphers, who plays Sheriff Leigh Brackett, is also really good here, as he does come to have a very significant part by the end of the movie. He also proves to be a good foil for Loomis, where Loomis is really the only one who knows what Michael’s capable of, and Brackett is the one who takes his word for it and hopes he’s right, even in deciding to help.
The supporting cast (like P.J. Soles as Lynda, Nancy Kyes (or “Nancy Loomis,” as listed in the credits) as Annie, and Nancy Stephens as Nurse Marion Chambers), while they aren’t in it that much, still give good performances, and some of those characters do have more significance within the story than others. For example, there are certain scenes with Lynda and Annie that would become a common trope in horror movies, even going so far as being parodied in Scream. Not only that, but there’s a scene towards the end with another character that would ultimately become a common trope as well.
However, it’s more than just the performances here that stand out. Everything that went into making them work stands out just as much. One such example is through the multiple contributions from John Carpenter. In addition to directing the movie, he co-wrote the script and composed the score. His direction definitely shows that he had a clear vision for how he wanted to bring this story to life.
That approach is also evident within the script. Since both go hand-in-hand, the result is a movie with an unsettling atmosphere, unpredictability of when the villain will appear from being hidden in the shadows (which also shows with its utilization of lighting and a distinct visual style), and a sense of ambiguity with Michael’s motives and his backstory. It’s all accompanied through excellent cinematography by Dean Cundey, who went on to do it for Jurassic Park.
As for John Carpenter’s score, it may sound simple, particularly with the theme, but it is effective when used in the movie, often whenever Michael shows up, which leads to yet another trope: the killer having their own theme. Its use in his appearances works since it’s not used for shock value from cheap jump scares such as loud noises or cats jumping out, but rather to make his sudden appearance a jump scare. Aside from not really having any jump scares, there’s actually very little blood and gore here. This proves that not all horror movies need to rely on blood, gore or jump scares to get a reaction from an audience, and that sometimes, it’s better to build up the tension and suspense and then surprise them because it’s that style that leaves much more of an impact.
There aren’t really any legitimate issues here, because for every detail that could be considered a problem, there’s actually a purpose to each of them. While it is slow at first, when it does get going, it doesn’t let up (it’s really fast-paced from that point on, and it goes by quick). There are some questionable decisions, but they either are for the purpose of building up to something later on or lead to what would become common horror movie tropes. While the score may sound simple, it still leaves an impact when heard in the movie.
Overall: While everything within Halloween would become iconic in its own right, it’s the impact the movie itself had on the horror genre as a whole that really gave Halloween its legacy. It was a huge influence for what made slasher movies so popular in the 80s, including the clichés that they would use, like a theme that would prove as iconic as the villain it’s associated with. Those movies would also gain their popularity by using Halloween as a template for how to make an effective horror movie, and just followed that.
If it weren’t for Halloween’s success, we wouldn’t have gotten equally popular horror movies (let alone franchises) like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. In other words, without Michael Myers, we wouldn’t have Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger. We also wouldn’t have gotten Scream to spoof them because it wouldn’t have had the material to work with. Even if you’re not much of a horror fan, but you’re aware of the tropes, you should still experience it for yourself at least once. You’ll discover a lot of them originated here while you’re watching it, perhaps without realizing it, which is just one of many reasons why Halloween is the classic it is.
*There’s another parallel, but that’s a different story… for now.