Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance
Director: John Carpenter
This is more like it. After the disappointment of 1977, at least in horror movies, we reach a bona fide classic with 1978’s Halloween. One of the best slasher films of all time.
Brief synopsis:
On Halloween night in 1968, six-year-old Michael Myers kills his sister Judith after she has sex in their house. Fifteen years later, on the night before Halloween, he escapes from the sanitarium where he has been staying under the watchful eye of his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis. Loomis has recognized the evil in Michael and knows he is heading home and follows him and his trail of bodies to Haddonfield, Illinois.
The next morning, teenage Laurie Strode is helping out her real estate agent father by leaving the key to the now abandoned Myers house under the doormat on the porch. This act puts her on Michael’s radar as he stayed there the night before. He watches Laurie as she interacts with her friends, Lynda and Annie, and the little boy she will be babysitting that night, Tommy Doyle. Eventually, the night falls and the terror starts.
Spoilers below (you have been warned):
Laurie ends up with the child Annie is supposed to be watching, Lindsey Wallace, at her house so Annie can spend the time with her boyfriend. She is then killed by Michael, followed quickly after by Lynda and her boyfriend Bob, who both arrive at the house Wallace’s house to have sex. Tommy has seen Michael and is convinced he is the boogeyman, out to get him. After getting the children to bed and not being able to get in touch with her friends, Laurie goes to find them. She discovers their bodies and is attacked by Michael.
Dr. Loomis has been working with Sherriff Brackett, Annie’s father, to find Michael all night. He ends up on the street where Laurie is babysitting. Tommy and Lindsey, sent to get help by an injured Laurie, run into him and send him to the house. Loomis saves Laurie, shooting Michael and sending him flying off the second floor balcony. Loomis runs over to verify his patient’s death only to find him gone. He goes back to check on Laurie who asks him if that was the boogeyman. Loomis just says, “As a matter of fact, it was.”
My thoughts (with spoilers):
There are certain films that go beyond being a part of a genre and help define it. Halloween is one of those films. Yes, there were slasher films before it, but Halloween is the film that helped push the genre into the mainstream. Wonderfully shot, well-acted, and a simple storyline, Carpenter’s second film is his calling card and a must watch for any horror fan.
The film is minimalistic, a babysitter is stalked by a killer. Laurie has done nothing to the killer to earn his ire, she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had someone else gone up to the front door of his house, Michael would have followed them instead. This is different than other slasher films where there needs to be a reason why the victims are attacked. There is no reason, it just is. And that is what the sequels and the remakes of Halloween miss – there is no reason for the attacks. Michael is scary because he is just evil, plain and simple. From the brief glimpse we get of his home life, they are a normal nuclear family with parents and two kids. I will never like Rob Zombie’s takes on any of these characters, honestly Dr. Loomis is truly done the dirtiest in those films, but his decision to give Michael a tragic back story takes away from the true horror of the character. Loomis says it best in this little monologue: “I met him, 15 years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this... six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and... the blackest eyes - the Devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil.”
The camera work in this film works perfectly to create tension. The film opens with a Steadicam shot that seems to be without a cut, putting us in the killer’s point of view. As Loomis first talks to Sherriff Brackett, the Smith’s Grove Sanitarium station wagon drives past them in the background. Annie walks past a glass door with Michael in the background and in the next pass, he is gone. And, of course, the slow fade in on Michael’s mask as he stands behind Laurie, ready to attack. This was the legendary Dean Cundey’s first film with Carpenter, working as Director of Photography. Cundey would go on to work as the Director of Photography and as Cinematographer on films like Apollo 13, Jurassic Park, The Thing, Back to the Future, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. As opposed to the camera tricks DePalma used in Carrie to push forward the narrative, Carpenter’s directing is more straight-forward, using the camera to observe the action and soak it in.
Music is an important part of a horror film, something Carpenter understood when he wrote the score for the film. Using 5/4 time, the beat is relentless, just like Michael, never stopping, beating into your head and adding tension to every scene it appears in. Carpenter even noted that the film did not work without the music. The music is so iconic that it has been synonymous with the holiday Halloween. Jamie Lee Curtis made her film debut in Halloween and she is the heart of the film. Her Laurie is not just some innocent victim, she is a teenager girl with wants and desires. She smokes pot with Annie on the way to her babysitting assignment. She has a crush on Ben Tramer, a fellow high school student, and is embarrassed when Annie tells him. The difference between her and her friends is that she is also serious and pays attention to the world around her. Annie and Lynda are both caught up with their boyfriends and having fun. Neither one notices the danger around them. Laurie is a good babysitter and she cares about her charges and her friends. When Annie and Lynda stop answering the phone, she locks up the house and goes to check on them. Laurie is too late to save her friends but the children will be safe.
Donald Pleasance makes Loomis a tragic character, a man who can see the evil inside this child but cannot convince anyone that he is right. From the beginning, he refers to Michael as an it, a thing. He is the only one who understands how dangerous the killer is and where he is headed. Loomis slowly loses his control on his own emotions as the evening goes on, getting more and more insistent that “death has come” to the town. He is finally able to do what he has wanted to do for years, shoot Michael and try and take him out of the world, and release some of the tension. But he is also wise enough to not be shocked when he discovers that even being shot and falling two stories doesn’t not kill Michael. After all, evil is near impossible to kill.
This is a film that everyone should see at least once in their life. Grab the popcorn, turn out the lights, and keep the knitting needles close while you enjoy a night with Laurie Strode and Michael Myers.
Other films from 1978 to check out:
Watership Down – When I worked in a video store, I actually had a Mom bring this in and slam it on the counter demanding to know what it was doing in the Children’s section as this was clearly a horror movie. A cartoon but definitely not Disney, this story about rabbits trying to survive is not for the weak.
The Cat from Outer Space - Silly film but I enjoy it. Also gave me the name for my cat, Jake.
Superman – The original with my Superman, the late Christopher Reeve. Great despite the cop out ending.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers – This came very close to getting its own full review but lost out just because the original is my favorite version of the story. Still a great take on the film with an all-star cast.