| Halloween Released: 1978 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Slasher Nuts and Bolts: Babysitters of the world take warning. On Halloween night, the face of terror stalks the streets of Haddonfield. Who is he and what does he want? Not even his psychiatrist knows for sure? Summary: It’s October 31st 1963. Judith Myers is at home with her boyfriend Gary. After fooling around for a bit, Gary leaves and Judith goes upstairs to prepare for bed. In walks her six-year-old brother Michael. Michael had been out trick-or-treating and had just gotten home. Donning a jester’s mask, he grabs a kitchen knife and walks upstairs to his sister’s bedroom. Without saying a word, he stabs her numerous times until she dies. Michael walks downstairs just as his parents arrive at the house. October 30th 1978: Doctor Sam Loomis and Nurse Marion Chambers drive to Smiths-Grove Sanitarium in Warren County Illinois. Loomis has been Michael’s doctor for the past fifteen years. Now that Michael is twenty-one, the law decrees that he is to appear in court for a competency hearing. Loomis wants to make sure that Michael never gets out of the sanitarium. As they pull up to the main gates, Marion sees that the loonies are all out walking about the property. Loomis gets out of the car to open the gates. One of the loonies is actually Michael who leaps atop the car and attacks Marion. She tries to get away and Michael palms the glass window shattering it. Marion gets out of the vehicle just as Loomis comes running up. Michael takes off in the car. October 31st 1978, Haddonfield Illinois: Now we meet Laurie Strode. Laurie is the shy seventeen-year-old daughter of realtor Morgan Strode. (We learn in later movies that Morgan is actually Laurie’s adoptive father.) Morgan asks Laurie to drop a set of keys off at the Myers house on her way to school. The Myers house has been on the market for many years now. On her way she meets young Tommy Doyle. Laurie is babysitting Tommy that night and the two make plans to watch scary movies and carve jack-o-lanterns. As Laurie drops the key under the doormat of the Meyers house, we see a dark ominous shape appearing from inside. The Shape steps out onto Lampkin Lane and watches Laurie and Tommy walk away. Back at Smith’s Grove, Loomis argues with hospital administrator Terrance Wynn over the debacle from the previous night. Loomis suspects that Michael may return to his hometown of Haddonfield. Sam begins tracking Michael’s actions. He finds Marion’s car at Phelp’s garage. He also finds a dead naked mechanic as well as Michael’s old hospital garb. I guess our boy is stepping up into the world of high fashion. As this is going on, Laurie sits in her literature class listening to her teacher droning on an on about fate. Class is finally dismissed and Laurie goes out to meet up with her friends Annie and Lynda. As they are walking along, Laurie thinks she sees someone in the bushes. Feeling a little weirded out she hurries home. She goes upstairs where she perchance happens to look outside her bedroom window. Amongst the billowing white sheets hanging on the clothesline, Laurie thinks she sees a strangely masked man standing there. She blinks her eyes and the man is gone. Annie calls Laurie up and tells her that she will pick Linda and she up at 6:30. Meanwhile, Loomis finally gets to Haddonfield. He goes to the Haddonfield cemetery where he discovers that the headstone to Judith Myers’ grave has been stolen. Sam is convinced that Michael is responsible for the act. The caretaker simply writes it off as Halloween vandalism. In the early evening, Laurie, Annie and Lynda are driving around town smoking pot. Annie sees her father Sheriff Leigh Brackett parked outside Nichol’s Department Store. She asks him what has happened and Leigh tells her that someone had broken in and stole some rope, a knife and a Halloween mask. As they drive off, Doctor Loomis approaches Sheriff Brackett. He informs him about Michael and pleads with him to investigate the Myers home. As the sun sets the two reach the old Meyers house. Brackett finds the remains of a half-eaten dog lying in the living room. Later on, Laurie goes to the Doyle house to baby-sit him while Annie is across the street babysitting Lindsey Wallace. Annie calls Laurie up and tells her that she set her up with Ben Tramer for the Homecoming dance. As the two talk, Annie spills popcorn butter all over herself and has to go clean up. While Annie is washing her clothes, Michael comes to the Wallace property and kills Lester the family pooch. Annie decides that she wants to ditch Lindsey in favor of going out with her boyfriend Paul. She drops Lindsey off with Laurie and gets into her car to leave. Before she can start the engine she notices that the windshield is completely fogged up. Michael appears from the back seat and begins strangling her. He finishes Annie off with a large knife. He takes her body back into the house. Across the street, Tommy Doyle sees Michael (The Shape) Myers bringing Annie’s body back into the house. He tells Laurie that he saw the Boogeyman, but Laurie doesn’t believe him. While all this is going on, Lynda and her boyfriend Bob decide to go into Lindsey’s house to fuck. (Which I admit, is a most decidedly strange place for these two to meet up at.) The two screw around for a bit and Lynda asks Bob to get her a beer. Bob goes into the kitchen where the Shape attacks him. Michael shoves a knife through his chest nailing him to the wall. In one of the more ridiculous scenes of the movie, Michael then throws a white bed sheet over his head with Bob’s glasses over top of it. He walks back into the bedroom where Lynda thinks that it’s Bob. Lynda decides to call Laurie on the phone. As she talks to her, the Shape comes up from behind her and strangles the shit out of her with the phone cord. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Laurie hears her friend’s strangled death cries over the phone but she isn’t sure if Lynda is in danger or if she is just fucking around. Laurie decides to investigate the matter. She decides to check for them next door at Lindsey’s. As she is walking through the Wallace house she finds the headstone of Judith Myers as well as the bodies of Lynda, Annie and Bob. Michael appears and attacks Laurie from behind. He makes a vicious slice across Laurie’s left shoulder and Laurie runs for her life. She locks herself in the bedroom, but Michael manages to cut his way through. She escapes through the window and runs back over to the Doyle house. She tells the kids to go up to the bedroom and lock the door. Michael attacks her and Laurie stabs him in the neck with a knitting needle. She then runs upstairs and hides in the hallway closet. Michael goes after her and breaks down the closet door. Laurie struggles to fight back and she stabs Michael in the eye with a metal coat hanger. (NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!) By reflex, Michael drops his knife. Laurie scoops it up and stabs him. Michael falls backwards onto the floor. Laurie steps over him and tells Tommy and Lindsey to go down the street to the Mackenzie house. As the kids leave, Michael sits up. By this point, Loomis and Brackett arrive on the scene. Sam tells the Sheriff to go check the back of the house while he attends to the front. Loomis charges up the stairs just as Michael attacks Laurie again. He shoots him six times in the chest and Michael falls backwards out the upstairs bedroom window. He falls to the ground seemingly dead. Loomis walks up to look out the window only to discover that Michael is gone. Acting/Dialogue: Donald Pleasance is really great as the obsessive psychiatrist. He comes off as a total fucking crackpot, but we the viewer know that all of his rhetoric is the 100% absolute boner-fide truth. This is also the film debut of Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis starts off kind of mousy and uninteresting, but as the film moves along we learn why she is considered America’s most infamous horror movie scream Queen. What I liked about Jamie’s performance was that she didn’t feel the need to accent every ‘boo’ moment with complete fucking shrieking. Yeah she screams a lot, but there are just as many scenes where we see her huddling wild-eyed and quiet waiting for Michael to catch up to her. This paints a much more realistic portrait of a victim scared out of their wits. I don’t believe that every single woman who is attacked by a maniac is going to just sit there and scream their damned head off. That’s just not realistic. On the downside however, P.J. Soles (Lynda Van Der Klok) and Nancy Kyes (Annie Brackett) turn out some of the most excruciatingly painful performances of their careers. I can’t believe these bimbos actually attended Theater school. Gore: Believe it or not, this film is practically absent of any kind of gore. There are only four deaths and they are practically all bloodless. It’s a good example of showing that one does not need to rely on gratuitous gore in order to make a suspenseful horror flick. (Although a good decapitation would have been cool.) Guilty Pleasures: In the beginning we can ALMOST see Judith Myers topless. But this is shown through some bad lighting and heavy shadows, so it really doesn’t even count. We also get to see P.J. Soles shake her boobs about while wrestling with Michael. The Good: This is the one that started it all. Although Halloween is hardly the first serial killer flick, its one of the first American films to focus on teenage victims being stalked by a faceless superhuman killer. John Carpenter’s work with this film created what has become known as the mainstream slasher genre. During a time when England was belting out Victorian era vampire flicks and Italy was churning up some mystery laden Giallo films, the horror genre had pretty much been a dead concept in America. The only thing we really had going for us were George Romero zombie flicks and a bizarre film about a southwestern family with a flesh fetish. But along comes a guy named John Carpenter. Armed with some Panavision cameras and a paltry budget, Carpenter gathered together a cast of nobody’s to create a truly suspenseful horror flick. Many consider Halloween to be the father of modern horror. If this is so, then we would have to credit Alfred Hitchcock’s chilling classic Psycho as being the grandfather. Carpenter recognized this as well and there are numerous details, which pay homage to Psycho throughout this film. Firstly we have the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie is the daughter of Janet Leigh who played Marion Crane in Psycho; quite possibly the most famous horror movie victim of all time. The name Leigh even appears in Halloween as the first name of Annie’s father, Sheriff Leigh Brackett. Then we have the character of Doctor Loomis. Carpenter took this name from Janet Leigh’s boy-toy in Psycho, Samuel Loomis. Doctor Loomis’ aide, Marion Chambers is also inspired by a character from Psycho. Her name was coined from the character of Sheriff Al Chambers. With the exception of Jaws, Halloween boasts one of the most famous music scores in the entire genre. Although never credited in the original release, Carpenter himself composed all of the music. His score is proof positive of just how effective music can be towards the enhancement of a film. Like Jaws, Halloween boasts a gripping repetitive refrain that crops up whenever the killer is stalking his prey. The erratic high-pitched keystrokes evolve into a darker, more intensified melody at the point when the victim realizes that they are being attacked. But what makes Halloween so compelling is that Carpenter knows when NOT to cue the music. There are several scenes where are attention is cast upon the character in the foreground, while Michael surreptitiously fiddles about in the background. The absence of music here succeeds in being more effective than if we were assaulted with a crescendo of bells and whistles. The absence of budget likewise helps to cast an eerie realism to this picture. The steady-cam is not really that steady and it jerks and flitters about in time with the characters’ point-of-view. There’s a nice even exchange between shots that are seen through the eyes of Michael himself and those which are shown through the eyes of his victims. Carpenter makes good use of extended tracking shots throughout the film. Most notably, a scene where the Shape steps out onto the sidewalk to watch Laurie and Tommy walking away. From this extremely simple perspective, we get a lot of insight into the calculating patience of the killer. He is meticulous and he hunts his quarry with cold ambivalence. I think that’s what makes Michael so much more intense than say someone like Leatherface. Although Leatherface is without a doubt the sickest pickle in the barrel, he is really little more than a half-baked retard who gives in to every impulse that man is heir to. Michael Myers transcends humanity by virtue of the fact that is completely devoid of all emotion. There’s another interesting little formula that I got a kick out of. Carpenter plays around with continuity a bit as we watch Michael’s slow progression from the asylum to Haddonfield. As Michael is fucking off in Haddonfield, we see Loomis doggedly following his trail. From here, we learn how Michael came to be dressed in his new designer jumpsuit (complete with life-like oil smudge!) We also discover how he first acquires his fright-mask (Which is actually a mold of William Shatner). Halloween is a trend-setting heart-stopper, which is really in a class by itself. Whereas other movie icons have descended into a rash of painfully inferior sequels, the Halloween franchise (Barring Season of the Witch) has maintained a steady command of its own style and continues to entertain us some twenty odd years later. The Bad: I’ve already mentioned how annoying the characters of Annie and Lynda are. But I have to bring them up again because their performances form a MAJOR detraction from this film. They fucking suck! Lynda goes completely overboard in the role of the typical blonde bimbo and she has this exaggerated obsession with the word ‘totally’. Like, she totally fucking sucks okay? Like, the only totally decent thing she’s even totally good for is to show off the totality of her total tits. And even THEY totally suck. I mean…totally. Annie’s not much better. Her forced acting in combination with her horrendous dialogue leaves you yearning for her death. This is one of those times when you wish that Michael WASN’T the patient type. (Pun intended) Gritting your teeth, you find yourself screaming at him on the television screen in the vain hopes that he may actually hear you. “Kill her Michael! Kill her! End her suffering and ours!” I also have to criticize the effectiveness of Strode Realty. Now my mother-in-law is a realtor so I have a little bit of foreknowledge as to what such an occupation entails. How in the name of Captain Kirk’s facial features is this guy supposed to sell the Myers house? The house is a chunk of shit! The windows are either broken or boarded up and the outside sports a paint job that’s even shittier than Tammy Faye Baker’s! Who the fuck would buy a place that looks this crappy? Talk about your fixer upper. There’s a really unforgivable blooper in the final segments of the film. Loomis shoots Myers and he falls backwards off the balcony. Now, by the laws of physics, the balcony railing should come up to about mid-thigh. Michael would have to back into the thing forcing his knees to bend before flipping backwards onto the ground. But if you watch closely, you can plainly see that no such thing occurs. Michael walks out of the bedroom roughly three feet into the air and steps off of the TOP of the balcony railing. Obviously there was a plank there for the stuntman to walk on but this is a fuck-up so noticeable that I feel the need to list it here. (I usually don’t fault movies for their bloopers; we’re all human after all. But this one is pretty bad.) Great Lines: “Was that the Bogey-man?” “As a matter of fact…it was.” --Laurie talking to Loomis after Michael walks the plank. “I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blind, 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 for I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... EVIL!” --Loomis describing Michael to Sheriff Brackett. “He’ll barely be able to sit up.” “That’s the idea.” --Marion and Loomis talking about pumping Michael full of Thorazine during his competency hearing. Overall Rating: 9 out of 10 severed heads. |
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