An unbiased review.

Rating: 3/10 (25 February 2009)

There is a major difference between having respect for a film and being truly captivated by a film. Respect is simply realizing the importance a film had to cinema, or a certain genre, and admiring it for what it was in its time. Captivation is when you watch a film and are truly amazed by what you have just witnessed: in result, you think about it for days; you buy wallpaper with the main character printed on it; you give it a perfect score; it becomes a part of your life. With that said, let me briefly talk about the two main groups that make up the Halloween fan-base.
Group (1) watched the film when they were 4-years-old or when it first came out, went in their pants, and then childishly force the biased idea that it's THE scariest movie of all time into the heads of everyone who is even a mild horror fan. Because of nostalgia, they ignore the fact that Halloween is just a generic killer-in-the-house movie, even in its time, and place it high above anything and everything that has come out in the horror genre afterward. It doesn't matter how original or intelligent a modern horror movie is, in their mind, by God, it can't touch Halloween. Funny, though, if you ask them "Why?", they can never answer you. Group (2) watched the film in their teen years, thought in the back of their heads that Halloween was nothing special, but gave it perfect scores out of pure respect and duty. Group (3) is rare, but it's the few who saw it recently and genuinely thought it was a superior film, without being biased by positive scores. Group (4), which I include myself in, is completely middle-ground. They realize the most of the film is nothing special, but there are enough cool elements to keep them from saying its pure crap.
The reason I bring up the fans is because it's a subject that no one really wants to talk about, but a subject that is very important when analyzing the film. With millions of "Perfect!" opinions beating down on you, honestly realizing the mediocrity of Halloween isn't an easy thing to write in a review.
The main reason Halloween isn't as great as it's hyped to be is the core story. A juggernaut killer kills. Point blank: it's generic, unoriginal, and just downright boring, even in its time. As citation, the year before Halloween came out, Stephen King expressed in an introduction that he was sick of "generic killers" and that he could "write this in" his "sleep". (Note: This was not in response to Halloween or any other movie, but his personal feelings.) When I look at Halloween as a story and as a story alone, I cannot give it any credit whatsoever. It's pathetic. It's painfully unoriginal. Much more complex and original horror stories were told in the '70s. For one, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ('74). Another, Alien ('79). Another, The Shining novel ('77). Another, Carrie ('76). Halloween, in comparison to its peers, is just primitive in the way of plot, and that's the main reason I cannot give it a higher score. Some inaccurately credit it for starting the slasher sub-genre, but because it didn't, I can't even give it story credit for that.
However, the reason I don't dismiss the movie as a total waste of time is because of the atmosphere and directing. John Carpenter doesn't quite reach the perfection here with these two elements that he later reached with The Thing, but it's still impossible to ignore how superior they are in Halloween. The opening sequence with Michael as a child is absolutely brilliant. It pays homage to Black Christmas ('74) by doing a first-person view of the killer, then takes it even further with a third-person view afterward. The Halloween night atmosphere isn't quite done to absolute nostalgic perfection, but it's done better than any other movie I've seen. The camera angles, the reveals of the killer, the shadowed faces—all clichés to us now, but this was the movie where most of them originated. And it did all of this without cheese. This aria is where Halloween deserves its credit.
With that said, Halloween really isn't scary at all unless you grew up with it. Even in its time, it was a generic killer-in-the-house film, and, as I've read some reviews state, it wasn't scary even on its release night. As for gore, I'm not even sure I saw a single drop of blood in the entire film, and that got a little cheesy. The acting is also borderline cheesy at points, but nothing too distracting. What is distracting, however, is the lack of action for most of the screen time does get very boring. It is obvious Carpenter is trying to make up care for the characters by showing up drawn-out bits of their lives, but that doesn't work because they're all just cardboard, personality-less people. Halloween does get boring.
I never write reviews based on my respect of a film, but rather on my view of a film. Halloween deserves the credit it receives. I won't deny that. What I will deny is that this is the scariest movie of all time, or even one of them. What I will deny is that this is the be-all-end-all horror movie, because there are far more intelligent and original horror movies out there. What I will deny is that Halloween is the ascension to heaven that the brainwashed fanboys make it out to be.
3/10