This was not the re-invention of horror - but it's a good movie nonetheless.

Rating: 7/10 (5 October 2014)

I have never quite understood the hysteria which surrounds this film. Though it is a good film, and the soundtrack by director John Carpenter must rank as one of the most memorable ever composed, to suggest it is a movie which reinvented the horror genre rather begs the question as to exactly what people had been watching for horror prior to 1978.
The opening ten minutes are well-staged and the child's-eye view of a house at dusk and a girl changing upstairs is both eerie and full of anticipation. Fact is I can't fault the opening, and when Donald Pleasance enters the frame as Dr Loomis, desperately trying to find his most infamous patient before the madman strikes again then you sense you're in for something rather creepy.
But while the film certainly starts creepy, my suspension of disbelief started to evaporated as Michael Myers slowly took centre stage. For those who think this film is terrifying - and some reviewers really should look up the meaning of that word - I suggest you check out Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or the second half of Wolf Creek.
There are some genuine scares in Halloween, and Donald Pleasance is suitably sinister as Dr Loomis, insisting to the police of Haddonfield that they are looking for an incarnation of evil. The police don't seem all that convinced by his insistence, and neither was I in the end, but I did enjoy the film.
It reportedly cost less than $1million to produce, yet when re-released in the autumn of 1978 ended up raking in more than eighty million dollars. A staggering return, and perhaps one reason for its iconic standing today.