An atmospheric slasher movie

Rating: 10/10 (19 October 2006)

A young boy viciously murders his sister and is sent to an insane asylum for it. Years later he breaks out and returns to the same neighborhood on Halloween where he begins to stalk three teenage girls. The doctor who supervised him in the institution is hot on his tail and determined to stop him.
It must have been around 1980 when "Friday the 13th" came out and slasher movies literally turned slasher. Big knives, lots of blood, and by now the genre is almost a parody of itself. Wes Craven's "Scream" literally turned the genre on it's head, by having the victims trying to survive by obeying the "laws" and trends in slasher flicks. This film came out in before the blood and guts craze and in watching it you can easily see that. Not that blood and guts aren't good in a horror film like this, but when they are at the expense of atmosphere, loads of gore never help.
John Carpenter has always been a horror director who heavily limits his carnage but focuses on creating unease and tension in the mood which is the real thing that scares you. Gore can only accentuate certain scenes and add some shock, but it is just icing on top of a cake. Here the empty streets, shadows, and that haunting theme make a for a terrific horror atmosphere. And it scary because it seems real. Nothing is excessively over done, the pacing is great - the film basically takes place over the course of one day, with flashbacks - and the ending is one of the best chillers out there. Too bad that all the sequels came out as this is the first and without any question the best in the series and one of the best "killer on the loose" movies ever made. 10/10
Rated R for horror violence