The Night MooCow Myers Came Home!! :

Rating: 8/10 (14 November 1999)

Landmark, ground-breaking horror film from John Carpenter that created a whole new genre in horror: the Omnipotent Slasher flick. Every film from the "Friday the 13th" series, the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, up to and including the bland "Screams" series, owes everything to this pioneering chiller. Hitchcock's "Psycho" may have opened the door for psychological horror films, but "Halloween" blew the doors wide open. A young murderer who grows up in an institution for the criminally insane escapes & makes his way back to his home town in time for Halloween, where he gives the frollicking, nubile teens what-for. Michael Myers is a witches' brew of urban myth, homicidal psychosis, and obsessive, raging revenge, all in one monsterous metaphore unlike anything previous in Horror film history. Some of Horror's finest scenes in come from this terrifying chiller. The opening sequence, with the "thru-the-mask" 1st-person view of little Michael's first killing, is a stroke of macabre genius, showing that under the right circumstances, there is a little Michael Myers in all of us. The final scene is a chilling shock that jolted screams from every theater in the country - never before had a killer/monster walked away from his death scene. We are appalled by the ambiguous ending because it confirms once and for all that we are dealing with something beyond our scope of understanding. Michael Myers has become a universal fear come to life, the boogyman, a force of nature that mankind cannot even cowprehend, much less kill. At least "Psycho"'s Norman Bates, for all his psychotic foibles, is human. Somewhere, somehow, Michael Myers lost his humanity, and became the very living symbol of death. How do you fight that? You can't, and that's what "Halloween" is all about. Every aspect of this film is superior, from the direction to the acting to the legendary creepy film score. "Halloween" casts a frightening shadow over every horror film made since 1978, and it's influences on modern film cannot easily be cownted. This is essential viewing for all horror fans, and the MooCow says you better get yer hooves on a copy, before Michael Myers comes for a visit... ;=8)