Slashers just don't get any better than this.

Rating: 10/10 (3 May 2007)

In 1978, director John Carpenter scared the bejeezuz out of audiences worldwide with possibly the finest slasher movie ever made: Halloween. On a very modest budget, he crafted a taut, terrifying and technically superb film that would change the face of horror movies forever.
With its simple premise (pyscho escapes from an asylum and butchers some teens during Halloween), excellent cinematography (courtesy of Dean Cundey), a brilliantly atmospheric synthesizer score (also by Carpenter) and an extremely talented cast of (mostly) relative unknowns, Halloween is THE perfect scary movie experience.
Having spent 15 years locked up in a mental institution (for killing his sister), Michael Myers breaks out and heads for sleepy Haddonfield, his home town. Hot on his trail is Dr. Sam Loomis (Pleasence), who is convinced that Myers is evil personified and must be stopped at all costs.
Only stopping to pick up a creepy looking mask and some knives, Myers proceeds to slaughter a group of teenagers, eventually targeting the virginal Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) who is spending her Halloween night babysitting for some neighbours.
After taking time to introduce viewers to characters that they can actually care about, Carpenter expertly builds the tension, carefully using light and shadow to maximum effect, until the brilliantly tense climax which sees Laurie discovering her dead friends, and then battling against the seemingly indestructible Myers.
Myers - incredibly creepy in his white mask (actually a modified William Shatner mask) - is made even more menacing through his calm, emotionless approach to killing; at no point does he rush after his victims, preferring to take his time, as if content in the knowledge that they can never actually escape him, no matter how hard they try.
The end of the film sees Loomis shooting Myers, who falls off a balcony onto a lawn; however, when Loomis looks for Myers, the body has gone.
Surprisingly bloodless (but still shocking), brilliantly directed, and impossible to forget, Halloween is an absolutely unmissable horror classic.