Horror, suspense, chase, violence and a now iconic villain; it has to be Halloween.

Rating: 8/10 (5 November 2007)

Two people are sitting in a room at a table with a bomb underneath it: it explodes  that is action. Two people sit in a room at a table with a bomb underneath it: it doesn't explode  that is suspense. Wise words from, I believe, Alfred Hitchcock who was a master at suspense and really moved the horror genre on as a whole from those pre-1960s monster movies that Hollywood churned out to a hungry, teenage drive-in audience. A couple of decades later and John Carpenter is using the same idea: there is a young female teenager alone in a house with a knife wielding maniac outside: he runs in a stabs her  that is horror. The girl is inside and the knife wielding maniac is watching her through the window: that is suspense.
That is the essence of Halloween, John Carpenter's 1978 fright filled horror film that absolutely drowns in suspense in a fantastic sort of a way. It's an easy thing to do, I suppose, to just get a load of horny teenagers on screen and have them picked off one by one: no brains, no suspense, no script and no fun from a theoretical point of view. Alas, modern horrors fall foul of this trap with recent efforts Freddy vs. Jason and from what I've heard; Jason X being two of many culprits. Halloween is a much more sophisticated horror in fact it rivals The Shining for the most suspense filled, un-nerving horror film of all time in my opinion at least. But where Kubrick had money, a location that was uncanny in its symmetry and eeriness and a real license to unleash the supernatural in his film; Halloween takes everything a level lower and uses camera work, setting and dialogue to build up its scares.
The first hour of Halloween is basically one long build up of 'is he, isn't he' (going to strike) and 'is she, isn't she' (going to die). The actual opening of Halloween is probably the best use of a long take in any film I've ever seen; funny how another Kubrick film pops into mind in the form of A Clockwork Orange but that was more one long shot than one long take since the camera was static as it zooms out. Halloween gets its priorities right: Michael Myers is talked about by Dr. Loomis (Pleasence), his psychiatrist for 15 years, in a way that makes him seem unnatural  Michael is off screen as Loomis goes on and on about how dangerous and insane he his creating a dangerous persona of a character who is miles and miles away from said actions. The certain events that follow such as the grave digging and the stealing of knifes from a general shop also creates a foreboding atmosphere centring on Myers without him even being there.
It's also worth saying that Laurie Strode (Lee Curtis) is a girl that doesn't seem to 'fit in' with the other girls: when they're having sex, she's babysitting; when they smoke they smoke properly but when Laurie does so, she chokes and just doesn't seem as outgoing as the rest of them in general  needless to say those that do conform to society meet grizzly ends: a horror genre convention we all know of by now. Halloween gets is characters and its delivery bang on but it also plays with its audience. There are enough phones ringing, foreboding compositions with Myers looming in the background and character going from one place to another and then back again to create suspense and some genuine jumps; this twinned with the fact the lights always seem to be off makes for great viewing.
Halloween is a film that is clever and taught but it suffers very sparsely from perhaps its look and the dated way it goes about having its character react. Loomis and his accomplice seem fine about getting out of a car despite the fact mental patients have escaped and are loose; Laurie also fails to finish off Myers on one occasion towards the end when she had a chance to. Laurie also decides that hiding in a wardrobe might be a good idea when Myers still looms and yet refuses to break a window in order to escape until he is literally feet away from her. Whatever Halloween has wrong with it can actually be covered up to look like more suspense and at least it doesn't become a mere gore-fest. The final shots of various locations after Myers has seemingly been beaten could be point of view shots of Myers as he does his thing; could be revisits to the locations of murder or maybe something else entirely. My guess is the point of view option since you hear him breathing. If you're looking for a suspenseful, violent at times film that delivers on jumps, chase and enough phallic stabbing to get any psychoanalytic fan in a flush then you will want to give Halloween a go.