A scary classic

Rating: 8/10 (1 November 2009)

I must say that this isn't the type film of film I watch very often but when it was on television on Halloween I just had to watch it; after all it is a classic of the genre. I wouldn't say I enjoyed the film but I was frightened by it and if a horror film scares the viewer it is doing its job. I was impressed that it managed to be scary without showing vast amounts of gore, in fact I don't recall seeing much blood at all.
The film starts off showing us events many years before when a young boy murders his older sister on the night of Halloween. We then move the the present where the boy, Michael Myers, is still incarcerated in a facility for the criminally insane. He is due to have a parole hearing but his doctor, played by Donald Pleasence, is determined that he must never be released. Just as the doctor arrives at the facility Myers escapes and heads back to his former home town. He goes to his old house were he sees Laurie Strode, played by a young Jamie Lee Curtis, as she drops of the key for her estate agent father. He then starts following her around and she occasionally glimpses him but as soon as she looks away he has vanished. On Halloween night when she is babysitting he comes after her and her friends.
There is not a huge death toll, in fact after the prologue we have to wait a long time till any one else is killed. This isn't boring though as there is a constant feeling that something bad could happen at any moment, it is this that makes the film so frightening. The creepiness is increased by not showing the face of the adult Myers for most of the film; we either see him from the neck down or wearing a creepy Halloween mask.
The scariness is heightened by the use of creepy music and camera work that gives is Myers's view in several scenes, this shaky-cam work was done years before it became de rigour in just about every film. While the minor parts are fairly forgettable Jamie Lee Curtis does a decent job and screams well and Donald Pleasence is great as the doctor.