Chilling and atmospheric horror film...one of the last 'good' slashers

Rating: 9/10 (1 October 2007)

Halloween is a genuinely scary, influential, stylistic and tasteful, extremely well-crafted slasher/horror classic from young film director John Carpenter (who had previously directed two cult cinema classics, the sci-fi film Dark Star (1974) and the riveting crime genre film Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) - a modern-day film often compared to Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (1959)). Throughout the manipulative, morbid film, the suspenseful stalkings and killings are seen from the subjective vantage point of the killer's or 'peeping tom's' eyes, a few times while looking through a mask. (The mask was a costume store William Shatner-like faceplate, turned inside out and painted white, and inspired by the B-grade campy witchcraft film The Devil's Rain (1975) - featuring John Travolta's debut performance.) Other scenes are viewed through the subjective POV eyes of the characters in danger, or accompanied by the heavy breathing of killer Michael Myers, referred to as the 'bogeyman' or "The Shape" in the credits. Almost every scene is filmed with a constantly-moving camera (the Steadicam variety) to make the audience feel disordered, totally insecure, unsettled and paranoid, believing that every ominous corner, shadow, noise, or space is potentially life-threatening or dangerous and that everyone will be a helpless victim of random violence. Often, nothing is revealed when something is expected, but sometimes the unexpected is shockingly viewed.
Most of Halloween is at all explicit, and surprisingly, contains little gore or graphic violence. It, instead, relies on pacing and suspense to keep our viewers on the edge. And it works. I'd like people to stop watching those pathetic slashers of today, made only for shock value, and see a genuinely scary horror film that has the skill to scare you witless.