The Night William Shatner Came Home

Rating: 10/10 (23 August 2005)

"Halloween," the classic bogeyman thriller directed by John Carpenter, still has the ability to play on the fears of babysitters and children 20 plus years since it was first released.
When the film starts, we see a young girl being stabbed to death by someone in a clown mask just after she had sex with her boyfriend on Halloween night. We soon learn that the murderer was 6 year old Michael Myers, her own brother. Years later, Michael escapes from the mental institution where he was being held and heads back to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois. Wearing a mask (Actually a altered William Shatner mask), Michael is on a new mission to kill and terrorize his hometown. On his maniacal radar is Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who is babysitting 2 kids that night while her 2 friends (Nancy Loomis and P.J. Soles)have dates. Her two friends end up dead, and Michael is on the hunt for Laurie. But Michael's doctor, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence)is on the hunt for him, knowing Michael for the monster he really is.
Everything in this film works. All the performances are spectacular, especially Curtis, whose portrayal of Laurie got the crown of "Scream Queen", and Pleasence as Loomis (A play on a character in "Psycho," which starred her mother, Janet Leigh). But it is Michael in the William Shatner mask that makes the deeper impression.