Slasher Genesis or Homage to Hitchcock?

Rating: Null/10 (28 April 2003)

WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!
That's like telling someone that Rosebud is a sled. I think we all see it coming.
Oh yeah, about the film.
Budgets and shoestrings and making the most out of what you have with which to work aside, this is a good film. That's from a film appreciation perspective, mind you. For a film that is often described (with varying degrees of accuracy) as the genesis of the slasher genre, one should notice that conspicuous by its absence is blood. There is some blood, but not a lot. Rather, Carpenter seems to have used the classic techniques of Hitchcock. One of these techniques that seems to get far too much criticism from a jaded and ignorant modern audience is the use of the expected. Carpenter often puts the shock exactly where you expect it to be and this does nothing to diminish that shock. Rather it allows the tension to build and release like a bow string. Consider also the use of the false shock. Carpenter again uses a favorite technique of Hitch; the build up to the obvious shock only to be let off with humor or a minor shock. In so doing, the director creates a web of emotional connection akin to the conductor of a symphony.
And speaking of symphonies, how about the use of music. Legend has it that before Carpenter created the score for the film it was screened at the studio and was not scary. Yet with the assiduous use of the ubiquitous score, Carpenter cues the viewer as to what emotion to experience and when to do so.
Consider the motives of our villain. Done. None. None that we are allowed to know (unless you have read the novelization of the movie, which is a good work in its own right, but would have muddled the movie. However, elements of the novelization seem to have worked their way into later Halloween efforts) and that is a good thing. Fear of the unknown, the unknowable, is perhaps one of the most primal of all our human emotions. What we are not told we will fill in for ourselves and the only limit is our own imagination and experience. So we have a film that used shadow play and silence, music and emotion, and most importantly, perceived violence vice overt violence.
Again we see the skill of the Master when we think we see Jamie Lee Curtis's mother naked and stabbed seemingly endlessly in a shower when in fact we never see a blade enter flesh. Perception. The question left to be answered by the individual's psyche "What did I just see happen?" is the key to good horror in this particular sub-genre. The principles of Hitchcock are used to great effect in this work. Made in 1978 the film may seem a bit dated, but the basic concepts are not. A force seemingly without reason fulfilling its own agenda. Relentless. Merciless. Faceless. Striking from the shadows and the dark corners of the mind. The precise location Carpenter puts you with this film by forcing the viewer to fill in the intentional gaps. A good film all around and deserving of the term "classic".