The original SCARY MOVIE!

Rating: 10/10 (22 August 2001)

*SPOILERS*
Surely, the true measure of a well-made horror movie is how scary it is. If so, then 'Halloween' is still top of the pile. Admittedly there have been movies before, and since, that meet this criteria, but none have sustained that fear throughout, and even after the experience is over.
The key that lifts Carpenter's film above most films in the genre is it's nonchalant approach to the killings. Haddonfield is a hub of normality, white picket fences, and frankly dull lives. Nothing happens here, but the urban legend of the killer Michael Myers still does the rounds with local kids. He has, literally, become the bogeyman, living on in ghost stories, whose name has been whispered for almost twenty years, almost as a bad joke amongst the children who are too young to remember the truth. When Myers returns to his community the bogeyman becomes a reality. The suspense is unbearable in parts, with Carpenter using every inch of the screen. What you can't see is infinitely more terrifying than what you can, and what you don't understand is more disturbing. Myers' motives are never revealed, he just does what he does, he has no reason, and cannot be reasoned with. Myers' boiler suit and blank mask are perfect for this 'faceless' killer. He moves almost silently, even gracefully, like an automaton, yet is unbelievably threatening. Carpenter's score is the perfect accompaniment for 'the Shape' (after previews without the music Carpenter was told it simply 'wasn't scary '). The whole mood of the piece is changed and led by this simple, but effective music.
What, on paper, must've looked like an unoriginal and unimaginative plot, becomes, in Carpenter's hands a groundbreaking and genre-defining moment. Incorrectly regarded as the 'father' of many things (the stalk and slash sub-genre, the camera-as-killer motif, the unkillable killer, the 'false' ending etc) it still deserves to be THE reference point for all of these, as it combines them all more effectively than any other movie before or since. The tension never lets up, and the experience of this movie should stay with you for a long time.
Not only damn scary, but good fun for film fans to spot the in-jokes!
DO NOT watch any 'Friday The 13ths', 'Screams', or, indeed, any other 'Halloweens' until you have been through this one!