The secret is in the writing

Rating: 9/10 (18 October 2002)

Halloween is by far John Carpenter's best movie, and one of the most important horror movies ever made. It gave the cliche-ridden and almost extinct horror movie industry at the end of the seventies an adrenaline shot that has kept it alive for many years. Before Halloween, most horror movies had been about weird creatures in unlikely places. Dracula and Frankenstein were realistic only to the inhabitants of abandoned castles in England and travellers to Transylvania. Carpenter brought terror to the safe, familiar, boring American suburban environment.
The movie is an endless stream of classic scenes. The opening scene, of course, with it's innovative use of a hand-held camera, the breathing, the little clues (like the picking up of the mask) that force us to overcome our disbelief when the killer's identity is revealed. This is followed by a haunting scene in which a doctor and a nurse are driving to a mental institution to pick up a dangerous patient. Through the rain, we suddenly see patients wandering around like zombies in their long white gowns. We feel in our gut that something is terribly wrong. This feeling will stay with us throughout the film, even after we leave the theater. The best way to describe this feeling is... horror.
What makes Halloween the gem it is? The secret is in the writing. Carpenter has shown in many of his later films that he is a great director of horror flicks. He still knows how to set up a shock. Unfortunately, he has never again had a script like this.