Stunningly Directed, Ultra-Atmospheric, Super-Suspenseful, Spine-Tingling, Psycho Killer Horror Movie

Rating: 9/10 (4 November 2006)

On Halloween night in 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers kills his sister with a carving knife and is subsequently locked up in a mental hospital. Fifteen years later to the day, he breaks out and returns to his hometown ...
John Carpenter and Debra Hill's Halloween is one of the greatest films ever made, and a peerless example of how to make a terrific movie from virtually nothing. It was made by a bunch of talented, enthusiastic kids who had very little money or equipment, hardly any experience, no famous actors, an absurdly thin script and an extremely tight schedule. Despite all this they made a modern classic which looks sensational, is deliriously scary and exhilarating and, despite being ripped-off by a thousand other movies since, still holds up nearly thirty years later as a fabulous fright flick. The simplicity of the film is its key strength; the hoary old tale of the escaped lunatic on the loose gives it a delicious creepiness and there are no complex explanations or subplots to drag it down - Michael is just the boogeyman, coming to get you ! Many critics have read all sorts of sociological meanings into it (Laurie doesn't get killed because she's chaste ! Michael is a physical manifestation of the town's social repression !) but all of that is hokum. It's High Noon in Horrorland - he's coming, he's coming, here he is !! What sends it into overdrive is the cinematic treatment, which is a textbook in visual and aural craftsmanship, the generation of suspense and atmosphere. The crucial dynamic in it is the forty minutes following Michael's escape at the end of the first reel to Annie's death - during this period, nothing really happens, and yet everything happens. On paper, some girls walk around their hometown, a guy follows them a bit and a worried psychiatrist meets the local sheriff; that should only be worth about five minutes of screen time, but what is really happening is terrific character development (Hill's girl-talk dialogue is great), physical mapping of the houses and spaces that become so crucial later, and a fabulous slow-burning build of tension. The almost unbearable suspense of the last half-hour is the payoff, and what a payoff - if you aren't hiding behind the couch or clutching your girlfriend then it's time you started ! The performances are wonderful - Curtis is the perfect smart girl next door, Pleasence is a masterful sinister narrator, building Michael into some hideous fiend in our minds before he's even done anything, Loomis and Soles are both adorable and Castle's creepy balletic movements as Michael / The Shape make him the definitive Psycho With A Knife. The young (he was thirty) Carpenter's direction is simply faultless, and his eerie 5/4-time piano music is one of the most memorable and effective film scores of all time. What more is there to say about this stunning movie ? If you're a horror fan, see it; if you're not, see it anyway and become one. Halloween became so popular (though not immediately) that it wins my vote for most influential picture of all time - aside from all the imitators and direct references to it (such as Wes Craven's Scream), many of the style elements have permeated through multiple layers of cinema. In virtually all Hollywood action movies for years it's been a cliché that the villain has to die three times (you think he's dead but no, he's up again), despite the fact that this never makes sense. They're all just copying Halloween (where it does make sense, because he's the boogeyman and you can't kill the boogeyman). If you're a movie geek, this film is bursting with trivia - the Cyphers character is named after the screenwriter of The Big Sleep, Haddonfield was the name of the town Hill grew up in, Carpenter does the voice of Loomis' unseen boyfriend, the killer was named after the British distributor of Assault On Precinct 13, the kids watch the 1951 version of The Thing on TV (which Carpenter later remade), and so on. I've never seen a movie that I would rate a perfect ten out of ten, but for sheer style, thrilling entertainment value and passionate commitment to film-making, this low-budget masterpiece is pretty damn close. I love movies, and I love Halloween.