A Modern Classic - Really

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2005)

Whilst always hesitant to label anything under 25 years old a classic, Halloween is now over 25 years of age, has withstood the test of time, spawned so many numerous sequels directly and indirectly, and made John Carpenter, Donald Pleasance, Debra Hill, and Jamie Lee Curtis rich and famous - not to mention brought Michael Myers into the collective consciousness of our culture. Series like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street owe their existence to Carpenter and this low-budget horror film centered around the most fitting of all holidays for murder - Halloween. We all the the story. We all know the great direction and musical score Carpenter contributed. We all know that Jamie Lee Curtis started out here on her way to becoming a competent actress(as well as lovely one). What some of us sometimes forget(especially those that label this film as trash and have never seen it) is how bloodless it really is. Carpenter gets far more out of what he doesn't show than what he does show. His knack for creating suspenseful, jump-out-of-your seat scenes is legendary in this film and his subsequent ones. Carpenter pieced this one together just right at just the right time. He picked good actors. Curtis is good as the heroine Laurie Strode. Credibility is brought by English stalwart Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis - a role turned down first by Peter Cushing and then by Christopher Lee. I am sure both would have been great(I particularly would have love to have seen Cushing in that role), but fortunately for all involved Pleasance was cast and makes the most out of the role. He is in many ways the backbone of the movie - a center of reality to be brought back to again and again. Anyway, I could...and should...gush on and on about the importance of this film to all horror after 1978. It is undoubtedly the most influential horror film of the last 30 years in terms of its long-lasting staying power, and its has been used as the model for many, many, many horror films since that year. Carpenter has since gone on to direct many fine features; some of them are even better films than Halloween. But if his legacy is to be remembered for one film, I can think of no finer film than Halloween to be remembered for. Halloween and John Carpenter are forever linked.