The perfect horror movie

Rating: 10/10 (15 June 2005)

John Carpenter's 1978 classic is quite possibly the most perfectly crafted horror movie of all time. An evolutionary eating machine, this movie glides along like the shark from Jaws. The plot is simple: An escaped mental patient who murdered his sister when he was six years old returns to his hometown and stalks a teen babysitter and her friends on Halloween night. Mayhem ensues.
The film relies on a sense of creeping dread to disturb and unnerve the audience in a for the first three quarters of the film before embarking on a sudden and thrilling descent into terror. The slow burn tempo of most of the film may seem a bit too wordy for todays MTV audience, accustomed to quick-cut editing and pyrotechnic special effects. But the contrast in flow is exactly what makes the sudden attacks of the killer so much more jarring.
On a specific level, the movie works because of John Carpenter's total mastery of suspense concepts. Alfred Hitchcock was obviously a big influence, as well as some Italian directors like Dario Argento I believe. Dean Cundey's cinematography is fantastic. His use of shadows, and ability to make you focus on one part of the screen while subliminal action takes place in another, is key to the movies effectiveness. And John Carpenter's immortal score goes almost without mentioning, it's influence is engrained in our very pop culture.
The film also works in large part because of it's vague nature. It takes place in any-town USA, basically. The protagonist is meant to be as vulnerable and normal a girl as you can imagine. Even the killer's mask was meant to look like dime-store cheap-o, that theoretically hundreds of people could be wearing; and especially on Halloween (which, incidentally used to be a holiday of some importance..). It's the kind of situation, that with the stars aligned just right, could conceivably happen.
The film taps into our inner fears about reality, fate, and our own mortality. It can hit a nerve with anyone, of any age, living anywhere in the world. And it is still unmatched in it's ability to give you that uneasy feeling of seemingly irrational fear, as you watch it all alone, on a dark and stormy night.