The best slasher ever?

Rating: 9/10 (7 April 2019)

For my money, "Halloween" is the best slasher ever. I've seen hundreds of them - the sub-genre went into overdrive in the decade after - and this is the best.
It's funny how with horror, less is often more. The original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", itself a classic, had a budget similar in size to this, and it too was far more effective than any of the rubbish that followed it. It's as though money creates distance, which is anathema for horror. You have to feel like you're in there with the characters, and Halloween pulls that off perhaps better than any other horror movie I've seen.
It's also genuinely frightening.
Something else this movie gets right is that the heroine is believable and relatable. It's not the usual gaggle of obnoxious late-twenties "teenagers" whom you can't wait to see offed. Jamie Lee Curtis just had that charismatic quality, and her character is resourceful in a way that doesn't seem forced.
If the movie has a flaw, it's that the soundtrack (though iconic) can be overwhelming at times, and not necessarily in a good way.
This is still basically the blueprint for filmmakers to follow when they make a slasher, but somehow, they rarely, if ever, get it right.