Musical

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2002)

I either forgot, or never appreciated how darn good this is.
The engineering of the thing is splendid. It was the first of a genre, so there was nothing to build on. It uses three building blocks.
— It uses the notion of an evil, unstoppable force. It even features the three iconic films that set the precedent for this: The Thing, Forbidden Planet and Psycho.
— It is basically wrapped around the fear of being watched. Sure there are violent murders, but the tension is built from what is seen and unseen, the notion that Myers watches and extensive POV shots. Especially the one at the beginning. This is what I call narrative folding where the watchers of the film and a character are merged.
— Carpenter wrote and directed it. That you know. But you may not appreciate that he wrote the music. It is fantastic. He has said that he heard the movie before he imagined it in visuals. It shows. The score is not quite programmatic — that it annotates the screen. Instead it anticipates what is coming. The sense of foreboding is in the music, and gosh it is good.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.