Much Better Film the Genre it Inspired

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2008)

John Carpenter's Halloween's reputation, unfortunately, will always be somewhat inspired by the less than stellar imitations it inspired, including most of its own sequels.
This is the perfect horror film, with the tension building with every moment of every scene, taking only a brief respite about halfway through for the only moment of comic relief. The plot is simple: escaped madman from the lunatic asylum stalks teenage babysitters, with eerie white masked donned. Only the madmen's psychiatrist truly understands how dangerous and evil He is, and it's a race against time to find him before this force of evil slaughters young innocents.
The main point of the film is simply to scare the audience. In that sense, I believe this may be the most effective movie of all time. Yet, it is not a movie about parading one cardboard character after another across the screen and slaughtering them. First, there is the stalking, which occurs while we get to know the characters. Then, at a time of his choosing, the madman strikes When he does, the audience jumps out of its seat. Actually, there are also several false alarms that also cause the audience to jump in anxiety.
Ratcheting up the level of fear is our lack of knowledge about the killer. We never really know him at all, simply that he committed a heinous act while only a boy. We never hear him speak a word, and only glimpse his face briefly at the very end of the film. In many ways, he is like a ghost gliding among the shadows. Later sequels would try to explain his motives, which made him less scary, in my opinion.
Besides a wonderful script and great directing, Halloween is blessed with a great soundtrack, including musical cues called 'stingers' that increase the level of fear in the audience. And of course, there is the acting performance of Jamie Lee Curtis, in her very first film, that truly makes this a classic.
The unfortunate thing about Halloween is that made many in Hollywood realize they could make an easy buck by following the slasher formula. Just make a film about a madman butchering a bunch of promiscuous teenagers. Some truly awful films were created, somewhat tarnishing the legacy of Halloween. However, the reputation of the director John Carpenter remains intact: he would make other horror films, but never another slasher.