The essence of the modern horror movie

Rating: 8/10 (29 February 2008)

I remember my brother renting it just after it came out on video. I still carry vivid memories, both of the flick itself and of how it affected me. It was then (and is still to this day) one of the most unsettling, frightening movies I've ever watched. I got so overwrought that I got sick to my stomach and had to leave the room for a walk in the fresh air. I came back just before the end. For years I had dreams of sitting with my back against the wall holding a blowtorch or a gun on my best friend and saying "Now we wait a while". I get the creeping willies just writing about it even after all this time. Gazooks what a film.
When it came out, I heard rumblings of "What has Carpenter done to this classic!?!?!" Well, what Carpenter did to this classic was make it into the living breathing definition of the term "horror movie". It's not that it was so gory or unpleasant to look at (tho it was that), but it imparts that gut-wrenching feeling of abject inescapable spirit-crushing doom that you feel by the end of the flick - really rivets it to your soul and then leaves you sitting there on the ice floe too freaked-out to blink.
I've heard that one of the marks of a truly good movie is how long it stays with you; by that measure, this is an all-time cinematic success.