Halloween (1978)

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It is hard to believe a film this many decades old can still inspire such scares, as well as so many hot-and-cold remakes and sequels.

Jamie Lee Curtis is Laurie Strode, a bookish high school student whose biggest plans for Halloween night is babysitting little Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews). Laurie's friends, Annie (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda (P.J. Soles), are looking forward to Halloween night for a little boyfriend time. Nothing out of the ordinary is expected on this Halloween night in 1978 in Haddonfield, Illinois. Fifteen years earlier, another bland Halloween night was disrupted when a child named Michael Myers murdered his sister shortly after she had sex with her boyfriend. Michael was sent to a mental institution where he was cared for by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence). As Loomis says, he spent eight years trying to reach Myers, then another seven years trying to keep him locked up. He refers to the young man as "it" and "the evil." The Evil escapes and heads back to Haddonville, to complete some sort of internal killing plan.

One of my top ten favorite films of all time, "Halloween" is an incredible piece of suspense. Carpenter keeps his direction fresh, giving us scenes never seen in horror before. Mad at Laurie for assuming Myers is dead once too often? Keep in mind "Halloween" started the indestructible slasher genre. This film invented many plot points and cliches that we now take for granted as a film audience. The cast is great. Curtis became a major star after this, but never turned her nose up at her genre roots. Pleasence made some awful movies over the years, but this was one of his best roles. Kyes' Annie is not the typical heroine's best friend, some of her comments to Laurie hurt, and her deadpan reactions are excellent. Lynda is funny as played by Soles, using the word "totally" a dozen times too often but not to the point of annoyance. Cyphers is good as the sheriff, not quite believing Dr. Loomis.

The strongest points of the film are its soundtrack and lack of gore. Carpenter, whether it was budgetary or part of his script written with Debra Hill, keeps the gore very low. The violence is shocking, but innards and blood are not splattered everywhere, making for some very scary scenes. This lesson was completely lost on both the makers of this film's clone series (Friday the 13th, etc.) and some sequel creators. Ironically, the gore in Carpenter's "The Thing" enhanced the horror, making it the scariest film of the 1980's. Carpenter also scored the picture, eschewing a soundtrack of songs "inspired" by the film and using simple piano pieces that crank the squirm factor way up. His theme is still used in the sequels, and was sometimes the best part of a few of them.

If you have not seen this in a while, or are looking to relive the original magic of the series, and Carpenter's glory days, then by all means find this again. "Halloween" is seriously good, excellently paced, and still frightens so many years later. I highly recommend it. Followed by tons of sequels, remakes, reimaginings, and so on.

Stats:
(1978) 91 min. (* * * * *) out of five stars
-Directed by John Carpenter
-Screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
-Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Nancy Kyes, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Brian Andrews, John Michael Graham, Nancy Stephens, Arthur Malet, Robert Phalen, Tony Moran, Nick Castle
(R)