With the upcoming release of Halloween Kills (2021), I thought this would be the perfect time to revisit one of the most influential slasher series of all time. With this I will be aiming to do reviews of each film in the series in the run up to Michael Myers return on October 15th.
I have seen John Carpenter's original Halloween (1978) countless times, and it still has lost none of its power to shock and entertain. With the amount that's been written on the film there isn’t much left to say that hasn’t already been said. But yet I will still ramble on.
The film opens on Halloween night some years ago where a shadowy figure stalks a couple through a house in Haddonfield, Illinois. We watch as a male and female walk up the stairs to do, as Carpenter calls it “the dirty deed”.
Unfortunately our young male clearly suffers from premature ejaculation as he's barely up the stairs before he's walking back down them two minutes later. Strangely he doesn’t seem to down about it, and his shortcomings in the bed department may be a blessing in disguise, for he is only out the door a few seconds until our mystery predator is lurking up the stairs towards the female's bedroom with a really sharp knife.
We see all this develop through our stalkers POV, with him picking up a mask to cover his identity as he walks into the female's room. Clearly his mask doesn’t do the rick as the first words out her mouth are “Michael”, so sorry mate your mask done bugger all there as she still knows it's you. Perhaps this is why he decides to stab her multiple times. In for a penny in for a pound and all that.
Our “Michael” then proceeds to walk out the house only for his parents to be waiting on him outside. As they remove his mask it is revealed to the audience's shock horror that our killer is a little bastard, I mean a six year old boy. By this point I will be surprising nobody with this reveal, but apologies for the 0.01% that hasn’t seen Halloween for not stating “Spoilers”.
15 years later we are introduced to Dr Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) who is travelling to a sanatorium to escort his patient Michael Myers to court for a hearing. We quickly find out this is the same Michael we were introduced to as a child. Loomis is hoping that the hearing will find that Michael should never be released.
So surprise surprise, but it turns out Michael’s last 15 years have done nothing to mellow his mood, with him deciding to give the court hearing a miss and escape. It also turns out that he must have been taking driving lessons in the sanatorium because he is able to make his getaway in a stolen car with relative ease. In fact, Loomis even mentions later to his colleague the fine driver Michael seemed to be. Well, maybe not exactly like that but words to that effect.
With Loomis being the foremost expert on Michael Myers, he quickly realises that Michael will be journeying back to Haddonfield. Honestly, didn’t anyone that worked in that Sanatorium think it a bit strange that Dr Loomis only had the one patient for all that time. Even throughout the sequels, you never see him with another patient.
Not to mention that he is always pulling a gun out of his pocket. Mind you, perhaps it's for the best that he only stuck with a single patient, because it would seem the Loomis method of psychiatry is that if you can't cure them, just shoot the fucker.
Still, you can't say Loomis isn’t dedicated. After Michael’s Breakout he follows him to Haddonfield, warning local Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) of the danger that is to befall this quiet town. The Sheriff is a bit sceptical but is still willing to give the good Dr the benefit of the doubt.
During this time, Michael has set his sights on young babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) after he spots her dropping keys off at his old house. He spends the rest of the day stalking her. with Laurie even spotting him a couple of times. Her friends dismiss her concerns. This comes back to bite her friends in the arse when Michael decides to crash their party and slaughter them one by one.
The third act mostly boils down to Laurie having to face off against Michael alone, but he isn’t one to go down without a fight.
Halloween is one of the most famous horror films ever made, having not only spawned its own series of sequels and remakes but inspiring inspired countless imitations, with the likes of Friday the 13th (1980) and My Bloody Valentine (1981) being some of the more popular copies, sorry, inspirations.
While John Carpenter did gain some critical acclaim for his earlier Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), it wasn’t until Halloween that his name was put on the map. Still, this isn't to say that Halloween was a runaway success. Initially getting some poor reviews, it took quite a while for the film to gain some traction before critics began to realise the quality horror that it really was, with some even going on to compare Carpenter's work to the legendary Alfred Hitchcock.
With the emergence of the slasher genre, Halloween has been unfortunately lumped in alongside what are seemingly similar features. While Halloween has many of the tropes famous of the genre such as promiscuous females, the lone (virginial) heroine and the indestructible killer, these weren’t cliché at the time Halloween was produced. It was only later with its many copycats did these elements become cliché.
Unlike many of its copycats, Halloween has an air of professionalism that eludes the likes of New Year’s Evil (1980) or The Burning (1981). Carpenter expertly ratchets up the tension as the film progresses, slowly building to the scares, with the majority of them coming in the final third.
Adding to the overall feel and tone of the film is Carpenter’s choice to use a Steadicam for the POV scenes, which seemed quite unique at the time, even if Bob Clark had employed something similar with his earlier horror Black Christmas (1974). Now, upon viewing Black Christmas it is obvious that it was no doubt an influence on Halloween, but that isn’t to say that it is a direct copy. Both films are their own thing even if they do have some similarities, with Halloween being the much superior film.
One main influence for Carpenter’s use of the Steadicam was apparently based on scenes Carpenter saw in John Boorman’s The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), where Boorman was one of the first directors to employ use of a Steadicam. So while Exorcist II proved to be a complete travesty it still deserves thanks for inspiring Carpenter.
However, just using the Steadicam isn’t enough to generate success. It helps that Carpenter had ace director of photography Dean Cundey to shoot the action, with him giving the whole film a professional sheen that betrays the film's miniscule $300,000 budget.
It was advantageous that he and co-writer/producer Debra Hill were able to fill their film with memorable actors. Surprisingly Jamie Lee Curtis wasn’t Carpenters original choice for the Laurie Strode role, with him being persuaded by Hill to cast her. Not only could Hill see her acting potential but recognised the added publicity she would bring to the production being the daughter of Janet Leigh, who at that time was most famous for her role in Psycho (1960).
Of course, Curtis was so good here that she would go on to become known as a “scream queen”, showing up in a number of similar features like Prom Night (1980) and Terror Train (1980) before going on to more mainstream features like Trading Places (1983).
Out of the main cast, the most famous name in the film would be Donald Pleasance, who gives an extremely jittery performance as the slightly manic Dr Loomis. Seriously, this guy is a fuckin basket case and whoever thought it was a good idea to give him a gun needs their head examined. Still, Pleasance is wonderful in the role, with him going on to reprise the role a further 4 times. Only Pleasance could make dialogue like “the evil has gone” when talking about Michael not sound ridiculous.
It is strange to think too that Pleasance could have lost out on the role with the original choice being Hammer stalwart Peter Cushing. When he turned it down Hill and Carpenter looked at another Hammer star, Dracula himself, Christopher Lee. Unsurprisingly Lee also turned it down, although this was clearly more money orientated than anything to do with content as he had already starred in some questionable productions during this time.
According to Hill and Carpenter, the two split the writing duties by Hill focusing on the female dialogue and Carpenter coming up with the speeches for Dr Loomis. Hill drew on her own background as a babysitter which is probably why the characters seem more natural here than some later slashers.
There's the typical virginal character embodied by Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie, with her being the more quiet and repressed of the group, with her friends played by Nancy Loomis and P.J. Soles being the more loud and sexed up members. Of course we know they will end up victims of Michael, but at least they aren’t merely cyphers just to get to the next kill.
All of the characters act like actual teenagers, even if they don’t exactly look it. There is no way anyone would mistake P.J. Soles (who was 28 at the time) as a schoolgirl, but I'm willing to give the film a pass. The same people who would complain are the types that didn’t seem to give a damn when 33 year old Stockard Channing played a high schooler in Grease (1978), and that film was deemed a classic (Christ knows why).
Much has been made about slasher movies usual trope of the final girl, with her only surviving because she doesn’t give in to the temptations of the flesh (as some may say), but here it's more down to the fact that unlike her friends, Laurie isn’t preoccupied by trying to get her hole.
When it came to filling in the backstory for our esteemed bogeyman, Carpenter looked at American folklore as well as memories from his youth where he visited a psychiatric hospital whilst attending college. During this visit he came across a mentally ill boy who possessed what Carpenter claimed as “a blank, schizophrenic stare”. His memory of this influenced the speech Loomis gives in the film where he speaks about Michael and how truly evil he is.
Many may think of Michael Myers as just a man in a William Shatner mask (something that was done to cut costs but has since become iconic), but he is much more than that. It does really make a difference in who is behind that mask, as evidenced in some of the later entries where the subtle nuances of character seem to be missing.
For the first entry in the series, Myers or alternatively the shape as he has come to be known was played by an old University friend of Carpenter’s, Nick Castle. He does a lot with a little, with slight tilts of the head and body giving Myers an almost alien vibe. Castle would himself go onto become a director helming such cult classics as The Last Starfighter (1984) and Dennis the Menace (1993). The less said about his Ellen DeGeneres vehicle Mr Wrong (1996) the better.
As important as the cast are, we can’t speak about Halloween without mentioning the now famous musical score. Composed by Carpenter himself, the main theme has become one of the most recognisable theme tunes of all time and is synonymous with the franchise, with it featuring in every sequel bar the third.
Halloween would go on to become one of the most successful independent films of all time and would give John Carpenter, Debra Hill and Jamie Lee Curtis their first taste of success, with the three collaborating the following year on The Fog (1980), which to me is equal to Halloween.
However, these articles are about Halloween and its ensuing sequels/remakes, so if you want to read about the Fog you better look elsewhere.
To follow shortly is a look at the inferior but fun Halloween II (1981), where John Carpenter handed over the reigns to Rick Rosenthal, before taking them back to shoot his own scenes cause he thought he could do better.
Rating: 5/5
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