By Michael Lyons
Some movies are classics. Some are masterpieces. Some set a trend. Some create a whole new genre.
Director John Carpenter’s seminal horror opus “Halloween” is a movie that is all of these. The film celebrates its 40th anniversary this month and as if that wasn’t enough to make fans don their “William Shatner masks” in celebration, there’s also a new sequel debuting this week (also called “Halloween”) that’s set forty years after the events of the original film and brings star Jamie Lee Curtis back.
To commemorate both of these major events, its the perfect time to re-visit the original film and take a trip back to “The Night He Came Home!”
“Halloween” opens on the titular night in 1963, in the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois. During a unsettling and gripping point of view scene we see a disturbed child named Michael Myers, who stabs his sister to death with a kitchen knife.
We then flash forward to present day (or in this case, 1978), when Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance in a brilliant, haunted performance) heads to the sanitarium to escort Michael to court, only to find that the killer has escaped.
The next day, Halloween, Michael begins to stalk the town of Haddonfield again, focusing for some reason on teenager Laurie Strode (Curtis). What follows is the masked murderer going on a killing spree, taking out each of Laurie’s friends, while he tries to get to her, all while Dr. Loomis closes in on him.
With only two films to his credit at this point, Carpenter proved himself to be quite the movie maestro with “Halloween,” conducting the terror in the film in what can best be called Hitchcockian splendor.
Scenes in this film most definitely rank as some of the horror genres best that continue to generate chills and jump scares with each viewing: the scene where Loomis comes across patients escaping from the hospital; Michael standing next to a shrub one second and gone the next; a child hiding behind a curtain during an innocent game of hide and seek, gazing out a window to see Michael carrying the body of his latest victim and that shocker of an ending.
Additionally, the film definitely “feels like Halloween,” from its scenes of neighborhood trick-or-treaters to babysitters and children watching classic horror movies in a darkened living room.
Additionally, the character of Michael himself (played by actor Nick Castle) is a stoic, chilling presence, moving slowly through each scene wearing a generic jumpsuit and emotionless Halloween mask (it actually was a William Shatner mask that a crew member had come across). He’s like a human version of the “killing machine” shark from “Jaws” (1975), fiercely intent on his victims and, in turn, disturbing audiences for four decades.
As Michael’s prime victim, Jamie Lee Curtis solidified her place as what would become her title of “Scream Queen.” She would go on to star in other, similar films, but this is the role that made her a star and for which she is remembered and rightly so. Curtis brings empathy and vulnerability to Laurie’s early scenes as well as believable strength in the film’s conclusion.
Realeased on October 25, 1978, the success of “Halloween” woke Hollywood up to an untapped market. What followed was an endless parade of copycats from “Friday the 13th” (1980) to “Scream” (1996). All of them part of the “Slasher Film” genre that “Halloween” had created and none of them able to top the original.
And in the forty years that have followed “Halloween’s” debut, the film has rightly grown in appreciation, as more than just a hallmark of the season, but as a landmark in filmmaking.
Classic. Masterpiece. Trend setter. First of its genre. “Halloween” is all of these.
Sources:
IMDb
Wikipedia
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