How many holidays have films named after them? There are plenty of Christmas films, but I am not aware of any entitled "Christmas". There is a movie about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, but that doesn't exactly qualify as a Valentines Day film (and from the reviews, this year's romantic comedy "Valentine's Day" doesn't qualify as an actual film). Of course there is "Groundhog's Day", a good movie starring Bill Murray, but the problem here is that Ground Hog's Day fails the pass the "real holiday" test. Halloween though, is lucky enough to have a film named after it, so it seemed rather appropriate as a horror film newbie to start the Halloween season off with John Carpenter's 1978 film "Halloween".
"Halloween" is a classic slasher film, and I believe it was one of the first in its genre (if not the first). It tells the typical story of any slasher film (a bunch of people slowly get killed by some crazed killer) but the strength of this film is not in the kills, but the anticipation of the kills. If you checked out my column on the five best Halloween movies, you know that I am an avid fan of Carpenter's 1982 film "The Thing" (a remake of an old Howard Hawks film which makes a cameo in "Halloween"), and Carpenter's talents in that movie are also evident in "Halloween". The movie starts with a creative first-person perspective of the unknown killer who stalks and stabs a topless teenage girl. The killer is revealed to be none other than the girl's six year old boy, the purely evil Mike Myers. The first-person perspective shot has been parodied a lot, which makes it come across as a bit hokey now, but would have been pretty cool at the time.
The film then fast forwards fifteen years, to Halloween night 1978. Mike Myers has managed to brake out of the loony bin, as his doctor searches madly for him, telling anyone he runs into how purely evil his escaped patient is. The doctor does his best to prevent the inevitable murders, although for some reason he doesn't want to alert the town of Myers' presence because: "Everyone will be looking for him in every house and street corner" (isn't that a good thing?), but the killer quickly sets his sight on three high-school girls who are in for one hell of a night of baby-sitting.
I won't go into anymore details, but from there are on I think you can guess how things shake down. And that is probably the biggest problem with "Halloween", the slasher genre is so predictable, that it takes some of the excitement out of the film. It becomes a waiting game as you prepare yourself for the inevitable deaths of the peripheral characters. At the time, it probably wasn't so predictable, but the slasher genre is one of the most parodied genres, which softens the bite of this film. The dialogue of the doctor character feels out of place too. It seemed like it belonged in a horror B-movie from the 1950's, and there are a few allusions to these type of films, so maybe the dialogue was done this way on purpose as a conscious tip of the hat to films that came before, but it's not clear that this is the intention.
The best part of the film though is the score. The score was done by John Carpenter himself, and he perfectly puts together a techno-sounding mix that builds in anticipation just as the film does. I can not think of better music in any horror film, as Carpenter definitely earns an A+ in this department of the film.
"Halloween" is a fun movie, and its clear why it earned its place in horror movie history. Time and parodies have weakened the film some, as there was never really a moment that I was really scared, but its a well crafted film. If your into horror films and you want to check out a little of the genre's history, you should absolutely see this movie.
Rating: 7/10
Christopher Lominac
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