Film Review: Halloween (1978)

(source:tmdb.org)

Very long time ago Radiotelevision Belgrade, then still part of Yugoslav television network JRT, aired the cycle of five horror films. Of those five, four were, directly or indirectly, based on the classic works of horror literature and featured iconic characters of Dracula, Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The television editors, however, saved the best for last. The fifth film, the only one to feature original monster, was Hallowen, 1978 film directed by John Carpenter, known as one of the most successful and influential films of all times and nowadays recognised as one of the best films in the history of genre.

The film begins with a prologue set on Halloween night 1963 in the small town of Haddonsville, Illinois and shows how a 15-year old babysitter Judith Meyers gets stabbed to death by a masked killer later revealed to be her 6-year old brother Michael. The child killer spends next fifteen years in psychiatric institution until escaping shortly before Halloween night 1978. Dr. Loomis (played by Donald Pleasance), psychiatrist who was unsuccessfully treating Malcolm, is convinced that his patient will return to his home town in order to kill again. While he tries to track him down and stop three female high school students in Haddonsville – Annie Brackett (played by Nancy Kyes), Lynda Van der Klok (played by P. J. Soles) and Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) – are preparing to spend next Halloween night unaware that they are stalked by determined masked killer.

Even those viewers who care little about horror genre are going to be impressed by the film making skills employed by John Carpenter in Halloween. Faced with low budget, he has shown great ingenuity, but also great discipline and care about every dollar spent. Film is tightly edited into 90 minutes, and almost every shot and every scene is painstakingly shot, staged and directed. Carpenter makes another important contribution with his memorable musical score which, despite being monotonous on its own, adds a lot to the atmosphere of dread. Despite Halloween being clear example of “slasher film”, the body count is limited and the violence less explicit in comparison with later films of the same subgenre. Carpenter has obviously taken lessons from Hitchock and he creates feeling of fear and unease through suspense rather than shocks; there are many examples for that in scenes when Meyers’ victims share the same shot with Meyers unaware of his presence.

The acting is good, although not perfect. The best member of the cast is Donald Pleasance, character actor who obviously enjoyed the role so different from villains he had played before. He does much better job than Jamie Lee Curtis who is, nevertheless, good enough in her role of modest, naive girl who at the end convincingly transforms into formidable female warrior able to, at least when it matters the most, give Meyers run for his money. Curtis has in many ways one of the persons most responsible for creating a popular genre trope of Final Girl, as well as genre stereotypes in which young characters involving in sex, drugs and similar “problematic” behaviour get punished by becoming killers’ victims. Halloween, however, benefits most from the character of Meyers despite that character being the most mysterious; he doesn’t say a word, for the most part wears iconic mask, his feelings and the motives remain the mystery while he goes on his merciless campaign of murder. It is his irrationality which makes him frighteningly evil, and the irrationality in general is source of fear, especially at the end when his character doesn’t succumb to injuries that would have killed and stopped any normal human, thus becoming supernatural and near mythical figure.

All those qualities were recognised by influential critics, most notably Roger Ebert, who otherwise had little love for slasher films. Even more importantly, Halloween was accepted as something new and refreshing by audience, helping Carpenter to have its first major commercial hit and become one of the most important authors of 1980s Hollywood. Sadly, its success spawned many uninspired imitations that would later be mercilessly parodied by Wes Craven’s Scream, and, even more sadly, numerous sequels and remakes of which nothing came close to the quality of the original.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)