Until CLERKS became the highest percentage moneymaker of all time (later overtaken by BLAIR WITCH and just recently by MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING), this film was the most successful independent film of all-time. Horror genius John Carpenter leveraged the festival success of his first film ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 to drum up the $300,000 to make this film about babysitters killed by the boogieman. In her first film role, the movie made Jamie Lee Curtis a movie star and drew her a cult fan base of horror film fanatics.
From the point of view of the killer, the film begins with six-year-old Michael Myers murdering his older sister. At 23, Myers (Tony Moran, HALLOWEEN II) kills his way out of a psychiatric institution and heads back to his old neighborhood on Halloween night. When Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK) discovers Myers' escape, he fears a bloodbath, because Myers is the most evil man he has ever seen in his whole career. Laurie Strode (Curtis, TRADING PLACES) is the virginal good girl who is spending her Halloween evening babysitting the bashful and innocent Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews, THE GREAT SANTINI). Her friends Annie Brackett (Nancy Loomis, THE FOG) and Lynda van der Klok (P.J. Soles, CARRIE) seem more interested in boys and partying then anything else. Myers dons a blank white mask and begins stalking these young women.
The style of the film is slick and the scares are very eerie. Carpenter uses the widescreen to great benefit. Myers appears and disappears from the frame very subtly. The boogieman truly can be lurking around any corner. Making new scares very possible upon multiple viewings. By keeping the view wide, the film dares us to scan the entire image, fearful that we'll catch an unexpected glimpse of the inhuman killer. Carpenter may be making a slasher film, but it plays out with the tension of a Hitchcockian thriller. There is actually little gore in this film, because Carpenter knows that the unknown is far more frightening then the gross. Carpenter intensifies his great imagery with a classic horror score.
Curtis' Laurie is vulnerable, which makes her scenes even more frightening. Her and her friends are believably set up and in their simple day-to-day teenage activities we relate instantly. Because we know more than the characters, we are put in the uncomfortable position of being the outside witness to impending doom. Pleasence's dedicated doctor is more than a dues ex mechanica. His dogged search for Myers helps build the dread. His convincing fear for what the killer is capable of makes us all the more scared for the unaware girls.
The film spawned many wannabe hacker duplicates but they never really captured the simple terror that HALLOWEEN did. This film definitely proves that more is not always better. This is the best slasher film of all time, because it takes its time and taps into universal fears that never get old and continue to scare upon viewing after viewing.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
