Halloween (Halloween [1978] (DVD))

Member Name: bergkamp10

Product:	Halloween [1978] (DVD)
Date:	08/07/09 (13 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent film, great features

Disadvantages: A four disc edition of the film is available

This review was written by myself here: http://www.empireonline.com/forum/tm.asp?m=2422814 &mpage=3&key=


Considered the grandfather of the "slasher" sub genre, John Carpenter's Halloween remains the very best of its kind. Made in 1978 on a very small budget, it follows the story of a sociopathic killer returning to his hometown on the fifteenth anniversary of the day he murdered his sister - fittingly, on Halloween. After escaping from a mental institution, we discover what Dr. Loomis (the psychiatrist of the killer, played by Donald Pleasance) considers "pure evil" - a twenty one year old Michael Myers - as a trio of friends begin to be stalked on Halloween day.

Despite creating the typical clichés of a slasher film, it manages to avoid the ones which many knock-offs would later falter to. By making the lead character, Laurie Strode (who in the sequels is revealed to be related to Myers), sensible and much more mature than the other characters, we begin to feel that nobody is safe from the "boogeyman." Under the usual circumstances of slasher films, the audience would bemoan as the victims seem to be at fault for their own demise, falling over and such. In the case of Strode, however, we see a character relentlessly pursued by a seemingly invincible killer whilst enacting the necessary procedures to attempt to survive.

During the famous opening shot, we are treated to a tour of a typical home during the Halloween season. Unbeknownst to us, this is actually a point-of-view shot of a murderer about to kill, which we discover when he picks up a Halloween mask and knife. This sense of voyeurism is explored in Halloween. In the final scene, we hear Myers' breath increase in volume as if the Myers is in fact acting on behalf of the audience whilst we are repulsed by our own disturbing fantasies of committing violence. Myers, it seems, is not returning to his town to simply escape to a safe place which gives him warmth. He has picked the fifteenth anniversary for a reason - so he can relive the glory of his killing fifteen years prior, rather than compulsively kill as is often thought. This is shown when he steals his sisters' gravestone and uses leaves it for future victims to see - it is the "boogeyman" of Haddonfield folklore returning to kill again. When he commits this murder, he wears a white sheet over himself, giving himself a ghostlike look. This leads to Myers' supernatural powers and strengths being explored. He predicts the movements of Strode during the final scene and manages to lift the boyfriend of the girl with the gravestone-face with a single hand, despite their similar heights and weight. Myers also of course survives numerous wounds which would be fatal to a normal human being.

The victims are rather disposable characters who are simply there to show Myers' supernatural strength. The children, on the other hand, show Myers' childlike instincts taking hold of his decisions (hence the mask) and that we as the audience have immature and childlike fears. Though it becomes apparent in the sequels (which Carpenter did not direct or write) that Myers is specifically after Strode, it only feels as if Myers is killing young girls of a similar age and appearance to his sister at random. This further enhances our fears of the unstoppable predator that lurks in the night.- a childlike fear.

Carpenter's film is often heralded as a high point of the horror genre, and rightly so. He plays on our primal fears to create one of the most tense and frightening pictures ever made.

Summary: One of the great horror films