John Carpenter's 1978 masterpiece was the prototype for the modern slasher flick. Hundreds of directors and actors owe their paychecks to "Halloween," the "Casablanca" of monster movies.
Carpenter took the monster out of the mad scientist's laboratory and plopped it down in small-town America. He took the complicated explanations and mystical mumbo-jumbo away, and it's even scarier when you don't know why the killer kills. And he made a William Shatner mask a universal symbol for evil.
Those are some pretty neat tricks.
Two of the slasher flick standbys, boobs and blood, are suprisingly small parts of "Halloween." You hardly ever see either, in fact -- just a flash or two of skin and a few drips of gore here and there. If this movie was released today, it would be rated PG-13 at worst.
What it does have is buckets and buckets of creepy atmosphere. Carpenter's minimal score adds a surreal note to scenes of placid suburban streets. Michael Myers is hulking and haunting as the insane killer come home to roost. There is absolutely no motive to what he does -- because it is what he is.
Jamie Lee Curtis gives a breakthrough performance that not only would cement her as the Scream Queen of the 1980s, it created a horror movie rule that still stands today -- the plucky virgin is gonna survive. Donald Pleasance adds part gravitas, part crazy eye as the psychologist chasing the one patient he couldn't reach. (Christopher Lee has said turning down this part was the biggest mistake of his career.)
Practically everything about this movie is spot-on perfect -- from the oblivious kid watching old-time monster flicks as a real-life monster stalks the streets to the prominent part played by a knitting needle, I can hardly explain how much I adore this movie. The use of shadows and darkness, even the choice of a song barely heard (that's "Don't Fear the Reaper" playing in Annie's car, and I have a special place in my heart for any movie that works it into their soundtrack) -- this movie can still spook me even after viewing it dozens of times. Totally fantastic.
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