FILM REVIEW: Halloween (1978)

Directed by John Carpenter

* * * ½

I recently watched RedLetterMedia’s re:View of horror master John Carpenter’s The Thing. While talking about the powerfully simple music throughout, one of the talking heads remarks of “Carpenter always refers to his scores as wallpaper. He never wants it to inform the scene or manipulate the scene like some filmmakers do where the score is what really drives the feeling or the emotion of the scene.” I’m unable to track down a source for this paraphrase, but if this is true of Carpenter, this is something any aspiring filmmaker should live by when it comes to the subject of background music. Whether it be those two ominous yet simple notes in The Thing, or the bluesy bassline from They Live, Carpenter’s work has some of the most iconic and haunting music in the horror genre, but perhaps he never had a more iconic and terrifying score than from his 1978 landmark of a horror movie, Halloween.

Haddonfield, Illinois – a humble suburb, with school just getting out for the evening. Not just any evening, though, for it is Halloween. The children scatter the streets and rush home, eager to put on their costumes and go out for Trick-Or-Treating. Teenagers discuss the latest in gossip, as well as carefully planning their sexual escapades for the evening. Among the teenagers, contrary to her mischievous friends, is Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who will be spending the evening babysitting. But if only they were aware of the grave danger they are in this night. Stalking the town is one Michael Myers, an escaped mental patient who inexplicably and cold-bloody murdered his sister 15 years ago, when he was 6 years old. Hot on Michael’s trail, though, is Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), who has been Michael’s doctor his entire life. With Michael escaped, there is great danger afoot, and Dr. Loomis is hell-bent on averting the approaching terror.

Halloween kickstarted one of the most successful and iconic, if done to death, trend in the history of horror: the slasher film, where a cold-blooded murder with sharp weaponry stalking teenagers. Yeah, reading my plot synopsis, you might be thinking to yourself “Geez, this sounds familiar.” Well, trends have to start somewhere, of course. Here we are now, 40 years later, and Halloween has seen a beautiful transition from humble cult hit, to genuine horror classic, and now sitting on a pedestal as one of the greatest and most important films in the genre. In honor of 40 years of terror, a new 4K restoration has been making its way across the country. Unfortunately, I have not been able to partake in the opportunity of this re-release, but I can always stay in with the comfort of home video.

So, 40 years later, how does it hold up? Well, it’s pretty much how I remember it, but that’s not a bad thing, especially in the case of Halloween: in the sea of shlock that became of the slasher genre, Carpenter’s film still stands out. A premise like that of Halloween rests upon the vulnerability of the scenario. Let’s start with the slasher himself, Michael Myers. What he embodies is pure evil, something I don’t think any of us can comprehend. To be unable to understand this behavior is terrifying, and this is only further perpetuated by his dress code: dark boiler suit and white, expressionless mask. That’s it. We can’t understand his psyche, nor can we get any kind of further inkling by his appearance. It’s terrifying and it’s brilliant.

Of course, another tradition of the slasher villain is the unstoppable power – knock them down, they get back up. Once again, done to death. And, once again, it works in Halloween. Though set in a realistic and familiar setting, Michael traverses in a way that can only be described as otherworldly, and this anomalous presence allows for his apparent immortality to seem plausible, once again, adding to the terror. This all culminates in the film’s climactic final impact, and let me assure you that I didn’t realize just how terrifying this is until recently.

But it’s time to give credit where other credit is due, and next is Curtis, who gives her teenage babysitter a perfect blend of vulnerability and bravery. The other key player is Pleasence: sometimes he can be a bit hammy for my taste, but other times it works, especially in his famous monologue about the evil of Michael Myers. The two young children are also quite good here, though the teenagers are about what you’d expect.

Then there’s the music. There is perhaps no subject I’m more indifferent in film than that of the background score. Too many times have I sat through moments in movies that could have been incredibly powerful had the filmmakers let the scenes speak purely for themselves, but then came the music that aggressively grabbed my hand and patronizingly dragged me around the mental and emotional foliage of said scene. As for Halloween, on top of being memorable to the point of legend, Carpenter knows exactly when the music needs to be ominous, when it needs to be urgent, and when it needs to take a back seat. The music works perfectly here.

It had been over 10 years since I had previously watched Halloween until very recently. While I still enjoy the film, and I certainly have mad respect for its place in the genre I just can’t quite work up a 4-star review. The very trends Halloween started became so annoyingly overdone that the original itself got caught up in the oversaturation. That said, the clichés are not overly glaring – when the film works, it works wonders (especially in the climax). The result is terrifying, and it still earns its reputation four decades later.