First Things First…
Despite the total lack of gore and very limited jump scares, this is easily one of the best horror movies ever made. I’m glad to write about another classic of the genre, and especially to publish this on Halloween. I didn’t grow up watching this, but I’ve seen it many times as an adult, and it always holds up.
5 Things I Like
5. Discovering the Dead
Laurie is uneasy throughout the movie. She keeps seeing Michael, or at least thinking she sees something. But I love how her uneasiness come to a head in the last 20 minutes or so, when she finally realizes something terrible has been on her trail.
We’ve already seen Michael kill Annie, Lynda, and Bob, but watching Laurie discover them one after another is delightful. We know what’s waiting for her in the house across the street when she walks over to check on Annie, but we don’t know when, where, or how she’ll find her friends’ bodies. It’s super creepy, it causes one of the few jump scares, and it leads directly to the most suspenseful scene in the movie as she tries to escape from Michael.
4. Creeping Closer
Speaking of the most suspenseful scene in the movie, if someone asked me to show them an example of suspense, this might be the one I’d show…
It’s when Laurie runs screaming out of Lindsey’s house after finding the bodies. She knocks on a neighbor’s door, begging for help, but they seem to think she’s crazy, so they ignore her. Then she runs back to Tommy’s house.
As she bangs on the door, begging for him to get out of bed and move his ass to come let her in, Michael first comes into the shot at a distance across the street.
Then it cuts back and forth between closeups of Laurie frantically banging on the door and screaming, terrified, to shots of Michael lumbering over.
What makes it so suspenseful is that Michael never moves fast, and we barely see him take a few steps at a time, but every time the shot returns to him after showing Laurie, he’s closer to her. It’s way more frightening than if the camera stayed on him and we watched his entire walk across the street.
I still find this scene effective, even though I know Laurie gets in the house in time.
3. POV Murder
“I met him 15 years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this… six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and… the blackest eyes – the Devil’s eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply… evil.”
Dr. Loomis
This is one of the great opening scenes in movie history.
It’s a first-person perspective as we follow someone go into the house, grab a big-ass knife, and put on a clown mask, at which point we see their peripheral vision obscured because they’re looking through the eye holes.
We continue from their perspective as they walk upstairs and slash the near-naked girl over and over.
And we stick with their perspective as they go downstairs and out the front door, knife still in hand.
It’s only when the parents arrive home and the father pulls off the clown mask that we leave the first-person vantage point, and we see the murderer is just a kid…
… a kid with the Devil’s eyes.
2. Music & Silence
Halloween has such iconic music that I recognized the theme long before I ever watched the movie. That’s why I was amazed when I finally saw the movie and discovered John Carpenter composed the music. I had no idea he did that on top of directing and co-writing.
Whether it’s the main theme, or some of the other famous musical numbers which are more staccato, there’s always a looming sense of dread.
But just as impressive as the score is Carpenter’s use of silence.
There are scenes in the dark, where someone is moving but there’s no music or dialogue. It’s very eerie and off-putting.
The silence adds to the sense of dis-ease throughout the film—especially the opening murder, Loomis’ car ride up to the asylum and Michael’s escape, plus much of the film after the sun goes down.
1. Voyeurism
What a great movie for voyeurs. It always feels like you’re watching someone when you shouldn’t be.
While it’s still daylight on Halloween, Michael keeps popping in and out of shrubbery, or driving along slowly, and he’s always peeping on someone—usually Laurie.
But even when we’re not watching from Michael’s perspective, the film creates the illusion of voyeurism.
There are many shots we watch from a distance, like when Laurie is walking to school in the morning. Watching her from a distance somehow feels more illicit than watching her up close. It creates an amazing effect of people being unknowingly put in peril.
2 Things I’m Mixed On
2. Michael Is a Pretty Solid Driver
The idea that Michael was institutionalized at six years old and never let out, yet he knows how to drive a car, is ridiculous.
The only reason it’s not in the “Don’t Like” category is because the movie knows it’s ridiculous and has fun with it.
When Loomis is certain Michael will return to Haddonfield, Dr. Wynn says in exasperation…
“Sam, Haddonfield is 150 miles away. For God’s sake, he can’t even drive a car!”
To which Loomis replies, rightly, and probably in agreement with everyone who ever watched the movie and found this part so silly…
“He was doing very well last night! Maybe someone around here gave him lessons!”
I assume they just needed a way to get him from the asylum to Haddonfield, and then they needed a way for him to follow Laurie around town, and they didn’t see a way around having him drive. He certainly can’t ride the bus and interact with the public. So they just went with him driving, knowing it doesn’t make sense. The quick argument between Loomis and Wynn is their way of telling the audience they’re in on the joke.
1. Unkillable
Michael’s ambiguous fate at the end of the movie calls into question whether he really is just a man.
I’m not sure what else you could call him—maybe a force of nature? But as a man who should be killable, it’s absurd that he gets shot about six times, falls out a second-story window, but seems to have gotten up from where he fell and ran away within about 10 seconds.
As a larger-than-life villain in a slasher movie, I don’t mind that there’s more to him—something almost supernatural. But from what we know about him, he really shouldn’t be supernatural. He should be killable.
3 Things I Don’t Like
3. Loomis’ Ineptitude
“I-I-I watched him for 15 years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall; not seeing the wall, looking past the wall; looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. Now, you can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.”
Dr. Loomis
Loomis is the one who has a full understanding of who—or what—they’re dealing with in Michael. Yet he makes some silly mistakes that make him look like a buffoon.
Michael drives right by him—oh so slowly—at the police station, but Loomis has his back turned.
Even more egregious is when he spends more than an hour outside the Myers’ old house, waiting for Michael to return, without noticing the station wagon Michael stole from the asylum parked across the street.
I know he’s a doctor, not a detective, but Loomis shouldn’t be this bumbling.
2. Kill Everyone but the Virgin
All the girls and guys who have sex get killed, starting with Michael’s sister at the beginning, who just finished with her guy friend and is wearing nothing but her panties when Michael murders her.
But Laurie, who’s never explicitly called a virgin but who’s clearly much more virginal than her friends, survives.
Whether or not the movie intends to send a message about sex, it’s an overplayed trope.
1. The Acting Is a Little Cringe
“Well, kiddo, I thought you outgrew superstition.”
Laurie Strode
Some of this is because two young kids, Tommy and Lindsey, play important roles. But this is also Jamie Lee Curtis’ first movie ever. She’s an all-time great scream queen, but there are times here when I find her a little hard to watch, especially while she’s babysitting or talking to herself.
Tim Matassa
