"Halloween" is the first and still probably the best of the genre known as the slasher flick. In fact although "Halloween" wasn't the first slasher flick, it is the one that harbored in the flood of similar clones about mass murderers butchering innocent(and not so innocent) teenagers. Don't get me wrong though--"Halloween" isn't "Friday the 13th". The "Friday the 13th" movies lacked any real soul or character to them. The reason "Halloween" succeeds as a movie is because we actually care for the main heroine. That is Jamie Lee Curtis who in her feature film debut plays Laurie Strode, your typical teenager of the times.
First let me talk about the back-story. In 1963, a girl is murdered on Halloween night by her little brother who is dressed in a weird costume and stabs her to death with a butcher knife. Why? Who knows? As his psychiatrist later says "I spent 8 years trying to help him and the next 7 years trying to keep him locked up" or something to that effect. This kid, Michael Myers by name, is apparently a monster--one of those people who finds joy in the slaughter of people. Anyway it's 1978 and Michael Myers doctor, Dr. Loomis(played by Donald Pleasance), is going to the asylum to take Myers to court. Somehow though Myers escapes, steals Loomis' car and heads to Haddonfield, Illinois where he had committed his murder 15 years ago.
That is the set-up of how Myers gets to Haddonfield. It is there that we meet three teenage girls--Laurie Strode as a bookish sort of girl, Annie who is Laurie's best friend, and Linda who is fairly irresponsible and is with a guy who seems like your typical jock. It doesn't really matter because they are fodder for Michael Myers who dispatches teens in some interesting ways (my favorite involving a refrigerator). The real focus of the movie is the showdown between Myers and Laurie Strode. They give a reason in the second film for why Myers is after Strode so badly but I actually liked it better when there was no real reason. Myers isn't portrayed as a wacko with no intelligence. On the contrary, we get in Michael Myers a cold murderer who is brutal and unstoppable seemingly.
I won't say anymore about the plot. The plot itself isn't extraordinary but for a slasher flick it's ok and fairly simple and straightforward. The big thing here is that unlike most slasher flicks this one isn't filled with gore. We don't get a lot of blood and a lot of gore. There is violence in the film but it is handled in such a way that today it could probably be released with a PG-13 rating. John Carpenter actually by focusing less on the violence has directed a film that is actually scary in some points. Three things help him out. One is a soundtrack with music so haunting that when you hear it you shudder to think what is going to happen. Two is Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, who presents a heroine we actually care for and gives her a personality of sorts. Three is Donald Pleasance as the doctor who adds a little class and experience to a movie that needed some.
Still it is Jamie Lee Curtis more than anything that makes this movie more than a typical slasher flick. She was destined for greatness(she's best when she's comedic but early on she was the "Scream" queen appearing in countless other horror films and slasher flicks besides "Halloween") and this movie shows it. Her character is vulnerable, scared, and yet strong in her abilities to maintain herself and her composure. Her character isn't one-dimensional and that also explains that the Halloween movies with Jamie Lee Curtis(1,2, and the 7th one "Halloween: H20") are the best ones.
This is probably the best of the slasher flicks. There is some good acting, good direction, great music (including the first use of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" in a slasher/horror flick), and an interesting if occasionally shallow story. The effects haven't aged well but what can you expect? Overall it's a pretty good movie considering it's genre and I definitely recommend it.
On a black and unholy Halloween night years ago, little Michael Meyers brutally slaughtered his sister in cold blood. But for the last fifteen years, ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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