Under the umbrella of pop genres, subgenres started growing rapidly like mushrooms as the world of cinema expanded its range. For example, horror no longer only comprise of ghosts, but monsters, family dysfunctions, gore, zombies, supernatural, found footage and cyber terror were among the many that also joined the hood. One such innovation was done by John Carpenter's Halloween in 1978. Since then, slasher films were born!
Halloween was a simple movie made with the lowest budget and expectations. But with what he had, John Carpenter crafted a cult classic! The way he has captured the 70s feel and small town Haddonfield's spirit during Halloween was magical. Carpenter made sure you're inside that environment, living and breathing the same air as the characters do. You could truly feel the leaves rustling, wind humming, birds chirping and Michael Myers' muffled heavy exhales!
80% of the feature was about the antagonist stalking on teenage girls, and it's full of tension while being extremely creepy! The scares were good, shot compositions fantastic, exposition laid out smoothly, staging perfect and pacing balanced. As the story progressed, situations worsened to form memorable sequences such as the beer grabbing choke, white sheet disguise, Lynda's (P. J. Soles) strangle, dog silencing and of course, Annie's (Nancy Kyes) car death. The entire climax of boogeyman chase and caught-in-house thriller was again, memorable.
It's how much the makers have spent time to introduce Michael Myers' traits, with his tendency to kill teenage women and picking up random mask as his avatar that rendered Halloween an above average attempt. The same point can be said about Jamie Lee Curtis' persona too.
Everything about this flick is iconic! From the director's theme background score to the most notorious serial killer on the run - Michael Myers, stays forever with us! With this being said, yes at certain parts, the acting performances and sound dubbing were badly cheesy. But, this is one of those things that didn't migrate that well from the era the film was made and nothing can be done about it.
"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."