John Carpenter may not be churning out classics like Halloween any longer, but his arguably most famous film seems to have been the perfect storm of dedication, foolishness, ambition and talent that elude most films. Made on a tiny $300k budget (or about $1 million today), Halloween would go on to become one of the most financially successful independent pictures ever, not to mention the impact it made on filmmakers and movie-goers even thirty years later.
I trust you don’t need a plot summary of this film. If you do, I implore you to seek out your nearest big-box retailer, electronics seller, or yard sale to pick up at least one of the 318 versions that have been commercially released. I suspect that if you retold the synopsis to someone who hadn’t seen it before (heathens!), they would think it sounds lame and predictable. That just shows how much impact Carpenter, co-writer Debra Hill, and the dozens of inexperienced crew members’ legacy still lives on today. For me as a young, stupid kid, I did not particularly care for this film, preferring the more over-the-top antics of its direct sequel or even other, somewhat lesser films like A Nightmare on Elm Street. If released today, I suspect it would not go over well with the masses. Then again, people are much more stupid today.
If you wanted to be nit-picky, you could point to the film’s low budget techniques, its questionable continuity errors, or some of the now silly-sounding dialogue. But even with those minor quibbles in place, Halloween is undoubtedly a tremendously effective horror film and even a quiet look at the kind of monster that can spring from a mute six-year-old. Hill and Carpenter craft Myers so wonderfully because the Shape is left (for this film at least) emotionless and vague, not dissimilar to the doctored Shatner mask that populates stores around this time of year. Myers is deadly and determined and because he and his motivations are shrouded in mystery, the old campfire story of the Boogeyman jumps out and envelops you in an uneasy fashion. As Ebert said in his review, this is not a movie you watch; this is a movie that you experience and live in.
Through Carpenter’s exquisite eye at crafting a scene that goes from typical to terrifying in the blink of an eye, or Donald Pleasence‘s delivery of exactly what Michael Myers embodies, to Jamie Lee Curtis‘ desperate pleas and screams that populate the final few minutes of the film, Halloween aims high and delivers much more than most films attempt. The slow and deliberate pacing or the relatively restrained violence and gore may be a turnoff to some horror fans, but we call those people idiots for good reason.
The excellence of Halloween has been written about time and time again so I am not saying anything new or groundbreaking here. But I thought it fitting to kick off this year’s Monster Scum with a bang as I attempt to tackle the most highly regarded horror films. So, sit tight and check back often as we try to class the place up a bit.
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