Movie Review: "Halloween" (1978)

 

How have I managed to avoid talking about John Carpenter’s Halloween all this time? Huh, weird. Oh, well, no better time than the present! 

What follows is a deep-dive exploration of this over-forty-year-old-movie, so copious spoilers abound. If you haven’t seen it yet, then go watch it first and then come back here. I’ll be waiting...muh-HA, HA, HA, HAAAA!!!

Ahem, sorry. Honestly I don’t know if I can say anything particularly original about this classic horror movie, except that it’s by no means a sacred cow. Yes, it’s an iconic seasonal thriller, which exhibits a surprising amount of restraint and suspense, but it’s certainly not a perfect film. In fact, Carpenter and company make some downright bizarre choices during its peppy 91-minute runtime.

The story is very simple; a decidedly appropriate choice when forging a modern addition to the “bogeyman” urban legend, typified by stories like “The Hook” or the “Backseat Killer." Out of the blue, six-year-old Michael Myers (aka “The Shape”) murders his sister on Halloween night. Then, 15 years later, he escapes from the booby-hatch, makes his way back home to Haddonfield, Illinois,  encounters Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and inexplicably becomes obsessed with killing her and her friends. Meanwhile, Dr. Sam Loomis, played by Donald Pleasance, tries to warn local authorities that “death has come to your little town.”       

Right from its opening credits, Halloween grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. Between the iconic John Carpenter score, the classic orange font and the slow zoom towards the crudely-carved pumpkin, the movie sets up the perfect tone right from the jump. This is carried into the prologue, which sees a crowd of exuberant, costumed trick-or-treaters reciting the following traditional poem:

Black cats and goblins and broomsticks and ghosts,

Covens of witches with all of their hosts.

You may think they scare me, you're probably right.

Black cats and goblins, on Halloween night.

Trick or treat!

Needless to say, Carpenter and co-writer Debra Hill crammed so much atmospheric, creepy, seasonal tropes into their movie, it virtually guaranteed that Halloween would become the de facto flick that gets played ad nauseum this time every year.

What follows is another visually-stunning moment, especially for a movie made for under $400 K. Using the newly-developed Panaglide steadicam, Carpenter forces us into the perspective of the pint -sized killer as he sneaks through the house, dons a mask and stabs his older sister Judith to death with a butcher knife. It’s a truly chilling scene with squirm-inducing implications.

This introduces the first of many oddities. While l’il Michael is doing his best Norman Bates impersonation, our point of view suddenly moves away from Judith and over to the knife as it rises and falls out of frame several times. At first I thought 'Man, that is so dumb, if you were trying to kill someone with a knife, um, in theory, you’d be a fool to take your eyes off the intended victim for fear they'd try and escape.' But then a really chilling thought suddenly hit me: what if this kid is really enjoying the sight of the knife in his hand as he murders his poor sister in cold blood? In a precursor to a famous future scene, he’s already admiring his handiwork!

The prologue ends with a dazed Michael, dressed in his creepy clown outfit, standing on the front lawn holding the bloody knife. His parents rip the mask off of his face and they just stand there and stare at him as a crane shot slowly pulls away. This simple scene raises about a million questions in the eternal debate of "nature versus "nurture" and, contrary to what Rob Zombie may think, it's all of the origin story we really need to establish “The Shape.”

We then flash forward from 1963 to October 30’th, 1978 and meet Dr. Sam Loomis, played to absolute perfection by a twitchy, irritated and clearly-haunted Donald Pleasance. Loomis and his driver, Nurse Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens), are en route to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium to oversee the transfer the now-adult Michael to another institution. Even though Loomis is supposed to be Michael’s shrink, talks openly about keeping his patient doped up to the gills, refers to him as “it” and then declares that “the evil is gone” after he escapes. Delivered by a lesser actor, these lines would come off as melodramatic and cheesy, but, in Pleasance’s capable hands, we’re instantly convinced that Michael Myers is nothing short of evil incarnate.                 

During all of this, the film's low-fi aesthetics help rather than hinder. Some of these shots look like they were captured by Carpenter himself while he was sitting in the backseat of the car, creating a nice sensation of claustrophobia. When the vehicle pulls up to the sanitarium and we see several spectral-looking escaped mental patients drifting around in the distance through the rain-soaked windshield, the effect is super-eerie and sets a really discordant mood.

The subsequent scene where Michael steals their car is kind of lame, though. Loomis and Chambers are so easily overcome they might just as well have stepped out, left the keys in the ignition, let Mikey take the wheel, said “watch your elbow” and then gently closed the door for him. It doesn't help that the passenger side “window” that Michael shatters looks like a cheap piece of plastic and we then see a scrawny looking guy dressed in a hospital gown jacking up the car GTA-style. Sorry, but the concept of a mental patient who’s been locked away for 15 years expertly navigating a car is so patently ridiculous that Carpenter felt the need to include a ham-fisted throw-away excuse from Loomis later on in the movie.

We then switch scenes to Haddonfield on Halloween day. Just like in Friday the 13’th: Part III, California doubles for an easterly locale, but thanks to the excellent cinematography of the masterful Dean Cundy, everything looks appropriately dreary and washed-out here. The producers even went so far as to import bags of dead leaves to fling around the locations to give them the illusion of a midwestern fall. It’s a nice distraction from the fact that the weather and wet ground continuity here is pretty atrocious. 

We now meet Laurie Strode, earnestly portrayed by the delightful Jamie Lee Curtis. Even though she was actually 19 at time, her grandmotherly attire and mature countenance really strain her believably as a high schooler, perhaps even more so than “Michael Andretti’s” driving skills. This was Jamie Lee’s first role and, although her performance does oscillate between over-expressive, self-conscious, comatose and / or shrill, she’s boundlessly charming and does a marvelous job overall. As a classic “final girl”,  you like her, you care what happens to her and, frankly, that’s all that matters.

Laurie and her babysitting cash cow Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews) pass by the old Myers house, abandoned since that fateful night. Carpenter does a masterful job filling parts of the frame with “The Shape” as he peers out the window at them. Since Halloween II got shit-canned and is no longer part of canon, I can’t help but wonder if Michael’s sole motivation to kill Laurie is just because she had the temerity to step on his porch?   

Whatever the reason, Michael starts popping up everywhere like a Jehovah’s Witness. He’s in Laurie’s back yard, skulks behind the bushes, scares the fertilizer out of some elementary school kids and cruises around town like he’s gotten hydraulics installed in his low-rider. The scene where he stares at Laurie while she’s in class listening to a lecture about fate is particularly effective. Since a slew of folks technically played “The Shape”, it’s tough to credit one specific person, but, by all accounts,  Nick Castle deserves a lot of the credit for establishing the iconic slasher’s walk, body language and presence.     

Around this time we also meet Laurie’s nominal gal pals. Lynda is played by P.J. Soles, who, at age 27, really strained the definition of “high schooler.” Lynda is written to be gratingly annoying, so it’s quite the testimony to P.J’s charm that I still kinda like her. Her penchant for saying “totally” every four to five seconds quickly gets old, however, and I can’t help but wonder if Carpenter and Debra Hill thought this is what teenagers sounded like back in 1977.

Then there’s Nancy Kyes as the sardonic, deadpan Annie Bracket, who, at age 28, really puts the "senior" in "high school senior." Look, I know what Kyes was going for here, but you can’t convince me that this is a good performance. Her sarcasm comes off as stilted and between her expressionless eyes (the blackest eyes?) and her odd delivery, I always feel as if she’s reading her lines off of a cue card. Oh well, at least the three female leads are visibly and audibly distinct from one another, which is more than I can say for most modern horror films. 

Around this same time, not co-incidentally, you might start to notice just how idiotic some of the dialogue is. Witness these l’il chestnuts:  

Lynda: The only reason she babysits is to have a place to... 

Laurie: Oh, shit!

Lynda: (indignant) I have a place for that.

***

Annie: I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor.

***

Annie: Now you hear obscene chewing. You're losing it, Laurie.

***

Laurie: All right, Annie. First I get your famous chewing, now I get your famous squealing?

Yeeesh.

But for every stupid scene, there’s cinema gold, which normally involves Dr. Loomis in some way, shape (heh, heh) or form. I love the wonderful graveyard scene where the groundskeeper, Taylor, blabbers away at an increasingly-annoyed Loomis:

Taylor: Hey, you know, every town has something like this happen. I remember over in Russellville. Old Charly Bowles. About fifteen years ago. One night he finished dinner and he excused himself from the table and he went out to the garage...he got himself a hack saw and then he went back into the house and he kissed his wife and his two children goodbye and then he proceeded...

Loomis: (irritated) Where are we?

The scene’s big reveal of Judith’s missing headstone works as a simple, macabre little set-up that really pays off in spades later on.

Anyhoo, despite all of the creepy Michael sightings, Laurie still packs up her knitting needles and oversized pumpkin and heads out to meet up with Annie. NOTE: sharp-eyed viewers will notice the work “EVIL” spray-painted on a wall at the 28 minute mark as Laurie walks by. After Annie picks up her bahd, the two drive around for a bit, share a joint and talk about boys. Then, when they spy Laurie’s dad Sherriff Leigh in the distance, they inexplicably drive right towards him and voluntarily pull over, just so we can get an expository scene to explain how Michael got all of his accesories.

Carpenter finally starts cooking with gas as the pair drive towards their babysitting gig. But first we have to excuse the fact that neither Laurie nor Annie notice that they’re being blatantly tailgated by the same weirdo in a white Bill Shatner mask driving the same asylum-tagged station wagon from earlier. Nice use of “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, though.

By shooting on location in this real, relatively-boujee neighborhood and firmly establishing the film's "geography", Carpenter keeps building a realistic mise-en-scène. This,in turn, does wonders for audience immersion. Around this time, Carpenter’s soundtrack also starts to incorporate some really eerie musical stings, sustained notes and plodding, dirge-y piano, making it one of the most effective scores in horror film history.         

We then cut back to the Myers abode, where we learn that, unlike Jason Voorhees, Michael apparently has no qualms about killing and / or chowing down on house pets. This is also a warm up for what "The Shape "does to poor Lester the German Shepherd later on.  As if all of this verboten, unsanctioned animal murder isn’t bad enough, Donald Pleasance single-handedly creeps us out with this iconic speech to the skeptical Sheriff Brackett:

“I met him fifteen 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 his 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.”

Pretty chill-inducing, but this gives way to a head-scratching moment when Loomis unwisely pish-toshes Brackett’s solid plan to go to the media and alert folks that a homicidal maniac is in their midst. In retrospect, this is a pretty egregious error, especially in light of who the first victim turns out to be. Loomis also doggedly clings to the idea that Michael is going to return to his family home, which he never does. Nice going, Sherlock.

Oh, well, at least this sets up a delightfully-oddball scene later on where Donald Pleasance scares the shit out of aspiring bully Lonnie Elam by doing a weird Idris Elba impersonation and then adopting the sort of “I’m amused by my own fart” facial expression that I’ve only ever seen Brent Spiner do a handful of times while playing Data on Star Trek.  

Mere moments after Loomis gives his terrible advice, the bodies start dropping. If you're anything like me, there comes a point where you'e practically begging for Annie to die, if only to stop Nancy Kyes from warbling on incessantly about Paul. Nevertheless, her demise is well set up and executed, no pun intended. As for Bob’s death, it’s one of the greatest slasher kills of all-time. Between the superhuman strength exhibited, the “butterfly board” end result and Michael tilting his head back and forth to admire his handiwork, this scene instantly became the grist for endless speculative playground conversations in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Before we go any further, I just wanted to make a quick observation about the movie’s tremendous sense of mood. By using liberal clips from classic movies like The Thing from Another World, Carpenter is clearly wearing his influences on his sleeve. In fact, the scene where Tommy gets a glimpse of Michael carrying Annie’s body is a direct homage to Invaders from Mars. That unnerving, theramin-esque music from Forbidden Planet playing in the background just sells it to the hilt. Given all of the trick-or-treaters, pumpkin carving and horror movie marathons on T.V., you couldn’t make a more Halloween-y movie on your Halloween-iest day with an electrified Halloweenification device.            

Alright, back to the mayhem. As far as I’m concerned, Lynda and Bob deserve to be killed, not because they had sex, but because they boned in some strangers bed. I mean, rude, am I right? I’m almost 99.9% sure they had absolutely zero intention of washing those sheets before they left. Slightly less scary than that thought is Michael dressing up like a spoopy ghost and donning Bob’s “Aunt Selma” glasses. I really like Michael’s penchant for disguise here and I kinda wish he’d explored this budding hobby a bit more in future entries, but I guess the producers of the series wanted him to exclusively use the ol’ “hammer versus nail” approach.  

Speaking of Michael, we finally start seeing some stingy glimpses of him, accompanied by that labored “I’m-slowly-smothering-to-death-underneath-this-cheap-Halloween-mask” breathing sound that everybody recognizes. The mask itself, a deformed Don Post Captain Kirk head sculpt, painted bone-white with the eyebrows removed and the hair all fucked up, is genuinely unsettling. I don’t know if future changes were made for legal reasons, but every subsequent mask that appeared in the series was a pale imitation of the first.

What follows is an absolute master class in suspense. When Laurie discovers Michael’s “murder tableau” at the Wallace house, you can almost hear the last puzzle piece of the slasher genre fall into place. The whole set up is so weird and disjointed that it legit feels like the product of a diseased mind. Then, at the 1:16 mark, Dean Cundy’s brilliant cinematography comes through again, with "The Shape" suddenly materializing from out of the darkness. It is, without a doubt, one of be the most iconic shots in horror film history.  

Jamie Lee Curtis absolutely shines in the harrowing finale, particularly when she’s banging on the neighbor's door and begging for help. When the porch lights wink out, it’s not only a heart-rending moment, it's also a pretty damning commentary on trend of modern objectivism. Granted, she does lose the audience a little bit when she voluntarily discards Michael’s trademark butcher knife instead of using it to protect herself. Granted, the whole “false ending” cliche was actually established here, but when she chucks the weapon away for the second time at the 1:24 mark, theater-goers back in 1978 must have collectively screamed “WHAT THE FUCK YOU DOIN', BISH?!?” so loud that the entire country heard it.

We then get our last supremely-stupid script convenience as Loomis realizes that it might be a good idea to look at something other than the Myers house and, lo and behold, he finally notices the abandoned Smith’s Grove Sanitarium Scramble Wagon™ parked ten feet away. He then lopes to the rescue as Laurie’s two babysitting charges run screaming out of the house.   

This leads us to another truly unsettling moment as "The Shape" sits up and slowly turns his head, Nosferatu-style, in the background behind a traumatized Laurie. Mikey fails another point-blank stabbing attempt, his mask gets wrestled off (for no good reason) and then Loomis appears, emptying the contents of his service revolver into him. Sadly, this intense scene is undermined by the sort of pantomimed jig that only a toddler would do if you aimed a finger gun at them, which is then followed by the most cliche "body hits the ground" sound effect in cinema history. 

But then the movie ends perfectly. Loomis looks over the balcony to confirm what he already knows: that Michael has vanished into the night and the resulting 'Well, d’uh’ reaction from Pleasance is completely priceless. Carpenter then finishes up with a montage of establishing shots, overdubbed with Michael’s omnipresent breathing. The connotation is effectively and disturbingly communicated: evil is everywhere...and it never dies.    

Halloween was by no means the first slasher movie, that particular distinction likely belongs to either Bob Clark’s Black Christmas or Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But Carpenter was the first film-maker to codify everything so successfully that this budding sub-genre dominated the world of horror for almost a decade.  

Sure, the movie is by no means perfect, but it’s classy, restrained, stylish, atmospheric, tense, genuinely suspenseful and deserves to be ritually revisited around this time every single year.

Tilt: up.