Halloween (1978)
Composite Score: 84.23
Starring: Donald Pleasance, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Brian Andrews, John Michael Graham, and Nancy Stephens
Director: John Carpenter
Writers: John Carpenter and Debra Hill
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Slasher
MPAA Rating: R
Box Office: $47.16 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Halloween (1978) is John Carpenter’s classic slasher horror film that introduced the world to the character of Michael Myers and helped usher in the “Golden Age” of slasher films. The film follows Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasance) on Halloween 1978 as they work to survive/stop Michael Myers’s murderous return to his hometown of Haddonfield, IN, where he killed his sister fifteen years previously before being institutionalized. From its score to its villain to its many genre-defining tropes, Halloween is one of the most iconic and memorable horror films of all time, outshining and/or inspiring just about every other film in its subgenre that has come after it.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
The tropes introduced in Halloween – baby sitters, implied rules about morality, pure evil killers – have all become wildly familiar in the later slasher films, making the film feel a bit formulaic, even if it is one of the films that defined the formula. The “final girl” facing off against an unstoppable killing machine has become so synonymous with the genre of slasher that we’ve gotten to the point where it’s subversive to not have that be the final moment (see Cabin in the Woods). For me, Halloween’s formulaic nature is part of what makes the film so great, but for other viewers, it might feel a bit overdone in the modern era when we’ve had so many other films do the same thing since then (though rarely quite as good).
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Halloween just might be the quintessential slasher film, depending on how you want to define the genre. No other slasher comes quite as close to horror perfection as this film without relying on making light of the tropes it introduces (Scream, etc.). Jamie Lee Curtis is one of the original scream queens and earns that title in her leading role as Carpenter’s final girl here, playing Lori with an ideal combination of determination and terror. Michael Myers (“the boogeyman”) is an excellent villain, portraying evil incarnate in a way that many supernatural horror films even fail to achieve with their demonic/otherworldly villains. He feels so inevitable in his movements and his appearance that the victims’ sense of helplessness translates beautifully to the audience. The scares are quality without being too excessive, and the music remains one of the most iconic themes of all time.
Halloween’s combination of archetypal characters and plot devices, solid jump scares, thrilling chase sequences, and musical perfection has made it not just one of the best slashers of all time but one of the Greatest Films of All Time. Its reliance on what we now understand to be tropes can be frustrating for fans of the genre who never visited the classics before jumping in, but its influence is undeniable no matter what. This film is currently streaming with ads on quite a few smaller streaming services or is available to rent on most major streamers if you’d like to watch it soon.
