Halloween

There’s an element here that even I appreciate: Michael doesn’t have to be doing things all the time. For half of his appearances, he’s just standing around there, across the street from someone, behind them or somewhere. He won’t notice them — but they’ll notice him. And that’s fine.

I love the fact that this movie will creep up on you with these little bits of tension between what’s going on outside and inside of your head. It sets off that part of you that can’t quite get over the idea that Haddonfield itself looks totally normal. You start watching for Michael, you start looking through doorways and windows and wondering if you’re about to see something really bad happen. The way John Carpenter holds onto this moment of tension until it breaks feels so much more intense than other movies today who seem afraid to let you just sit there and worry.

I think Jamie Lee Curtis gives the best performance. Laurie should have been someone we recognized as a normal teenage girl and it was easy to forget about all the terrible things she has done (she scares me at times!) However, she’s scared too, so let’s be grateful.

What I love about Donald Pleasance as Dr Loomis, however, is that he seems to be the one character who actually “gets” everything – no matter how crazy it sounds. He constantly warns people about what could happen but they don’t listen.

The soundtrack really deserves its own paragraph here! Just a couple seconds of that iconic horror track will instantly put you into the mindset of the movie. The rest is just an excuse for Michael to come out, though, so let’s give credit where it’s due.

That’s probably why this movie has stuck around for all these years as well. There are no loads of lore explaining him away or trying to be very detailed about what goes on. We’re only shown “The Shape”, as Michael is known at this point, returns, watches us and then one day decides to move again.

Of course there have been dozens of other movies after this (or maybe I’m thinking of some different ones) who borrowed heavily from the recipe, making things much bigger or more complex but Halloween doesn’t require all of that. Partly because of its patience it seems more creepy than most slasher films ever were.