HALLOWEEN (1978)

Halloween Movie Review

Fifteen years after killing his sister, Michael Myers escapes the institution he has been locked in and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where he terrorizes babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut) and her friends. So there is a ton of confusion out there with the Halloween franchise--this, the original 1978 film, spawned an entire franchise that largely got worse with each sequel. Halloween 3 is almost universally considered the worst of the batch, but as it has nothing to do with Michael Myers, many don't even consider it a part of the franchise. The franchise also had a reboot, with Rob zombie directing Halloween in 2007 and Halloween II in 2009. Most recently, we got another film titled Halloween that was released just this month--while I have not seen it yet, my understanding is that it is a direct sequel to this, the original 1978 Halloween, and ignores every other film after it...but it's not titled Halloween 2...it is instead also titled Halloween, the third movie with this title. So yeah, that's all confusing, but let's get back to this movie.

Focus Josh

This movie starts off with a bang, tells a wonderful story in the middle, and ends as strong as it begins. Jamie Lee Curtis makes a likable lead, and Donald Pleasence steals the show as Dr. Loomis, Michael's psychiatrist--he realizes the only way to stop the madman is to eliminate him, and poor Loomis tries in vain the entire film to warn anybody who will listen of the impending doom. Unfortunately, outside of these two, the rest of the acting in this movie is pretty bad--it's so bad at times it can be hard to watch. There is also relatively little blood--while that may be surprising if you have only heard of this movie and never actually seen it, this ultimately doesn't really take much away from the film, unless you are a gorehound. Arguably the greatest thing about this movie is the music--director John Carpenter also scored the film, and the music is some of the coolest and creepiest of any horror film ever made. The ending leaves a little to be desired, but it did leave the door open for the many sequels that would follow. Halloween is considered one of the all time classic horror films, and is justly credited with ushering in a wave of slasher films that would flood the market in the following decade. If you are reading a horror movie blog, chances are you have already seen this movie--if you haven't, go watch it. Now.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 9

Halloween Movie Trailer