Halloween

Dir: John Carpenter

1978

*****

Halloween is a lot of things and it has since been remembered as something it isn’t as well as all the things it is. For starters, it isn’t the first pure slasher – Black Christmas is – but I would argue that it is the first time the horror sub-genre had been perfected. John Carpenter’s classic can be compared to quite a few horror films that came before it and it covers a few sub-genres when you break it down. There is a haunted house theme to the film as well the revenge element. Much like in 1974’s Black Christmas, you see through the eyes of the film’s villain. In truth, Halloween is a post-modern combination of every horror film made before, only deconstructed and perfected. However, although many themes are revisited, no horror film had looked quite as good as this or would become quite as influential. You can see the change in horror movies after Halloween, it was a huge game-changer, and it is a slasher that is still yet to be matched. The winning recipe is actually quite simple. Director John Carpenter had a simple idea, he wanted to scare babysitters. Producer Irwin Yablans, who sought out Carpenter after viewing Assault on Precinct 13 to direct a film for him about a psychotic killer that stalked babysitters, eventually convinced the director to set the movie on Halloween night and name it Halloween instead of the original title The babysitter. Perfect really, and who better to scare then babysitters who would no doubt watch such a film when babysitting. Many suggested the film was a social critique of the immorality of youth and teenagers in 1970s America, with many of Myers' victims being sexually promiscuous substance abusers, while the lone heroine is depicted as innocent and pure, hence her survival. Carpenter dismisses such analyses but you have to admit, kids who were being sexually promiscuous and experimenting with drug watching the film probably made up a lot of the audience and they probably loved it for involving them. It certainly doesn’t do a film any harm to stir up a little controversy, although the critics who suggested that Halloween may encourage sadism and misogyny by audiences identifying with its villain took the laughable sudo-psychology embarrassingly serious. Carpenter added his own gloriously creepy score to the film and shot it beautifully. It was his direction and camera work made Halloween a resounding success. Shooting a basic horror film is easy, show some blood, maybe someone getting chased and you’ve got yourself a horror movie. To shoot a horror film and make frightening, unnerving and full of suspense however, it a fine art. It’s possibly the hardest thing for a film director to achieve and the reason why there are, in reality, very few genuinely terrifying horror films. The opening title, featuring a jack-o'-lantern placed against a black backdrop, sets the mood for the entire film. The camera slowly moves toward the jack-o'-lantern's left eye as the main title theme plays. After the camera fully closes in, the jack-o'-lantern's light dims and goes out. This scene clearly announces that the film's primary concern will be with the way in which we see ourselves and others and the consequences that often attend our usual manner of perception. This is emphasized even more so by the first-person point of view through Michael Myers’ eyes. Add the fantastic debut performances from Jamie Lee Curtis – who had huge pressure on her given that her parents were acting royalty (Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis) – and acting legend Donald Pleasence, and you’ve got a class act, a polished cinematic experience not usually associated with horror. In 1963, on Halloween night in the Midwestern town of Haddonfield, Illinois, young Michael Myers, dressed in a clown costume and mask, inexplicably stabs his older sister Judith to death with a kitchen knife in their home. He is subsequently hospitalized at Warren County's Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Fifteen years later, on the night of October 30, 1978, Michael's child psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis, and his colleague, Marion Chambers, arrive at Smith's Grove Sanitarium to escort Michael to court. Michael escapes from the sanitarium, stealing Loomis's car. Returning home to Haddonfield, Michael kills a mechanic for his uniform and steals a white mask, knives, and rope from a local hardware store. The next day, on Halloween, Michael stalks high school student Laurie Strode after she and local boy Tommy Doyle drop off a key at the former Myers house; the home is being sold by Laurie's father, a real estate broker. Throughout the day, Laurie notices Michael following her, but her friends Annie Brackett and Lynda Van der Klok dismiss her concerns. Loomis arrives in Haddonfield in search of Michael, knowing his intentions. After discovering that Judith Myers' headstone has been stolen from the local cemetery, Loomis meets with Annie's father, Sheriff Leigh Brackett. The two begin their search at Michael's house, where Loomis tries to warn the skeptical sheriff about the danger Michael poses, explaining that Michael is pure evil and capable of further violence, despite years of catatonia. Sheriff Brackett patrols the streets while Loomis waits and watches the house, expecting Michael to return there. Later that night, Laurie goes over to babysit Tommy, while Annie babysits Lindsey Wallace just across the street, unaware that Michael has followed them. When Annie's boyfriend, Paul, calls her to come and pick him up, she takes Lindsey over to the Doyle house to spend the night with Laurie and Tommy. Annie is just about to leave in her car when Michael, who stowed away in the back seat, strangles her before slitting her throat, killing her. Soon after, Lynda and her boyfriend Bob Simms arrive at the Wallace house. After having sex, Bob goes downstairs to get a beer for Lynda, but Michael stabs him with a knife which pins him to the wall, killing him. Michael then poses as Bob in a ghost costume and confronts Lynda, who teases him, having no effect. Lynda calls Laurie; just as Laurie picks up, Michael strangles Lynda to death with the telephone cord. Meanwhile, Loomis discovers the stolen car and begins combing the streets. Suspicious, Laurie goes over to the Wallace house. There, she finds the corpses of Annie, Bob, and Lynda in an upstairs bedroom, as well as Judith Myers' headstone. Horrified, Laurie cowers in the hallway, when Michael suddenly appears and attacks her, slashing her arm. Barely escaping, Laurie races back to the Doyle house. Michael gets in and attacks her again, but Laurie manages to fend him off long enough for Tommy and Lindsey to escape. Laurie defends herself by stabbing him with a knitting needle, a metal hanger, and his own knife, but Michael re-animates and attacks Laurie. Loomis sees the two children fleeing the house, and goes to investigate, finding Michael and Laurie fighting upstairs. Loomis shoots Michael six times, knocking him off the balcony; when Loomis goes to check Michael's body, he finds it missing. Loomis stares off into the night, while Laurie begins sobbing in terror. Producer Yablans stated: "I was thinking what would make sense in the horror genre, and what I wanted to do was make a picture that had the same impact as The Exorcist.” In that he succeeded. Carpenter agreed to direct the film contingent on his having full creative control, and was paid a $10,000 for his work, which included writing, directing, and scoring the film. He and his then-girlfriend Debra Hill began drafting a story originally titled The Babysitter. Hill, who had worked as a babysitter during her teenage years, wrote most of the female characters' dialogue, while Carpenter drafted Loomis' speeches on the soullessness of Michael Myers. The idea was to create a character, an evil, that refused to die. The idea that a child could be so scared by watching his own sister have sex instead to look after him he would then commit murder is pop-psychology at its very best and exactly the sort of nonsense that is behind every great horror film. The low budget limited the number of big names that Carpenter could attract, and most of the actors received very little compensation for their roles. Pleasence was paid the highest amount at $20,000, Curtis received $8,000, and Nick Castle earned $25 a day. The role of Dr. Loomis was originally intended for Peter Cushing, who had recently appeared as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars; Cushing's agent rejected Carpenter's offer due to the low salary. Christopher Lee was also approached for the role; he too turned it down, although the actor would later tell Carpenter and Hill that declining the role was the biggest mistake he made during his career. Yablans then suggested Pleasence, who agreed to star because his daughter Lucy, a guitarist, had enjoyed Assault on Precinct 13 for Carpenter's score. In an interview, Carpenter admits that "Jamie Lee wasn't the first choice for Laurie. I had no idea who she was. She was 19 and in a TV show at the time, but I didn't watch TV." He originally wanted to cast Anne Lockhart, the daughter of June Lockhart from Lassie, as Laurie Strode. However, Lockhart had commitments to several other film and television projects. Hill says of learning that Jamie Lee was the daughter of Psycho actress Janet Leigh: "I knew casting Jamie Lee would be great publicity for the film because her mother was in Psycho.” The role of Michael Myers, or "The Shape" as he was billed in the end credits, was played by Nick Castle, who befriended Carpenter while they attended the University together.  After Halloween, Castle became a director, making two of my favorite films of the 1980s; The Last Starfighter and The Boy Who Could Fly. Carpenter hired the great Tommy Lee Wallace as production designer, art director, location scout and co-editor. Wallace created the trademark mask worn by Michael Myers throughout the film from a Captain Kirk mask purchased for $1.98 from a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard. Carpenter recalled how Wallace "widened the eye holes and spray-painted the flesh a bluish white. In the script it said Michael Myers's mask had 'the pale features of a human face' and it truly was spooky looking. The director admitted he was first worried that children would be checking their closet for William Shatner after watching the film but not after Tommy got through with it. Everything about the film is perfect; Dr Loomis’s desperation, Michael Myers’s silent and focused revenge and Laurie Strode’s desperate and terrified attempts of escape. The music is the best of any horror film and is one of the greatest of all time. The scene where Myers comes out of the dark closet is not just perfect horror but it is sublime film making in general. It’s a horror masterpiece that raised the level high for the genre.