Movie Review: Halloween 1978

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Well, since Halloween is upon us, i felt like we're going back in time with the classic horror films. But im not talking about the golden age of horror films in the 30's and 40's that most of you all know, im talking about the time that horrors are more focus about killing people known as the Slashers genre that takes place in Halloween.

"Halloween" is a 1978 indie slasher film that was written/directed by John Carpenter and co-written/produced by Debra Hill.

For many years, Slashers genre became a big deal from the late 70's to the 80's that gave many filmmakers inspired to make their own Slasher films, whether its big or low budget, and Halloween is one of the latter one. In fact, Carpenter, Hill and several crew members made this film with their budget of $300,000–325,000 (Damn, these movies are cheap back then...!), though il explained the presentation later on. 

Of course, as we all know, its not the first film that gave the birth of Slasher (or so we thought), there's a debate for two films that gave a birth of Slasher genre, there's the Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho from 1960 which it considered as the prototype of Slasher film and there's Bob Clark's Black Christmas from 1974 where some might say it gave a Slasher genre a big deal with numerous clichés from before. And interesting fact, Carpenter loved Black Christmas that he was asked to make a sequel, but taken place on Halloween. But Clark refused his request that he focused to stay away from horror genre (I guess it explained he made "A Christmas Story"), so Carpenter and Hill worked together to make their own Black Christmas, but retitled to just Halloween, which it may or may not be similar, but hey, it was all good to go that Bob Clark is ok with it to let him make his own holiday slasher film.

By the time the film was released, it became not just a classic horror film, but it also brought Slasher genre in the mainstream from late 70's to the 80's like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Child's play and many more. Though i never seen or heard this film as a kid until i heard about it from James Rolfe in Cinemassacre Monster Madness and his "Angry Video Game Nerd" episode of adaptation game in Atari 2600 for some reason by Wizard Game (which they also released their adaptation of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Atari console). Then i watched this film back in somewhere in 2018 or 2019 and i have to say, i enjoyed this film for fun moments and feel the disturbance. 

And yes, ever since it was so popular, there's always gotta be sequels (including the 2018 sequel with the same name that i covered before) and the remake by Rob Zombie.

So, with all that said, will Halloween is always considered classic, or is this film has the devil's eyes?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For an early slasher film, the story is impressive and also made us feel the disturb from a killing stalker.

The movie begins in the year 1963 at Halloween in Haddonfield, Illinois (despite the REAL Haddonfield is in New Jersey), where a first person is walking towards his house and seeing a boyfriend and a sister Judith are making out together, but when a boyfriend walked out of house, the first person picked the kitchen knife and mask to killing his sister out of shock, but once he's leaving, the first person happens to be a 6 year old Michael Myers, which the parents were shocked and probably offended from his murder of his sister. Fast forward to present time (though taken place in 1978), we introduce Dr. Sam Loomis, a psychiatrist who's on way to checking at  Smith's Grove's sanitarium with Marion Chamber for Michael Myers, but after the patients are outside in a night rain that Loomis is checking at the gate, Michael Myers goes into "Grand Theft Auto" mode to not only trying to assaulting Marion, but also steals her car and drives away to Haddonfield. Meanwhile, we introduce Laurie Strode, aside of going on the school and takes the key to an abandoned Myers' house, but also on babysitting to Tommy Doyle in Halloween. However, little did she knows, she noticed a masked stalker who's looking after her for death, its up to Laurie to save herself from The Shape (or The Boogeyman that Tommy referred as), while Loomis is gotta find Myers for how pure evil he is.

The story itself of this movie is pretty good for the late 70's it was never treated as a silly mature film, it was treated as a dark, disturbing and scary build up in the movie, we can feel the fear when Michael Myers is hiding around, stalking for his death wish since his murder of his sister, it is a well done of writing and the build up before Halloween night. Even though the writing is pretty good, but it doesn't mean its perfect, there a couple of times that its either dragged or some of the dialogue is kinda dumb for some of the characters (which we'll get to that later), but it has some memorable lines and delivery.

While some writing could be botchy, but its more like A- with the execution of plot driven, the build up and some memorable ones.

The Presentation

At first, it may sounds slightly expensive B movie for how good it looks, well, you might be wrong, because this film is extremely cheap as about $300,000–325,000.

The filming locations are pretty nice and simple to make it looks like a peaceful village in a celebration of Halloween, but instead of Halloween party, its more like seeing kids doing trick or treat or looking around if Michael Myers is lurking around (both in day and night), although the filming location isn't in Illinois, but rather filmed in California. Like i said before in the story, the movie takes place in Haddonfield, Illinois, which i though its a fictional town, but its more like both fictional and reality, though "Haddonfield, Illinois" may sounds like a generic fictional village, but is in fact and real life Haddonfield, but unlike the movie, this one is in New Jersey, which im pretty sure its an inspiration where Hill and Carpenter when they possibly lived there before. Btw, while we watched the movie, the filming is nice and smoothly for what they did, its was all thinks to "Steadycam", its a camera stabilizer mounts for motion picture camera to make clean and smoothly while they film on either walking or running instead of having a shaky filming. Interesting fact, whenever our characters watching in front of TV, they show briefly showing us a sci-fi suspenseful film called "The Thing from another world" in 1951, which it became an inspirational film that Carpenter made a his own remake in 1982.

As for the effects and the design, while the filming is impressive, but due to a low budget that i mentioned before, the effects and the design is pretty minimal, the killing are scary, sorta realistic like usual throat slicing open to stabbing, or even nonsensical, for example when Michael Myers caught Bob, he stabs him to death through the wall, making Bob looks like a dead decoration, despite for the fact that he's using a kitchen knife. When it comes to the body counts, though may not as graphic as our current generation, but they're only 5 people being killed by Michael Myers.

And speaking of Michael Myers, again due to the low budget, one of the production designer and co-editor Tommy Lee Wallace is on the shop that, aside of buying a boiler suit, he's looking around to finding a perfect mask for Myers in costume shop in Hollywood Boulevard, which happens the mask based William Shatner by Don Post in 1975, in order to make a scarier mask for The Shape, they shaved off the sideburns and eyebrows, messing the hairs and the face painted white, and thus, the appearance of Michael Myers is born.

One last thing i like to add is the soundtrack, the music is also cool, but also made us to feel the disturb for as always, Michael Myers hiding around to targeting Laurie, especially with the main theme that it played nearly all over, but don't give me wrong, i like this theme song too, my friend, and its no wonder why we like to thanks to John Carpenter for also composing the soundtrack in this movie.

While the budget is understandably low, but they did a pretty job how the film's presented.

The Characters

For the characters, they're a usual standards like any horror films, but then again, its one of the early examples of a token characters before the rising of slashers genre.

Lets start with Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis), as we all know, she's a careful and disturbed girl who's easily the original final girl in slasher films, as i said, despite celebrating Halloween, but also going for babysitting to Tommy, despite has to deal with The Boogeyman. Its also worth to tell that Jamie is the daughter of golden age actress Janet Leigh, best known as Marion Crane from Psycho, coincidence or not, its pretty fascinating to know, but unlike her late mother, Halloween was Jamie's very first film role (unlike her early appearances on TV shows) and she did a pretty good job of her role, you can rooting her that she has to survive from The Shape and its no wonder she was given as "Scream queen".

Our second protagonist is Dr. Sam Loomis (played by the late Donald Pleasence), he's a psychiatrist for Michael Myers that ever since he saw him, he always believe that he's pure evil that he has no choice but to hunting down, despite at the second and third act, he just standing next to abandoned house and one time being an A-Hole if nobody understands how dangerously evil Michael was. Even though he's a very warned person, but he's a well-written character in the movie, you can feel the disturbance how the way he describes Michael is a emotionless boy with his darkest eyes, the devil's eyes as he called. And its no wonder why we loved Loomis so much how not only he explains about The Shape, but also a great delivery from Donald Pleasence, he did an amazing job, even its a damn shame that he's no longer with us from his death in 1995 (the year of my birth).

And we have the main antagonist of the movie, Michael Myers, as i said before, he's a stalking serial killer who started to murdering his sister Judith and going after Laurie for his menacing reason from Loomis. Even though he may not be my number 1 favorite slasher as Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, but he deserves a recognition as possibly the OG slasher, based on his strength, killing with kitchen knife and his signature Shatner mask. However, unlike play by one actor, he's played by different people, il make a list whether its true to not, based my research from Cinemassacre's Sequel-a-thon from Monster Madness;

Nick Castle primarily playing as Michael Myers as we all know, though he was credited as "The Shape".

When Michael Myers is unmasked, he's played by Tony Moran (though he was a very struggling actor).

When He was young, he was played by Will Sandin.

When Michael breaks in like either door or in a closet, he was possibly played by aforementioned co-editor Tommy Lee Wallace.

When he got shot and fell off, he's played by a stunt performer James "Jim" Windburn

When he stabs his sister Judith, he's possibly played by producer Debra Hill

And rumor told that Michael could be played by John Carpenter, which scene you ask? I don't know.

Despite of played by multiple people, Myers will never be forgotten as the original slasher.

As for the rest of the characters, they're not much else, just a token horror characters that you can make a cliché list.

There's Annie Brackett (played by Nancy Kyes, aka "Nancy Loomis") who's Laurie's best friend who's also doing a babysitting, but to a girl Lindsey Wallace (played by Kyle Richard, who's a girl, not a man, based on the name), Lynda Van Der Klok (played by P.J. Soles), a "Valley Girl" who can't stop saying "Totally" over and over, literally, Tommy Doyle (played by Brian Andrews), who's a young boy who's babysat by Laurie, Sheriff Leigh Brackett (played by Charles Cyphers) who's Annie's father and sorta being a sidekick of Loomis, Bob Simms (played by John Michael Graham) who's Linda's drunken love interest, Marion Chambers (played by Nancy Stephens) a nurse of sanitarium who's only shown in the beginning and Judith Myers (played by Playboy model Sandy Johnson) who's Michael's older sister to be first killed off from prologue.

While the characters are nothing new, but they're the early examples of token horror characters, but as far as we know, the main focus are Laurie, Loomis and Michael Myers through out the movie.

SPOILER ALERT for anybody who haven't seen the movie or don't mind.

The final act is going to be in a scary ride in one night of Halloween.

After Loomis see a stolen Chambers's wagon that Michael Myers drove away, its a wake-up call for him, as Michael Myers killing off Annie, Bob and Linda, Laurie is in high alert that The Boogeyman is going after her, after got slashed on her bicep and fell off from stairs, Laurie is limping running away for help to going back to the Doyle's house in alert to kids to hiding together, but Myers follows her way to easy, including breaking the closet to hunting Laurie down, but got backfired when Laurie stabs his eye with a hanger and stabs on his gut with a knife. After that Laurie tells Tommy and Lindsey to leave to call the police, which thankfully Loomis heard the kids in panic that he finally reaches Tommy's house. After failed attempt to strangle and being unmasked (despite puts his mask back on), Michael ends up getting shot by Loomis and fell off from the house, which Laurie asks if Michael is a Boogeyman, which Loomis agrees, but agreement means late, cause as Loomis checked, The Shape has disappears, meaning its far from over that Michael Myers is out there in Haddonfield...!

The final act is the most memorable part of the movie, despite it feels slow, but then again, its always gotta be the build up to a climatic chase in the house to house in order to get away or trying to kill Michael Myers, especially with false endings that he'll always getting back up, but in the end, despite Loomis's effort to kill The Boogeyman, we're not safe when he'll be back.

And now for my final opinion of this film.

Overall, Halloween is a classic slasher horror film that after the years that i haven't seen the whole movie, im finally being happy to see this film, the writing is good, the presentation is outstanding and the characters are memorable.

While the film is understandably cheap of $300K for the production, the movie is kinda taking a while before we get to the climax, but then again, its all about the build up when Laurie got stalked by The Shape, while the remaining characters are not bad, but most of them just show for either development or just being a body counts, though sometimes the writing could be a bit botchy, but hey, at least the movie has a good execution.

Is it a recommended film? Of course it is, its a classic film that everybody loved to talking about this film or even making an urban legend of slasher. And like i said, the movie is so inspirational that many people make their own slasher film (some are also classic or play crappy, but hey, its the late 70's and 80's).

For my rating, despite some flaws, but then again, im having fun for watching the original Halloween, so il give this one a perfect 10/10. Go watch either in Halloween or whenever you want to.

So this ends of my movie review, and before il end this, since this film was a major success, it spawned sequels, do i want to review sequels or remakes? Well, im not sure, even though i've review the 2018 sequel and il review Halloween Kills for next year, due to the pandemic. Anyway. 

if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on https://ko-fi.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out and Happy Halloween, everybody.