As if the holiday wasn't creepy enough already.
Released: 1978
Genre(s): Horror, Thriller
1978: John Carpenter decides to let loose a homicidal, teen-butchering, knife-wielding maniac in a small, suburban neighborhood, set to spine-chilling, synth-driven keyboard music (composed by Carpenter himself). Thus, Michael Myers is created, launching a reign of supreme cinematic terror across a multitude of movies. I'm not a huge fan of slasher movies: they tend to be shallow, predictable, gratuitously gore-heavy extravaganzas, with few genuine scares, and even fewer likable characters. "Halloween" is a film I consider to be a true milestone in the development of the modern horror movie experience. John Carpenter crafts an incredibly simple, yet impressively effective villain in Michael Meyers - a character that is pure evil, plain and simple. The first entry in the series doesn't waste time explaining some forced, pop psychology-based filler of a backstory for why Michael is the way he is; instead, it almost immediately gets into what horror movies should be about: horror. The violence isn't overdone, but is so brutally efficient and savage that it comes as a major shock that there is virtually no gore at all in this film. This actually is a surprisingly effective technique, since "Halloween" doesn't rely on gimmicky effects to generate scares. The fact that Michael doesn't speak a word while he picks off his victims - instead breathing heavily through a rubber mask - kicks the creep-factor of this movie up many, many notches. The atmosphere in each scene is incredibly menacing, making some of the best scares in "Halloween" some of the most subtle (including one of the most unsettling scenes in a horror movie involving a bed sheet this side of "Paranormal Activity 3"). As far as I'm concerned, this film set the bar for every slasher that has attempted to follow it, with very few matching up to it, and even fewer exceeding it. If you're looking for an effectively frightening and grim thriller, look no further than this horror classic.
Rating (out of 5): 4
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