Halloween

            There are likely hundreds of 'great' movies that I have yet to see.  The problem with the word great is that it's so subjective.  Whether or not a film is good depends on who you talk to.  Some people may be upset that I have yet to watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly whereas others may take offense when I mention that I haven't seen SixteenCandles.  As far as I'm concerned, there are only about a dozen classics that I really, truly want to see.

            Halloween was the biggest, and quite likely the only, horror movie on that list.

            I've mentioned before how the late 70's and early 80's seems to have been the horror film heyday in America.  The ratings system had let go of Hollywood's balls and more and more of our films were being release with adult content.  Of course, for the longest time that just meant nudity and swearing (see: every hippy film from 1965+).  Then, it was B movie actions, then B movie horrors.  Suddenly, mainstream horror films were getting in on the action of throwing blood everywhere.

            This is not one of those films.

On to the review!

           

            Halloween opens with a death in the neighborhood, and the only blood you see is on the dead body and a little on the knife.  I'm fairly certain I've had paper cuts that bled more than the victim did, despite her 20 stab wounds.  That's not what matters, though.  What matters is that a deranged little kid is knife-wielder.

            Cut to 15 years later, and it's now Halloween, 1963, and the little kid is a big, frighteningly powerful mental patient.  Michael Meyers is his name, and, oh yeah, he just escaped.  Oops.

            While no genuine reason is ever given, the doctor in charge of Michael's therapy, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) just knows that the Meyers boy is obsessed with the scene of the crime.  All that boy wants to do is go back home and maybe kill a few more people.  Unfortunately, Dr. Loomis is having a hell of a time convincing anyone to help him.

            Meanwhile, the very same neighborhood that was Michael's stomping ground is now home to three lovely young ladies.  Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), Lynda van der Klok (P.J. Soles) and Annie Brackett (Nancy Kyes) are just three teenage girls who have shit to do tonight, and they want to relax and have fun while doing it, as teenagers are wont do to. 

            Of course, by 'shit to do,' I mean two of them have to babysit and the third wants to get trashed and bone her boyfriend.

            On a side note, I would really like to know just how far the 'if you have sex in a horror movie you will die' trope goes back.  Seriously, I think this horror movie staple existed before horror movies did.

            Anyways, back in Halloween land, the girls find themselves encountering a creep in a station wagon throughout the day.  Chalking it up to a harmless weirdo or overenthusiastic Halloween aficionado, they shrug it off and go about their business.  Of course, once night falls things take a turn for the worse.

            What I love most about Halloween is its sadistic obsession with creating tension.  The music will build and the scene will go exactly how you expect it to go, but then nothing happens.  Nobody gets hurt, the killer doesn't show up.  Okay, well, maybe they're going to do it now?  Nope, just more tension. 

            What director John Carpenter does with Halloween is brilliant.  He created this world where you know exactly what is going to happen from the opening moments of the film.  So in order to deliver any scares, he has to let the entire film simmer.

            And oh, what a slow, slow simmer it is.  This movie luxuriates in making you guess when the next victim is going to meet their end.  The only thing promised is that death won't happen the moment you expect it to.  No, that was just a tension builder.  The real thing is just around the corner...maybe.

            As a horror movie, it relies on genuine human emotion for its scares.  There are almost no 'boo' moments, and like I said before, there isn't really any blood or gore to speak of.  Halloween is frightening because it's about a silent, psychotic killer who patiently and methodically goes about removing innocent people from their pulses.

            Michael Meyers is what sets Halloween apart from the other crazed killers of the 70's and 80's.  He is patient.  Yes, the first Friday the 13th saw the killer taking advantage of situations, but mostly opportunistic.  Meyers is like a skilled trapper, setting everything up just right and attacking when his prey is at its weakest.  This was a huge difference when compared to people like Freddy, Leatherface and Pinhead.  Those guys just wanted you dead.  Meyers didn't want you to see it coming.

            Just like that, I didn't see how much I'd enjoy this film coming.  While it doesn't have the ridiculous excitement of Critters or the clever twists that characterized the first few Nightmare on Elm Street films, Halloween is a super-serious film about a super-deadly killer.  The problem is, everything hinges on playing it straight, making Meyers deadly, yes, but still human.  Once the later films make him out to be something more, they stop being scary and just start getting silly.

Oh yeah, did I mention the music?