It is foolish to deny that this film by John Carpenter had a significant impact on cinema. 7 more parts of this film were shot, and in 2007 the franchise was restarted. Horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Scream were clearly influenced by Halloween. Many believe that it was this film that Carpenter launched such a subgenre of horror films as the slasher. Why is Halloween so popular?
In my opinion, there are two components of this success, in other words, two undoubted merits of the film. First of all, this is the atmosphere of the film. Carpenter managed to make the viewer feel tension and even fear not only in those moments where Michael Myers kills his victims, but also during moments that are not at all terrible, at first glance, moments. For example, in the scene where Laurie and her friends walk out of school and Michael drives by the car next to them. Creating the right atmosphere is greatly facilitated by excellent music, which was also written by director John Carpenter.
Secondly, this is the image of the murderer in the person of Michael Myers. He doesn’t say a single word in the whole movie. This man is dressed in some gray and unremarkable jumpsuit and wears a white mask on his face. So it's all about the intimidating mask, can't we be afraid of that gray jumpsuit? However, this is not quite the case. Additional tension is added by the special manner of shooting, when we see what is happening through the eyes of Michael Myers, feel his slow gait and hear heavy breathing from under the mask. Great director's move! Also complementing the image of a ruthless killer is the stories of his attending physician that when Michael was treated in a psychiatric hospital, he sat in his cell, looked at the wall, did not talk to anyone and now a certain “absolute evil” is walking free.
To the disadvantages of the film include the episode where Laurie rips off the mask from Michael and under it we see ... the face of the most ordinary guy. If Michael was wearing a mask all the time, it would add some mystery to the character, and we’d like to ask the question, “Who’s hiding behind the mask?” Also one of the drawbacks of the film is the “unkillability” of Michael Myers. Unfortunately, this is what many horror movies do. On the other hand, the second flaw makes the finale of Halloween mysterious and intriguing.
Thus, we can say that the film definitely makes a positive impression even on me as a person who is not a big fan of films of this genre. For horror lovers, the movie is a must. You need to know where it all started.
8 out of 10
P.S. Annie's right. Michael really is so cute in a sheet over his head!
Michael Myers brutally stabbed his sister as a teenager. It happened on Halloween. Of course, he was taken insane and put in a mental hospital, where he had his own doctor. But 15 years later, he escapes and goes to his hometown, where his second sister lives. And while he was working his way to her house over the corpses of her friends and girlfriends, his attending physician was on his heels, who raised the entire police and tried to catch the killer with all his might.
The first in a series of horror films about the mad Michael Myers, who walks in a mask for Halloween and kills everyone he does not like. Of course, now the idea seems far from new, but for the period of 1979, this film was a pioneer in its genre and set the rhythm for all subsequent films about serial killers. Of course, the film can be criticized for something, but personally I really like the play of actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who is only 20 years old here, and so this world she was not very familiar. That’s why it’s 100 percent.
Overall, it turned out to be a great horror movie, with the maximum immersion in what is happening. This is a good time to watch Halloween.
Halloween. The film that gave way to the genre of "slasher". There's a killer who's hard to kill. And he kills very easily.
John Carpenter made this film on a limited budget. Saved on everything. But if you do your job with total dedication, the result will be impressive. The collection and artistic value of the film showed this.
What is most striking is the number of murders. Very few of them compared to other films. But that’s because it’s not the main asset of this creation.
First of all, there is tension. Michael just walks around looking at his victims. It has a purpose. And only he knows which one. It doesn’t take action or drama to feel suspense. Sometimes it seems that there will be no murder. Michael's just like that, and then he's just going to go to Mexico. And no one's gonna die.
But alas. The silent killer has his favorite tricks in his arsenal. Two of them. It's strangulation and a blow with a big kitchen knife. During the bed scene, he respectfully let his victims finish their business. And then I made it clean. And with humor.
Jamie Lee Curtis screamed a lot. But she acted on the situation. She didn't know what was going on. I just wanted to fight for my life.
The Doctor is one of the main characters. He studied Michael best. Still, four hours a day for a long time he spent in the company of a silent and just staring at the wall of the child. Until his patient became an adult. Then he escaped from his prison.
While the movie may seem boring, just watch it. And then you will be involved in something more worthwhile.
It was an interesting reference to the movie "Something".
But the music has become a simple and unpretentious classic.
Autumn night. It's 1963. The wind is howling outside. The screams of the neighbors’ children suggest that today is All Saints’ Day! While most people are waiting for Halloween to carve out Jack’s flashlight, Michael Myers is just as eager to cut some people. Here, he puts on a mask and slowly climbs the stairs. In his hands, the blade of a kitchen knife shines. A few more seconds and Michael will carry out the death sentence.
Fifteen years after that day, Myers escapes from a mental institution and returns to his hometown, where he searches for suitable victims to vent his accumulated inner malice.
Who would have thought Halloween would have such an impact on the film industry? Of course, neither director John Carpenter nor his original audience, who probably left the theater with a paranoid mood, could find a safe space for themselves and wrap themselves in a blanket as quickly as possible to forget what they saw. One of the obvious moments of Halloween’s success is the attention to detail that is evident in every shot. For example, in Laurie’s room you can see a reproduction of the self-portrait of the Belgian expressionist artist James Ensor, who, among other things, depicted in his paintings through grotesque carnivals clowns – a view of human society as a masquerade. The words of the English writer Oscar Wilde that “the mask is always more expressive than the face; the man in the mask becomes liberated and can express the most secret and vicious movements of his soul, which in the usual state he would never do”, fully reflected the worldview of Ensor, who drew images from his childhood memories. Perhaps Michael tried on someone else’s mask, letting the demon dormant in him escape? Myers has no motive, he just kills indiscriminately. Maybe it's just someone's curse, where Michael's just a follow-up machine? A machine perceived as pure evil. He does not utter a word, and only an icy glance appears to the eye under the bleached mask of Captain Kirk, but nevertheless one turn of his head creates more tension and anxiety than the villains wielding a chainsaw or machete. The camera floats somewhere behind Michael’s shoulder in the hope of solving his mystery, but as a result finds only new questions. We don't know when he will strike again. Only the blurred silhouette of its shadow, ominously gliding on the walls of dark rooms, as well as a creepy musical score with sharp themes, can hint at the approaching moment.
While there are plenty of memorable scenes, the most prominent feature is the episode from the prologue, in which a young Myers puts on a clown mask and kills his victim. The shooting is conducted from the perspective of the killer, which allows the viewer to become an unwitting participant, plunging him into the epicenter of events and giving a hint that what happened on the screen could happen to absolutely everyone. As an amplification of this sense of identification with the on-screen heroes, much of the film is busy creating their mundane lives. The cozy home spaces where they live create a sense of security that is lost overnight when these shelters are invaded by Myers. Even if at first glance there is nothing here, or no one, you should not be happy ahead of time, because Carpenter will probably correct this little misunderstanding the next second. A very successful accusation of the security institution, which is ultimately unable to protect lives in unforeseen situations.
Carpenter, faithful to his Hitchcock influence, creates a cavalcade of moments mostly consisting of scenes of persecution, combined with clearly absent episodes of bloody violence, culminating in a clear hit on the main theme – evil never dies. Where is Michael now, who is he and what is with him? We will never know (at least in the first part), but his heavy breathing seems to be remembered for a long time.
Yes, Halloween is not perfect. The characters here behave stupidly and seem to have no peripheral vision at all, but this is a feature of the genre that did not prevent Carpenter’s creation from becoming a classic of cinema. “Halloween” is a film that really revolutionized the horror genre, creating a platform not only for modern films, but also becoming the godfather of the slasher genre!
On October 31, 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers stabbed his older sister with a kitchen knife. After fifteen years in a state of catatonia, Myers escapes from the madhouse to his native Haddonfield to continue the party. The object of his desire is a high school girl with brains (Lee Curtis), and on October 31 he begins to act.
"You're all in danger!" says Myers' doctor. "What are you?" the sheriff replies. In seventy-eighth, such dialogues looked very serious and thoughtful - thirty years later they look, to put it mildly, amusing. Time is getting old, but there are things without age. So Halloween, like Psycho, is one of those things. In Carpenter’s turbulent youth, there was no such thing as an indie, and there was no money to make his own movie. Shot for pennies, "Halloween" unpredictably proved to be a fool successful, spawning crowds of imitators. Wes Craven twenty years later created a similar horror, much more spectacular and much less terrible, and even strongly resonates with postmodernism. The original slasher formula was invented by Carpenter. Scabbering jokes of teenagers, drugs, dashing parties - all this was already in the distant 78th. Halloween is worth seeing because it is a cultural monument. Carpenter clearly shot with pleasure and fiction: the main theme from “Halloween” has become one of the most recognizable, and the competent use of the foreground and background allowed him to achieve an incredible effect – watching the film is really scary, and the presence of a supernatural background only increases the inflated atmosphere of tension.
"Halloween" may not be the most terrible horror film (there is also "The Exorcist", the recognized pinnacle of the genre, and "The Shining" Kubrick with "Disgust" Polansky in its own good), but certainly one of the most inventive. And it’s also a brilliant example of how, with no money but talent, you can create one of the greatest films of your era.
9 out of 10
A lavish classic from the master of horrors John Carpenter! The film collected at a meager budget quite a large amount, which can not be surprising because the whole film is built on one gloomy atmosphere and an amazing soundtrack that will undoubtedly warm the soul of fans of horror.
Regarding the story of Michael Myers:
A little boy who apparently never spoke to people suddenly stabbed his sister abruptly and was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where he spent more than 15 years and was able to escape. The story of Michael Myers is unusual, it is poorly told, but it is much better than the banal story of Michael performed by Rob Zombie, who in my opinion only stained such a clean and fascinating franchise.
A little bit about the cast:
Recruitment and play of actors turned out to be very high-quality at that time, very pleased with the presence in the film Jamie Lee Curtis who is herself a very talented actress and certainly Miss Halloween for centuries. The character of Curtis, Lori Strowge is very memorable and soulful, at the first minutes of the film you literally feel all the chilling fear that she experienced.
One of the best slashers of the time, the most memorable and atmospheric part of the whole series, a worthy brainchild of Carpenter!
10 out of 10
“And there is no masterpiece!” I read in one of the negative reviews for this film. And I felt sad. A wolf howl. So what do you call a masterpiece? After all, in Halloween, Carpenter gave us everything that is worth loving horror. Well, minus, probably, except for blood and special effects, but in this case this is the tenth case.
Michael Myers (the name Carpenter kindly borrowed from the producer who helped him with the distribution of Attacks on the 13th Precinct) is one of the most mysterious maniacs of cinema. Why did he kill his sister at 6? How does he really look (in the history of the series, his face was shown only once, except for the remake)? Why is it almost impossible to kill him? The last question is the most important one. Many people don’t like Meyers because of this, but it seems to me that Carpenter didn’t take his audience for idiots at all to show a stupidly unkillable dubolom. It's just that Michael is evil. Evil is indestructible. So he’ll go through everything on his way to Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis’ great debut), a girl he demonically wants to destroy. Unfortunately, in the sequels, this idea will be developed in the wrong direction, making Myers almost a self-parodic character, stuffing him with terminator indestructibility and even treating it with mystical forces.
In this picture, the work of the operator, the music (by Carpenter himself, she is brilliant), the actors (in some places, however), and, of course, Carpenter’s sense of when to catch up with fear are beautiful. I am still very frightened by the moment when Laurie’s niece looks out of the window and sees Myers carrying the corpse of a girl – there is no one on the street, and for some reason she makes her way to the bones. Michael’s spying on the girls (I didn’t see them before, and then I read them somewhere, and the truth is, he stops the car as if he wanted to attack them, but then changes his mind).
Thanks to Donald Plazens for playing Sam Loomis. Without him, the movie would not be like that. Thanks for the ending, which is a really scary scene. Thank you to everyone involved in making this film. Just sequels, guys... Remembering "The Scream" - "You know, sequels are never complete..." And the original is beautiful, yes.
10 out of 10
The first slasher for me was Black Christmas. Where a similar type called in the women's dormitory. This film was very influential on Halloween, and Carpenter himself is very fond of this work. It was there that the look from the face of the killer appeared, subtle camera hints. They were soon brought to life by Carpenter. But more in another, skillful form of film language. Look at the work with shadows in the picture, even in broad daylight, the footage seems quite exhilarating. The soundtrack is particularly pleasing. A very high-quality recording from the director makes you nervous even when you shouldn't. Look at any scene, there is no sea of blood, no severed limbs. All experiences of the victim are shown on the screen of the thanksgiving suspense effect.
Alfred Hitchcock developed this innovative technique in his Psycho, but it was John Carpenter who used the skills to his advantage. What an acting game! The debut of Jamie Lee Curtis came to fame and opened the way to the world of high-budget cinema. The main character in the face of actor Nick Castle received $ 25 a day, a rather small amount compared to today’s earnings of actors. From a low-budget commercial, Halloween has evolved into the box office horror film of its time. The creators should be thanked, often by production designer Tommy Lee Wallace. He turned on the fantasy, buying a mask of Captain Kirk from the picture “Star Trek” and painted it white.
In the end, we got a terrible image of the villain of all times and peoples! With a budget of $325,000, the slasher raised $47,000,000. Unprecedented income for non-profit American cinema. Look, every frame of the picture is just fascinating. A fairly simple plot takes us into a world of self-survival and madness. Where they won't ask you if you want to live another day. Michael Myers is insensitive, devoid of self-expression and individuality, the embodiment of evil, he walks on corpses to his goal Laurie Strode. Should I watch? Of course! And not once, because the real movie unfortunately dies.
10 out of 10
The film “Halloween” is not a simple horror film about a psychopath-maniac, as it may seem at first glance. It's a great mystical thriller. One of the best films in the history of cinema in general. Although the film is considered a horror film, I consider it more a horror thriller. Almost any horror movie, it is a thriller, but with more “expanded boundaries” to create fear.
In terms of mysticism, John Carpenter successfully came up with a mystical theme in the film. Based on Halloween. When in the West, especially in the United States, it is accepted as a joke, with humor to dress up in werewolves, vampires, watch all sorts of horror stories and generally create a "terrible" atmosphere. But in Carpenter's film, it is on this day when everyone is "playing with evil" that the real evil appears. No more jokes and jokes...
Director John Carpenter in his horror films (he is a diverse director, but he is known for horror films), as a rule, avoided frankly “terrible” scenes. And if they were, they were in the right place. He never set out to scare the viewer with simply "shocking" bloody footage. John Carpenter is known as the Master of Horror. And it's deserved. He is a true master of suspense and atmosphere. He created an amazing atmosphere in his films, which imbues you. And together with suspense, it keeps in tension much more effectively than “bloody scarecrows”. In this regard, it is very disappointing that at one time they did not recognize (after some time after the release, the film found a “second life” and it was recognized) a masterpiece called “Something”. The film was criticized for its on-screen violence. I don't know, but I didn't see much violence there. Perhaps this was due to the overall pessimistic mood of the picture. It was a very dark movie at the time. A film about paranoia, as 12 people who are cut off from civilization can no longer trust each other. Because any of them can already be an imitation of an alien from space.
But back to the main movie review.
Halloween was Carpenter’s first horror film at the time. This is his third full-length film. This fact gives even more respect to the author, because from the first attempt to shoot, one of the landmark films in the history of cinema. There are almost no bloody or similar scenes. There is a masterful atmosphere of fear and anxiety.
Michael Myers isn't just a maniac. He is the personification of evil in general. He's not human. The image of Myers, one of the most memorable in the cinema - a white mask on which "no emotions", a black jumpsuit, gait. By the way, Carpenter took Nick Castle for the role of Myers precisely because of the gait. Castle was able to reproduce the original gait that Carpenter wanted to see in Myers. Nick Castle has been a friend of Carpenter since their film school years. Both were in the same class (director). Together they wrote the script for Escape from New York, which Carpenter directed in 81. As a director, Castle is known to audiences for the comedy Major Payne (1995). In Halloween, Castle made a significant contribution to the image of Myers, that he would be remembered as one of the most terrible villains in cinema.
It was in this film that a magnificent duo of director and cameraman - Carpenter and Dean Kandy - developed. Together they will make 4 more films (including The Thing). Kandy is one of the best operators in Hollywood. In addition to the great films he made with Carpenter, he had a hand in the trilogy Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death to Her Face. As you can see from this list, Kandy has another beautiful duet with another brilliant director - Robert Zemeckis.
In Halloween, Kandy perfectly embodied the director’s plan. Kandy noted that Carpenter was a great visual storyteller. It was something to embody. While watching, you admire how amazing some scenes are filmed.
And of course, Halloween is a world-famous musical theme. I’ll be fair to say that it’s probably the best theme of horror movies and one of the best. It was written by Carpenter himself. By the way, Carpenter wrote music for almost all his films himself, which gave his paintings a special charm. That was his trademark. By the way, in "Halloween", before the title of the film, in the first appears the signature "John Carpenter's", which means "the film of John Carpenter". This is a kind of sign of quality that the viewer is waiting for the film, with all the director’s chips.
For Jamie Lee Curtis, this was the first film in general. This is her film debut. Before that, she starred in TV series. Jamie did a great job in her role. She doesn’t play well and plays well. Interesting fact. Her mother is actress Janet Lee, who played, we can say in the predecessor of “Halloween”, in “Psycho” Hitchcock. Remember the famous scene in Psycho where a woman screams in the shower? This is Jamie's mother.
Donald Pleasance is inimitable as Dr. Loomis. Carpenter is a fan of Pleasance’s talent and invited him to the role. However, Donald was in no hurry to accept the offer. Well, perhaps, because, to star in an unknown (at that time) director and even in “some” horror film, as doubtful. However, Donald’s daughter, after watching the film “Assault on the 13th Precinct” (the second film of the director), persuaded Carpenter to star.
Now, perhaps, when watching this movie, the audience will say, “Something like this I’ve seen before.” Sure. There were a lot of receptions from Halloween. Now, these are so-called templates. But rarely anyone manages to create a close suspense and generally the level of the atmosphere. And when it came out back in 1978, it was all new in cinema. That still, after so much time, the film looks and stands out.
So, before us a real classic of world cinema.
There's a famous recipe for a horror movie. First, we take the killer and invent him a difficult past / childhood. And then he started killing everyone. Then we'll pile up more screaming teenagers on the screen - and there'll be blood, blood! Finally, we find a vulnerability in the killer that will be attacked at a critical moment. Favorite, by the way, the moment of all screenwriters – the methods of execution include burning, drowning, beheading, or even dismemberment. With the exception of a compassionate psychological portrait, such a recipe was not disdained in the years of the very first Halloween. Even though Halloween itself does not follow. On the contrary.
This early John Carpenter film refers to the slasher pioneers, along with early Craven, Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, the Halloween massacres are a bit small and it begins towards the end. The main thing for the director is not the mountains of corpses, but the atmosphere, which he masterfully pumps. Under the simple music written by the director, the events of the death of Michael Myers’ sister and his escape from the hospital unfold before us. The action is transferred to a tiny provincial town, whose residents are preparing for Halloween, but ... the music does not stop. The maniac is here somewhere.
Myers will repeatedly catch the eye of his future victims before taking up the knife. Nothing special happens, he just stands in the distance and looks. Turns out that can scare you. Especially when you're straining your eyes and trying to figure out if he's wearing a white mask or if he's pale like a ghost. Is this a human being at all?
About the last Carpenter is categorical. As mentioned above, he does not care about the psychology of Myers. And in the twentieth century, there were cases when the devil simply invaded a person (remember the same “Exorcist”). This boy, too, seems to be possessed by evil. Through the mouth of Dr. Loomis, treating physician Myers, says the Director. "Was that Boogeyman?" asks the main character (Jamie Lee Curtis' first screen role). "If you want to know, yes."
This feeling of true evil does not disappear in the final. Who thought evil was mortal? Probably the one who believes in the triumph of good. Although, in fact, one without the other can not exist, and therefore the decisive shot gives only a tiny delay before the return of Myers in the sequel (which in fact turned out to be a template slasher with liters of blood, naked teenagers and a relative happy ending). The final touch – and the most brilliant director’s find! – under the dark musical theme in front of us flashes footage of places that we have already seen in the film: stairs, living room ... They are completely empty, but that doesn’t mean anything. Michael Myers could be anywhere. Maybe even in your own home.
The first Halloween. An independent, cult, so to speak, the brainchild of Carpenter, which shaped the slasher as a genre and threw a seed into the fertile film soil of the 70s, from which one of the most powerful and durable bloody franchises subsequently grew. Nevertheless, this is all the lyrics, which I did not focus on when evaluating, since merit is merit, form is form, and you still have to look at the content.
At the risk of incurring the righteous wrath of Myers fans, I will immediately say that although the film looks good, it did not cause puppy delight in me either during the first or subsequent revisions. There really is one serious “but.” In my opinion, the main merit of Carpenter in Halloween, and what clearly distinguishes this tape from other representatives of the genre of hard unmotivated mochilov (including from the “native” Halloween sequels), is the factor of realism of what is happening on the screen. The transfer to the viewer of the peaceful atmosphere of the stately Haddonfield director was certainly successful. Hence the slowness of the narrative, the general and long-range plans that prevail at the beginning of the film, the "car" shooting - everything that brings the viewer closer to the picture, and makes him a direct observer of events. In other words, the first (day) third of "Halloween" can only be applauded - an excellent, almost "Hitchcockian" suspense.
But then - worse, because the antagonist in the mask of William Shatner too long gathers with thoughts that begins to get very annoying. What exactly is Myers waiting for, morosely wandering somewhere in the background, and why is he so cautious, being, firstly, a psycho, and secondly, an "evil incarnation"? In general, the question of Halloween motivation of Michael put what is called a rib. If there is, it's not clear. If she is not, there must be a hellish unmotivated massacre, and she also does not, although there were at least plenty of convenient moments for her in the film. In general, the second third of the film really gives the impression of lazy sipping the cat by the tail.
And now at the end of the film, Myers still begins to “wet”, but urine is unfortunately not good. Boring and unsightly, to put it bluntly, wetting. I think it was just in the final that Carpenter had to forget about all this “realism”, let Michael off the brakes and give the viewer a crazy car-killer, but apparently the relatively low budget did not allow this. It's a pity, because Meyers isn't charismatic at the end of the movie, even though you're cracking. Even at the beginning of the film, he was more persuasive and sinister than he had been in the last half hour. Again, the sheet scene... Why? What was that sheet about? The fact that Myers is in some way a humorist will be hinted at only in the 5th part, but this is a completely different movie, here such chips look very ridiculous. And finally, the ending itself (or rather its actual absence) gives the impression of some kind of chopped-up and understatement, they say – see the continuation in the next series. That's not nice. The original suspense deflated here and did not reach the catharsis.
There are no special claims in the acting, although for Plazens and Curtis these are clearly not the best roles. The musical part is not bad, sounds minimalistic, but with taste, and the signature Halloween motif is great to color the right moments - another plus for Carpenter.
In other words, I consider the cult to be “good.” I can’t put anything more, because the director has too much bent the stick with the voltage to the detriment of the action itself, and in the end this stick just broke.
7 out of 10
