Halloween [1978] (5 Stars)

This is the second film in my John Carpenter mini-marathon. I bet you guessed what it would be. Look at the date! There's a new Halloween film in the cinemas at the moment, but I haven't bothered with it. One of my friends, whose opinions on film I greatly admire, has written badly about it. I'll wait until I can see it on a streaming service. I'm in no rush. The original is best.

"Halloween" wasn't the first slasher film. Four years earlier (in 1974) a film was made called "Black Christmas", which most people call the first slasher film. Some people name even earlier films, such as "Thirteen Women" in 1932 or "Psycho" in 1960, but these are films that we can argue about. Women get killed in these films, but it isn't until later films that the standard tropes of slasher films were defined. One of the main rules of modern slasher films is that the killer can't die. Either he escapes every time, or he has almost supernatural powers that keep him alive.

"Halloween" is the slasher film that made slasher films popular, whether it was the first or not. For years it was copied, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. It spawned a long line of sequels which didn't live up to the original.

One thing that makes "Halloween" stand out is the music. It was necessitated by the small budget, but if more money had been invested it would have spoilt the film. John Carpenter plays the music himself, a one-finger piano theme. Its simplicity makes it brilliant.

Another thing that makes the film so good is Jamie Lee Curtis as the killer's final girl. She's the one that the killer, Michael Myers, is stalking. Everyone else is just collateral damage. We don't find out until the second film why he's interested in her out of all the teenage girls in America.

So what will the third film be? Wait and see. Tomorrow isn't too long to wait, is it?

Success Rate:  + 213.4

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