Forget the tension driven music. Forget that it was the most successful independant film for decades. Forget that Carpenter needed a mask for the main character and turned a Captain Kirk mask inside out. John Carpenter re-invented the only then recently established horror slasher genre with his 1978 film – HALLOWEEN.
We knew Michael Myers was sick, because he killed his sister when he was six years old. But Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis set up our imagination with one revealing line about the boy, ”… I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply.. Evil.”
Carpenter took his time setting up the final act of Myers trying to kill Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. But once the killing did start, we saw some classic slashing action on the screen.
John Carpenter may not be at the level that he was early in his career, but because Hollywood is going back and remaking his work speaks to the quality of horror that Carpenter was putting out. Luckily, Rob Zombie was such a fan of Carpenter when he remade HALLOWEEN (2007), which went over well for the fans.
My apologies for not posting this on the exact day it need to be posted, but it’s worth seeing any day in October or any other.
I didn’t post this up last year on the 31 Screams-A-Day because I didn’t want to use up all the best films on one year. There are PLENTY of great horror films to come (and bad ones that are great too), so keep coming back and checking.
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