Halloween (1978)

Director: John Carpenter
Writer(s): Carpenter and Debra Hill
Starring: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Tony Moran

What makes a “classic” horror film?  Great acting?  Great special effects?  Great writing? A terrifying atmosphere?  Of course, such a question is subjective; what’s great acting to one person, another might consider lazy, and on down the line.  But think about your favorite horror film.  Now analyze it:  What makes it so great for you?  Maybe it has some great performances, which help to bring out the intensity and tension.  Or great writing, which is capable of making even the most ridiculous story at least somewhat believable.  Or maybe it impressed you with its dazzling special effects.  Chances are good that it meets several, if not all, of those, and probably then some.

Like with any genre, horror has their own list of films widely regarded as “classic”, and John Carpenter’s Halloween generally ranks near the top of every such list.  It’s frequently been cited as one of the scariest movies of all time. Its influence can be felt to this day, as it helped to create the blueprint for the American slasher film, which was a popular subgenre back in the early eighties and continues to be even today, following its resurgence thanks to the Scream series.  It also started its own successful franchise, giving Michael Myers the chance to return to theaters by killing horny teenagers every few years.

All this praise and admiration it has accumulated ever since its release seems to conveniently forget one small detail:  Halloween is a terrible film.  It really is.  And I’m not saying that in a “It’s technically bad, but it somehow manages to be good” kind of way.  I’m saying it in a way that suggests if you somehow could find someone who had never seen it, or heard of it, or knew anything of the hype, and made them sit down and watch it, they would tell you the same thing.

I’ll skim through the plot quickly, because chances are you know it by heart:  As the movie begins, Michael Myers kills his sister in Haddonfield, Illinois.  Shortly thereafter, he is placed in a psych ward over in Smith’s Grove, Illinois, which is 150 miles away.  But, surprise!, he breaks out, and returns to Haddonfield to stalk Jamie Lee Curtis and her friends.  That’s pretty much it, in a nutshell.

With that in mind, let’s revisit my checklist:  The acting is amateurish and cringe-inducing; ditto that for the writing.  The characters were generic back when they were created, and they are generic now.  Special effects are basically nonexistent, so that remains neutral.  The atmosphere certainly has moments of chilling effectiveness; I like how when Myers shows up early on in the film, the soundtrack pays him no attention.  Unlike movies that need a string swell every time something happens so you know to be scared, “Halloween” actually assumes that you’re smart enough to know what’s going on.  That, along with the music, are the film’s strongest suits, and that is by a country mile.

And should we really be heaping such praise on a movie that has helped to create one of the most lazy subgenres in all of horror: the American slasher film?  I specify “American” because the Italians were killing people with reckless abandon long before Halloween was made (sure enough, Carpenter has cited one such Italian film, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, as an inspiration in both the score and the lighting).  But those movies, while certainly having their fair share of graphic gore, were also part whodunits, inviting viewers to engage in the movie by guessing the identity of the killer.  Halloween and, by extension, most of the movies inspired by it (and the dozens released as sequels after it), are frequently exercises in banality; we watch the killer hack and slash a few teenagers or young adults, until he is eventually “killed”, an act that is either temporary, or permanent, depending on how much money the film makes.     

I’m not going on some moral tirade, because trust me, I enjoy a lot of crude and/or violent, and/or amoral films.  That is not the issue.  It’s just how little there is on display here:  There’s no style, with the static camera shots and standard visual compositions.  There’s little substance, with the lack of fleshed-out characters and constantly below-average writing; only a couple fantastic scenes of Michael Myers stalking (or attacking) his victims leave any sort of visual impression.  How a movie this bland became a blueprint for an entire subgenre is beyond me; how it’s still revered as a classic is simply confounding.

RECAP: Halloween is a terrible horror film, helped along only by a great score, some creepy scenes, and enough unintentional comedy to keep you laughing throughout its duration.  How anyone can watch it with a straight face these days is beyond me; how it achieved “classic” status is mind-boggling.  The acting is godawful, to the point of self-parody, the writing is terrible, and the visuals are bland.  It might have been good forty years ago, but then again, slavery seemed like a good idea at one time, too.

SCORE: 3/10

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