Top 25 Greatest Halloween Films: #6 – 'Halloween' (1978)

#6: Halloween (1978)

I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor.

A nothing budget, very little blood, and no gore – but what we do have are three sympathetic lead performances, a perfectly structured screenplay, and a young, hungry filmmaker who knew exactly where to place his camera and how to stage a scene. Those are and always have been the perfect ingredients to create lightning in a bottle.

In the entire world, Rob Zombie was the least qualified director to helm Hollywood’s least necessary remake. To anyone paying attention, it’s very simple. What makes Michael Myers Michael Myers is that he personifies True Evil; he is as remorseless as he is unstoppable. Worse, he is the six year-old next door who snapped for no good reason, the cute little nephew whose eyes suddenly went forever dead, and that sweet kid who sat next to your son in the first grade who one day decided he would hack his sister to pieces. But more important than any of that, Mr. Zombie, is that there’s no explanation for Michael Myers – no back-story, no pseudo psycho-sexual analysis, no politically correct trailer trash trauma, and every second that that ill-conceived (and over-directed) remake spent explaining Michael Myers not only drained away the very thing that made him the immortal stuff of nightmares, but reaffirmed just what a masterpiece co-writer/director John Carpenter delivered into the world late in the fall of 1978.

The year is 1963; the place, the fictional town Haddonfield, Illinois — a quiet, leafy, idyllic suburb that probably hasn’t seen a real crime in years. Through the eyes of … someone, we watch the stalking of a couple of randy teenagers, the grabbing of a butcher knife, and the slicing to death of a teen aged girl whose last word, “Michael!”, comes in the form of a scream mixed with recognition, disbelief and terror. A few beats later, and to our great horror and astonishment, Michael is unmasked by his parents and revealed to be nothing more than a normal-looking six year-old boy.

15 years later, almost to the day, Michael returns to Haddonfield after escaping from an institution and the care of Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance), the one man with enough respect for truth to dare point to evil and call it so and the one man with enough respect for evil to do everything within his power to stop it. For reasons known only to him (and it was better that way), Michael Myers targets three high school girls, a trio of friends with inter-connecting plans that evening who have no idea the Boogeyman is coming.

If I’ve seen “Halloween” once I’ve seen it a hundred times and obviously the scares wore off long ago (though last night, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) bumping into Sheriff Brackett on the sidewalk did make me jump). What keeps me coming back, though, is a story that immediately grabs you, the pure pleasure of watching a master perfect his craft, and a climax that’s second-to-none in the slasher genre that this, the granddaddy of them all, birthed.

At right around the 70 minute mark, after Lynda (the absurdly adorable P.J. Soles) and Annie (Nancy Loomis) have already been done away with, the narrative focuses on Laurie as she innocently and unknowingly crosses the street to check up on her two brutally murdered friends. Thirty-plus years ago, watching the perfectly paced and structured 20 minutes that follows might have been the greatest cinematic roller coaster ride of my life, and last night — while I might not have been all that tensed up — I was still completely caught up in the story and ended up screaming at those idiot kids to “Open the goddamned door!”

But no matter how times I revisit the film that rightfully kicked Carpenter’s career into high gear and forever cemented his honored place in the hearts of horror aficionados everywhere, nothing will ever dim the delightful chill of pure movie-watching pleasure that runs down my spine every time I bear witness to the badassiest of all badass horror moments. When Laurie has her back to Michael because she (and we) are sure he’s lying dead on the floor behind her … and then he sits up like some robotic monster from hell – it just doesn’t get any better than that. Oh wait, yes it does, because after Michael sloooowly turns his head towards Laurie — WHO HAS HER BACK TO HIM! – what does that genius John Carpenter do?

The bastard cuts away to another scene, leaving us hanging.

I was twelve years-old the first time Carpenter put me through that and it nearly stroked me out.

Oh how I love the movies.

UPDATE: Movie gods please forgive the unpardonable sin of my not mentioning John Carpenter’s incredible score which is second only to “Jaws” and “Psycho” in the department of chilling perfection. In the end credits, Carpenter hilariously credits his iconic work to the Bowling Green Philharmonic Orchestra as a tribute to the city where he grew up.