Halloween (1978) Review

"He came home."
-Dr. Sam Loomis



Michael Myers (Nick Castle) has been locked away in a mental institution for 15-years after murdering his sister.  Now he has broken out and returned to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.  In his sights are a group of teenage girls who are stuck babysitting on Halloween.  Michael's doctor, Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), is in hot pursuit of his patient, but will he be able to stop the bloodshed in time?


What Works:

You can't talk about Halloween without bringing up the score.  Director John Carpenter also composed the score for this film and in doing so created one of the most haunting scores in film history.  It truly does make this movie.  The sound is extremely memorable and does an excellent job of building the tension and scaring the pants off of you.  It's a musical masterpiece and my favorite part of the film.

Donald Pleasence does a great job as the obsessed doctor determined to stop his patient. Pleasence plays the role with just the right amount of crazy.  His acting his excellent and I really enjoy how he doesn't have time for anyone else's B.S.  Dr. Loomis is a great character, one of the best parts of this series as a whole, and his debut in this movie is simply a classic.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays our main protagonist, Laurie Strode.  She's a really solid horror protagonist and plays the character with just the right amount of fear, while still being able to fight back against the masked killer.  The girl has some fight in her, and while she may not make the same choices a horror-savvy audience may make, she is at least capable and competent and some capacity and a well-crafted character.


What Sucks:

Apart from Laurie, the teenage characters in this movie suck.  We don't care at all about them and there was at least one that I wanted to see die.  Both Annie (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda (P.J. Soles) are mildly irritating characters.  Annie is kind of a jerk to Laure and Lynda really doesn't get much development apart from being a bit of an airhead.  Lynda's boyfriend Bob (John Michael Graham) doesn't get much development either, but he's a total creep with some of his comments and I was really happy to see him bite the dust.  These crappy characters make portions of the movie less interesting than they could have been.

There are also a few shots that go on a bit too long and a couple of times where Laurie is talking to herself that don't really work, but that's all I have.


Verdict:

Halloween is a horror classic.  It has some great characters, solid acting, a fantastic score, and a really tense finale, but some of the teenagers suck and there are a few nitpicks here in there.  The movie as a whole is a little bit overrated, but its impact on the genre can not be overstated.  All these years later and Halloween has still got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good 

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