Halloween

I have watched several classic films this week, including a re-watch of Stanley Kubrick's brilliant satire of Doctor Strangelove, and a first viewing of Frank Capra's masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a film I'd immediately put on my Top 25, at least. But due to issues of time, school, and work, I've not found time to put fingers to keyboard and write on them. Therefore, this week I will address our film class's viewing this week: John Carpenter's Halloween.

This is actually my second viewing of Halloween. I first saw it many years ago on AMC, and I remember finding it dull, boring and a waste of time. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised on this rewatch that I was able to spot many admirable qualities which I'd overlooked as a younger lad. Unfortunately, however, my overall view of the piece was unchanged. As Halloween is in many ways the archetypical slasher film (or at least the one that made it popular with mainstream audiences), it isn't really surprising that most of the genre's most annoying and laughable aspects largely originated here.

Halloween presents a classic slasher movie plot, oft-copied but (unfortunately) rarely bettered. Michael Myers is a disturbed young boy who sees his sister engage in sex and kills her as a result. He is commited to an asylum, but escapes 15 years later, and returns to his hometown as Haddonfield, Illinois. He finds a cadre of teens, horny normal teens Annie (Nancy Loomis), Lynda (PJ Soles), and Bob (John Michael Graham), and outsider, bookish Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). Before long, on Halloween night, Laurie and her friends find themselves in the crosshairs of this psychotic, seemingly unstoppable killing machine. As Laurie fights for her life, Michael's former psychiatrist, Doctor Loomis (Donald Pleasance), is hot on his tail, desperately trying to stop his former patient before he can kill again.

We shall, of course, praise the film first, or else dispense with the complements before moving on the juicy bits of criticism. On a purely style level, the movie is brilliant. The movie manages to capture a dark, murky, nightmarish feel, effectively placing itself in a dream world; not only the night scenes, with Michael lurking in the shadows and sillhouted by street lights, but in broad daylight, where long shots emphasize the isolated, closed-in nature of Haddonville. The opening 10 minutes, with its point-of-view tracking shot of Michael stalking his sister, is a brilliant, stunning moment of bravura film maker. As is Michael's night-time escape from the asylum. Even as the movie begins its downward turn half-way through, it maintains its atmosphere: the movie is a nightmare come to life, with the Boogeyman lurking the shadows, always watching, impossible to stop. On style points, all kudos go to Carpenter. One might also applaud the virtual lack of blood and gore (a restraint which none of its descendants would display), and a number of striking images throughout - young Michael holding the bloody knife for his parents (an image appropriated from Argento), Michael's early appearances as a figure in the shadows and out of the corner of one's eye, the repetitive use of jack-o'-lanterns at effective moments as an avatar of evil.

Halloween, however, falls into many of the traps which most slashers suffer from. In the early scenes, the movie is effective in establishing atmosphere. But when the teens actually start being killed... the film slips into recognizable banality. Perhaps its just me, but the unseen threat is much scarier than actually seeing a graphic strangling scene. Yawn. The movie's attempts at a psychological explanation for Michael's state of mind, such as they are, are laughably unconvincing; one would have to think that simply seeing one's sister in act of coitus is hardly enough to drive one to killing. It's also laughable, especially all these years later, how clueless these characters are! What sane person, having subdued a homicidal killer for the second time, throw down their only weapon and turn their back on the killer? If characters in these movies had even a modicum of self-preservatory sense or some kind of reflex to turn their head a few inches to the right, these things wouldn't happen! The acting is also a non-starter; none of the characters give anything more than adequate performances, with Donald Pleasance looking at a loss to account for his presence in the film, and Jamie Lee Curtis giving little indication of being a star in the making. Carpenter's famous tinkling electronic musical score is effective at first, but quickly becomes repetitive and quite often intrusive.

A lot of these flaws are excused by many, if for no other reason than that Halloween was "First." The argument being, I suppose, that since Halloween was the standard-bearer and the level-setter for the genre. As if originality excuses laziness or cliche. Well, sorry, but that's just not true, as Alfred Hitchcock had already covered this ground in Psycho and Frenzy (although his killers were human beings and not boogeymen), Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the Italian slashers of Mario Bava and Dario Argento covered the same ground as their American counterparts (to the point, indeed, of being referenced directly by Carpenter and his colleagues), and, in Argento's case at least, much better. While I have my reservations about some of the above, the abovementioned films have an edge that Carpenter's work, as influential as it is, can't quite grasp. Not that Deep Red is any deeper or more intelligent than Halloween or Friday the 13th, but it has a unique feel, style, and most of all a maturity that propels it to being a truly great horror film, and not just a "Boo Movie" where teens get stabbed.

That said, Halloween is still effective enough on a certain level of nightmare terror. But it can't help escaping its genre-mandated traps. And thus, I don't feel I can give it above a 6/10.

Rating: 6/10 - Use Your Own Discretion