Halloween (1978)

Genre: Horror

Directed by: John Carpenter

Cast: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J. Soles

Running time: 91 minutes

On Halloween night of 1963, young Michael Myers, 6, stabs his older sister to death in the family home. The boy is then committed to a mental institution, from which he escapes 15 years later. Myers travels back to his hometown with the goal to kill again. With Dr. Loomis on his trail, Michael Myers is on the loose, and Laurie Strode, who is babysitting on Halloween night, seems set to cross his path.

This film has become a classic of the horror/slasher genre. It is a very effective movie in the sense that it doesn’t rely in extreme violence and goriness to cause an effect. John Carpenter concentrates on setting a tone and an atmosphere, with a slow and deliberate pace and really good eerie music. You know something is coming, you just don’t know when it will come.

The acting is sometimes a bit hammy and some of the scenes of violence come off as a tad cartoonish at times, especially when you look at it almost 40 years later, but, when you see it as a product of its time, Halloween is a very good horror movie.

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