Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
True horror, 22 Oct 2006
This is one of the greatest horror films ever made and deserves a place on every horror film fans shelf. Made on a showstring budget of about $300,000 it went on to become the most successful independent movie of all time.
The film is directed by John Carpenter, who at this time was churning out cult classics every year or two. Carpenters use of the camera as the killers view set a trend that continues to this day. Of course 'The Shape' as he came to be known, is a truly nightmarish creation. He wears a mask, which apparently was originally a Captain Kirk mask which one of the crew adapted! He's virtually indestructible, totally inhuman and one of the scariest killers ever.
Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty good, but the main reason to watch this from an acting point of view is Donald Pleasence who plays Dr Sam Loomis. Pleasence's role is crucial to the film, as some of the lines he has to deliver are, well a little clunky, such as
"He's gone from here, The evil is gone".
However Pleasence delivers them, good or bad, with conviction and gives a fantastic performance.
Another reason this film works is Carpenters creepy musical score, which racks up the tension at all the right points.
I'll give the final word to Dr Loomis:
"I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes! I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil!"
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Death has come to your little town, 3 Aug 2007
Once Halloween was Samhain, the one night of the year when the dead returned to cause trouble for the living.
Well, Michael Myers wasn't dead, but on "Halloween" he returned to cause trouble for the people of his hometown, with all its dark houses and teenage victims. And John Carpenter's masterpiece lives up to its reputation: creepy, eerie, harrowing, and full of solid acting from Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis.
On Halloween, 1963, young Michael Myers lurked outside the house while his sister had sex with her boyfriend. After he left, Michael put on a mask, picked up a knife, and stabbed his sister to death.
Fifteen years later, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is about to take Myers to a legal hearing, when Myers (Nick Castle) breaks open the psych hospital and escapes in Loomis' car. On Halloween, teenage Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) notices a silent, masked figure popping up and disappearing near her school, house, and neighborhood.
Despite this, she goes about her babysitting duties, even taking care of another girl's charge overnight. The only problem is, the girl is dead, and so is another pal and her boyfriend. Dr. Loomis is staking out Myers' old home, unaware that Myers is now prowling the house where Laurie is staying -- and there seems to be no way to avoid the knife-wielding "evil."
It sounds like a thousand knockoff movies made since then, but "Halloween" formed the original mold. And like any other groundbreaker, it is the most stripped-down, intense example of the genre -- little gore, little graphic violence, but the way it's handled is enough to make your hair stand on end, and make you go to bed with a gun under your pillow.
And Carpenter handles the spookiness beautifully -- initially, the story is pleasantly average -- teen gossip, small-town atmosphere, and chatter about boyfriends, dances and babysitting. It has the occasional spooky moment -- such as Myers popping out of a hedge to stare at Laurie -- but isn't really scary just yet. But as Myers starts bumping off teenagers, the plot darkens and twists.
Carpenter spins up a claustrophobic, trapped feeling, partly due to a shadowy old house full of windows and doors, any of which could be Myers' way in. You can't help but jump with every shadow. And Carpenter sprinkles the plot with unspeakably creepy moments -- Myers quietly slithering in a window above Laurie, or dressing as a ghost with only his heavy breathing to identify him.
Curtis was the original scream queen thanks to this movie, and she does an amazing job -- even when she's racing around pounding on doors and shrieking, she seems realistic. Pleasance is just as good as Loomis, who is determined and full of dread at what his patient is, but also has his moments of humour (like when he frightens some pranksters at the Myers house). And though we only see Myers' face a few times, his masked face, silent movements and heavy breathing are the stuff of nightmare.
"Halloween" was a more psychological, atmospheric kind of horror, and it did its job almost too well. The original slasher movie -- harrowing, eerie, and petrifying.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scary as any horror film I have ever seen, 29 May 2007
What can I say about this film that hasn't already been said before. I am going to say it anyway, this is as scary if not the scariest film I have ever seen and I don't think I will ever see a scarier one ever again. Having grown up with horror movies, I first saw this as a kid in the early 80's and it genuinely terrified me, and that was with the lights on. If I had watched this alone with the lights off then I really don't know how I would have got through it. I have seen it so many times since then that it will never be as scary as is was then although just as enjoyable, but on first viewing the music, that opening scene, the camera work that floats slowly around the empty neighborhood and especially that breathing from a Michael Myers point of view and yet like the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (also one of my scariest) it barely has any blood and guts.
I also love as with all John Carpenter's early horror films the timing of each murder, it is timed to perfection. It all starts off with Michael Myers just creeping around the ghost like town neighborhood deliberately unsettling Jamie Lee Curtis and making her completely paranoid, but when it really gets going its non stop until the end.
I was a little sad to hear of the death of Debra Hill who died of cancer (she played a big part in making this film alongside John Carpenter) in 2005, she was only 54. For those of you that don't already know, she also played a bit part in this film, the opening scene as young Michael Myers when he takes his mask off and takes the knife out of the kitchen was her hands, she also worked with John Carpenter on some of his other films for example another one of my favourites, The Fog, RIP Debra Hill.
There are just a few things that are ridiculous about this film for example, when Michael Myers is hanging around outside a school in a William Shatner mask, surely somebody would report it and also the fact that he is one of the smoothest drivers I have ever seen for somebody who hasn't even had any driving lessons and especially driving with that William Shatner mask on. But these are just silly criticisms, and anyway the fact that nobody seems to notice him just make it all the more creepy.
The most important thing is that as a horror film it is made to be scary and this most certainly is just that.
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