Film Review: Halloween — John Carpenter (1978)
To get everyone excited for the new Blumhouse Halloween sequel out in cinemas right now, I thought I‘d give a little throwback to the one that starter it all, John Carpenter’s Halloween.
Made on a shoe-string budget of $325,000 the film went on to gross over $110m in box offices and paved the way for the Golden Age of Slasher films between 1978–84 and giving us all the big slasher franchises we know today such as Friday the 13th (1980) and Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
The film drew on influences from Italian Giallo and American Exploitation films of the late 60s/early 70s for their stylised uses of violence and B-movie asethetics. However it also added tropes of its own, such as the masked, silent killer, armed with household utensils, and exploiting dangers lurking in everyday suburban settings.
While Michael Myers in his creepy William Shatner mask armed with a kitchen knife definitely makes for a scary character, what stood out for me in the film was 1) its voyeuristic first person camera perspective, 2) its slow and suspenseful build up and release, and 3) its blood-curtling film score.
The opening sequence of the original takes us on a first-person tour of a suburban house where we become unwitting spectators as a young woman gets dressed and is then brutally knifed to death. It’s only a short while later that we find out that the killer is an innocent-looking boy — Michael Myers, who will return as a full-grown masked maniac later in the film.
From a psychological perspective these types of shots through the killer’s eyes, create a much stronger sense of suspence and dread than traditional horror would do by just showing a gruesome murder from a third-person perspective.
From a technical perspective very few people appreciate what an amazing fete it was to film the opening long tracking shot back in 1978. These days steadicam footage is used in almost every video, but back when Halloween came out, the camera operator Ray Stella had to run through the house with this attached to himself…
Not only does Carpenter create suspense in the film with his camerawork, but more importantly within the plot itself. Other than in the prelude where we see Michael Myer’s first murder as a child, the entire first half of the film is murder-free. Instead we start hearing rumours about someone escaping from the insane asylum and see a shadowy figure stalking Jamie Lee Curtis around a sunny green suburban town in midday. All of these work to heighten our fear as the sun sets and the killer gets closer and closer to his prey.
Finally the score of the film, drawing heavily from William Friedkin’s Exorcist and Dario Argento’s Suspiria really gets your nerves on edge with its eerie synths and three key piano tune. The piano keys almost are there to mimic your heart racing, while the dark synths are there prowling ready to pounce and slash in tune with the killer onscreen.
When watching most old horror film, the first thing that always strikes me is how unscary they are, especially all the murder scenes which usually look like the make-up team used oven mitts to apply tomato sauce to a store mannequin. The reason John Carpenter’s Halloween aged so well is exactly because he avoided all the gruesome effects and focused on heightening the suspense of every scene. He let Michael Myers slowly get closer and closer and closer and closer… until he was breathing down your neck… until you just wanted to yell at the screen for the characters to turn around — and then SLASH… (roll credits)
Film buff rating: [A] / Casual viewer rating: [A]
Where to watch: (TV stream) — NowTV/Sky Go (unfortunately Netflix doesn’t have a good John Carpenter collection) otherwise you can get it as a digital download on Amazon or Itunes.
For those film buffs who can’t get enough of the film— you’re in luck there is a whole documentary available on youtube!
