Wednesday, October 31, 2018

HALLOWEEN (1978): Early Low Budget Slasher Film



Forty years later, one of this film’s sequels is setting box office records.  Yet the original Halloween cost only $300,000 (though $300,000 meant a lot more at that time), and had a running time of only 93 minutes.  It was also the start of a long film career by Jamie Lee Curtis, cast in the lead victim role as Laurie.  Yet Laurie survived all of the mayhem.

We never figure out in that early film why Michael Myers in his Halloween mask so much wants Laurie dead.  Even Dr. Loomis, the intrepid psychiatrist played so adeptly by Donald Pleasance, can’t ever figure the serial killer out.  All Loomis knows is that Michael Myers should never go free.

Michael ended up in a psychiatric ward when only six-years-old after stabbing his sister, Judith, to death.  Fifteen years later, when Dr. Loomis was already planning on putting Michael away permanently, Michael makes his escape.  Of course, he breaks out just in time for Halloween.

Everyone knows pretty much the rest of the story.  Michael returns to his hometown and virtually kills anyone getting in his way.  Most of his victims are teenagers just a few years younger than himself.  We think many times that Michael Myers is dead.  Yet he keeps coming back to life.  (This trend was to continue through all of the Halloween sequels and remakes – most of them very bad.)

Halloween is superior to most other slasher films because of its director, John Carpenter.  Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis obviously helped as well.  Carpenter not only directed, but he also helped write and create the screen music. He also had an uncanny sense of timing.  Right when he made the audience feel they could relax, something sudden and terrible would occur.  This low-budget film at times can be frightening.  Carpenter also never makes the mistake of trying to pretend this movie was something more than it really was.

The problem with this kind of film is you’d think it has to end at some point.  Yet forty years later, Jamie Lee Curtis keeps making appearance and keeping this sort of film somehow relevant.  And some critics say that the current version of Halloween is as good as this original.  (The fact that critics keep saying such things mean we’re going to see more of the same.  What’s truly astounding is they say the same thing about other movies that are also sequels.)

That the success of this original film was in large part accidental should surprise no one.

October 31, 2018

© Robert S. Miller 2018