‘Halloween’ (1978) Review

“I met him, 15 years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. 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, then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply… evil.” -Dr. Samuel Loomis

That was the story of Michael Myers, who in 1963 had killed his older sister and left a stain on the little Illinois town of Haddonfield as its own resident Boogeyman. At the age of twenty-one, after a decade and a half of inactivity, no words spoken, no thoughts or feelings expressed, Michael escaped from his mental institute in the vary car Dr. Sam Loomis was to transport him in, using a remarkable display of agility, strength, and wheelmanship. Michael was returning home to play a deadly game of Trick-or-Treat again.

Michael had chosen Laurie and her friends to be his next victims, but this proved to be his one fatal plan. Not only was she the first to stand her ground against him, but the end of this movie spins off into 6 different timelines over the course of 8 sequels and a two part reboot series. Directed by John Carpenter in his third feature film, starring veteran actor, the late great Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis and, in her film debut, the always beautiful, always charismatic Jamie Lee Curtis as our reluctant hero Laurie. Halloween may not be a proto-slasher, the first slasher film, or even one with a high body count. However, it did change the landscape of what horror was through the 90’s.

No longer was the killer in some abandoned place on a mountain or hiding out in the boonies, it was next door and coming over. And presented us with a slasher character truly worthy of the title ‘villain’, “The Shape”, aka “The Boogeyman”, aka Michael Myers, Middle name ‘F***ing’… just kidding, it’s ‘Audrey’. “Death has come to your little town.”