(forgot about this one, but there will be more later this year)
Halloween (1978),
dir. John Carpenter, Compass International Productions
Moving closer into the 1970’s, John Carpenter had already
made a name for himself with the intense Assault
on Precinct 13 and the darkly comic Dark
Star. His ability to direct, write, producer, and score his films could
have made Roger Corman green with envy.
1963 Haddonfield, Illinois is a fairly quiet and quaint
little burg. On Halloween night, while the streets are alive with brightly
garbed children in search of treats, Judith Myers (Sandy Johnson) is finishing
a quick tryst with her boyfriend, unaware that the preceding acts of teenage
passion were being observed by someone. The unseen voyeur also takes a good
sized butcher knife once the boyfriend has left and proceeds to slash Judith to
death in her bedroom.
Once the deed in done, the killer leaves the house only to
be stopped at the front door by Judith’s parents, who can’t help but wonder why
their young son Michael (Will Sandin) is alone and carrying a bloody knife.
Fifteen years later, Michael has been safely locked away in
a sanitarium. With his eighteenth birthday fast approaching, it was decided
that he can go to regular jail. His doctor, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence)
and a nurse arrive to find Michael has other ideas. One carjacking later,
Michael has a set of wheels and is burning rubber back towards his old haunt.
While this is going on, squeaky clean teen Laurie Strode
(Jamie Lee Curtis) is preparing for Halloween in her own way, mostly
babysitting by herself while her friends smoke pot and have sex with their
boyfriends. Pity for them their partying is going on near the old Myers place.
Can Dr. Loomis find Michael in time?
This is considered by many to be the film that ended the
sexual revolution, or at the very least establish the slasher genre rules.
Looking back, however, that line of thought doesn’t seem to hold up. If Michael
Myers is obsessed with killing fornicating teenagers, why does he target
Laurie? Sequels notwithstanding, the only thing Laurie does is walk by the
Myers house. Also, how would Michael know that Annie (Nancy Loomis) is on her
way to meet with her boyfriend? And that fact that the film has been endlessly
copied/ripped-off by filmmakers who don’t have a tenth of Carpenter’s talent
has managed to sour my opinion of the movie more than I though it would.
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