An Introduction In the late 1970's, the customary horror film was in a state of despair. Fright night classics such as THE EXORCIST and Hitchcock's PSYCHO had become dated and seemingly archaic. The contemporary horror market had become saturated with low budget gross-out flicks and brainless drive in schlock. It seemed as though the horror film had finally met its maker. And even though maverick directors such as Wes Craven (LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT), Dario Argento (SUSPIRIA), Bob Clark (BLACK CHRISTMAS) and Tobe Hooper (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) continued to push the proverbial cinematic envelope, their films hovered in relative obscurity. The Hollywood moguls and the mass movie-going public had all but forgotten the horror film -- but that was about to change. In October 1978, John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN was released on an unsuspecting public. The film was a smash both critically and financially. Its theatrical run lasted more than two years and ultimately pulled in an astounding $56 million at the box office, becoming the then-highest grossing independent film of all time. It would go on to spawn seven sequels and a slew of imitators. More than twenty years later it is still revered by fans and critics across the globe. And while its sequels were never able to maintain the brooding, atmospheric tone of the orginal, they remained solid and consistent with other genre hits, making HALLOWEEN the most successful horror franchise in the history of modern cinema. Halloween (1978) Undoubtedly a horror classic, the movie kicks off on Halloween night in 1963, when a six-year-old boy in a clown mask stabs his sister to death after she makes love to her boyfriend. The boy, Michael Myers, is institutionalized -- until, exactly 15 years later, when he escapes and returns to the small Illinois town of Haddonfield once more to wreak Halloween havoc. His psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) proclaims "The Evil is loose!" and is in hot pursuit with the authorities. Meanwhile Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) seems to be the only girl in town without a date for Halloween. All her high school friends seem to have hot dates scheduled but bright, bookish Laurie must settle for a quiet evening of babysitting, fending off trick-or-treaters, and watching old science fiction movies on television. Just another boring evening? Hardly. There's nary a drop of blood on screen in this rollicking funhouse of a movie but there is enough sheer cinematic ingenuity on display to coax screams out of the most jaded gorehound. Cheap thrills -- often accompanied by a joybuzzer noise on the soundtrack -- lurk on the periphery of nearly every frame and film history allusions abound. Fans of the moving camera also have reason to cheer as the Steadicam prowls the suburban streets unexpectedly turning into ominous point-of-view shots accompanied by creepy piano music (composed by the resourceful Carpenter). The performances are also far better than average for this kind of fare. Pleasance is a hoot as he gnaws on the scenery and the pleasingly equine beauty of Jamie Lee Curtis -- at the beginning of the fondly remembered Queen of the B's stage of her career -- enhances her sensitive performance. Nick Castle, who plays the killer, even manages to deliver a performance above and beyond any screen slasher we've seen before or since. HALLOWEEN was the surprise hit of the 1978 Chicago Film Festival, where enthusiastic critics compared it with Hitchcock's classic PSYCHO (which starred Curtis's mother, Janet Leigh). Though Carpenter's clean, economical style owes a much greater debt to another master craftsman -- Howard Hawks. From the opening -- a long Steadicam shot reminiscent of the opening scene in Orson Welles' A TOUCH OF EVIL -- to the climactic battle in which Curtis fends off the maniac time after time, only to have him rise again, Carpenter displays an astounding stylistic assurance for a young director working with a low budget. Halloween II (1981) Debra Hill and John Carpenter produced and wrote the screenplay to this 1981 follow up, but there is no doubt that this film falls drastically short of living up to the original. Although Dean Cundey's photography goes a long way toward recapturing the look of the first film, director Rick Rosenthal is no Carpenter, and the emphasis here is on graphic blood and gore rather than the skillful manipulation of the audience. Picking up minutes after the last film left off, HALLOWEEN II finds the lone survivor, Laurie Strode (once again played by Jamie Lee Curtis), being taken to a local hospital to recover from shock. The killer, Michael Myers, eludes police and hunts her down, slaughtering a bevy of nurses and doctors before Dr. Loomis (Pleasence) catches up to him for an apocalyptic showdown. Rosenthal later claimed that Carpenter came in at the end of the shooting and personally directed some gore sequences, though crew members say this was done to salvage the mess Rosenthal had created. Carpenter himself kept entirely mum on the subject until recently, claiming that he had always resisted the efforts of partners Hill, Moustapha Akkad, and Irwin Yablans to involve him in the sequels but that he was always "suckered in at the last minute." Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) Though the name's the same (as are some of the production credits), this film has nothing to do with HALLOWEEN or HALLOWEEN II. Coproducer John Carpenter tried something completely different here by replacing Michael Myers, the mad slasher, with Dan O'Herlihy, a mad scientist/mask maker who abhors the commercialization of Halloween and wants to return the holiday to its satanic origins. To do this he cleverly markets a series of rubber Halloween masks that all the kiddies throughout America will be clamoring for, and implants each one with a microchip that will be activated by a television commercial broadcast on Halloween night--thus killing the children. The script was originally penned by respected British science-fiction writer Nigel Kneale (a personal favorite of Carpenter and the author of the excellent "Quatermass" series), but dismayed by director Tommy Lee Wallace's haphazard realization of his work, he sued to have his name removed from the credits. Though the film certainly has its faults, its more or less a solid genre effort with a generous mix of black humor and the usual blood-and-gore. Unfortunately, the result alienated many genre fans, who went in expecting to see another Michael Myers movie and got Dan O'Herlihy instead. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) The best of the sequels to Carpenter's seminal slasher masterpiece, this one hit the screen just in time to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original. Picking up 10 years after HALLOWEEN II left off, we learn that the infamous "Shape," Myers, has survived the fiery blast that appeared to kill both him and his perennial pursuer, the slightly mad doctor Doctor Loomis. Having been in a coma all these years, Myers finally comes to, slaughters his handlers, and escapes while being transferred from one mental hospital to another. When Loomis -- who also survived the blast, with only some facial scars and a limp to show for it -- hears the news, he immediately heads for Haddonfield, Illinois, the site of Myers' rampage a decade ago. Knowing that Myers has a grade-school-aged niece (Harris) in Haddonfield, Loomis assumes that the psychotic killer will go home to finish her off. Although Carpenter has disavowed any connection with the HALLOWEEN series and had nothing whatever to do with this sequel, HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS is easily the best entry since Carpenter's original. Directed with flair by Dwight H. Little, who does not blatantly ape Carpenter's style, the movie delivers a number of effective chills without relying too heavily on the kinds of tired tricks and bloody gore that have made this genre a boring cliche. The solid script by McElroy takes time to develop its characters, exploits each situation to the fullest, maintains a fairly complicated structure (with several simultaneously running subplots), and taps into childhood fears in the way that made the first film so memorable. Like always, Pleasence turns in a great hammy performance as the crazed doctor. With his scarred face and painful limp, he has begun to take on the mantle of a modern-day Captain Ahab, relentlessly pursuing his white whale. Carpenter -- who didn't want to participate in any more HALLOWEEN films and who was forced to divest his financial interest in the series after being threatened with a lawsuit by his partners (Moustapha Akkad, Irwin Yablans, and Debra Hill) -- didn't want his name on the film, forgoing the credit line "Based on characters created by John Carpenter and Debra Hill." The producers were determined to place Carpenter's name prominently in the credits anyhow, and his name appears by itself on screen when the theme music is credited to him. Despite Carpenter's misgivings, HALLOWEEN 4 is a worthy successor to his original and nothing to be ashamed of. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) The fifth entry once again concerns Michael Myers (this time played by Donald Shanks), who returns to Haddonfield, after surviving a shootout, to kill a little girl with whom he is psychically linked. Of course, the indestructible and delightfully over-the-top Donald Pleasence pops in and out hoping to catch Michael before he gets to the girl, and the usual promiscuous teenagers are also on hand. The problem with HALLOWEEN 5 is that it seems unable to decide whether it is a slasher film, a psychological thriller, or a comedy. Director Dominique Othenin-Girard instead delivered a frustrating jumble of a movie that is rarely suspenseful and too reliant on standard genre tricks like T&A and gore. The frequent bloodletting and lack of true suspense seemed to contradict the original platform for which the HALLOWEEN films had stood. But Othenin-Girard looked at things differently. "I know this was the fifth film, and people have come to expect certain things," he said of his often-criticized work. "But the main thrust is to keep the audience off balance and on edge." The director was not only criticized by fans but by certain cast members as well. Donald Pleasence publicly offered his opposition to the film's liberal use of gore FX in many interviews prior to its release. "Dominque has a lot of imagination and is very clever," the actor said. "But I don't think he understands that he's making the fifth film in a series, rather than his own idea of what the film should be. I haven't agreed with a lot of what he has done with this film, so we talk and come to compromises." Regardless of the creative squabbles, HALLOWEEN 5 was a moderate success and its open-ended finale -- which features a mysterious man dressed in a long black duster and fedora hat who boosts Myers from jail -- assured audiences that a sixth installment would be in the cards. Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers (1995) While HALLOWEEN 5 proved to be a shoddy, often disjointed film, it is nothing compared to the illogical, incoherent mess that director Joe Chappelle and screenwriter Daniel Farrands threw together for the sixth entry into the series. For starters, Farrands made the tragic mistake of trying to create motive and reason for Michael's murderous impluses, brazenly ignoring the five previous films which clearly established the fact that Myers has no motive, no reason -- he is purely and simply evil. Moreover, the premise of a mysterious celtic curse known as Thorn, which is revealed to be the force that drives Michael to kill, proves to be not only hokey but downright absurd. To add to the frustration, Chappelle disregarded the ominous tone and methodical pacing of the past films in favor of a more modern, shock-cut editing style that makes the movie seem more like a campy rock video than a bonafied horror film. The only positive thing that can be said about CURSE is that Donald Pleasence, who died before the film's eventual completion, never got to see this complete disastor of a movie. Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998) For purposes of this picture, sequels three through six were completely ignored. That's right -- the druids, the possessed child, the mysterious men in black -- they may as well have happened in an alternate universe. Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, who at age 17 escaped the deadly clutches of her brother, Michael Myers. She faked her own demise, changed her name and tried to get on with her life, eventually becoming the high-strung headmistress of a gated Northern California prep school. She has a 17-year-old son (Josh Hartnett) from a failed marriage, she drinks too much, doesn't care for Halloween parties, has a medicine cabinet full of mood-altering pharmaceuticals and regularly wakes up screaming. And now her brother is back, looking to wrap up the unfinished family business. Brought back to life by director Steve Miner, who cut his teeth on FRIDAY THE 13TH sequels, and executive producer Kevin Williamson, whose SCREAM goosed the moribund stalk-and-slash genre to megabucks respectability (but not by John Carpenter, the man who started it all), this efficient fright machine features a knowing cameo by Curtis's mom -- PSYCHO's Janet Leigh -- a couple of bloody good scares and a genuinely affecting performance from Curtis. The body count is surprisingly low, Carpenter's instantly recognizable minimalist score is heavily orchestrated, and the ending is about as satisfying as it could be. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) With an ensemble cast featuring Busta Rhymes, Tyra Banks, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Jamie Lee Curtis in a reduced role, Sean Patrick Thomas, and a few other relative unknowns, my expectations for the eighth installment in the Halloween series were admittedly not very high. The idea of young adults spending Halloween night in the Myers House for a captive internet audience seemed, dare I say, 'hokey' at first glance. For the first time, I thought this may be the end of our beloved Shape. For once, I'm glad I was wrong. If there were any doubts about the dominant stalker/slasher figure in Hollywood, they should now be put to rest. Michael Myers has far and away separated himself from the pack as the most brutal, intelligent, and methodical villain of our generation. Jason Voorhess totes around idiotic toys such as a weed whacker with a saw blade on the end. Freddy Krueger, he delivers less than inspired dialogue like "Faster than a bastard maniac, more powerful than your local madman, it's SuperFreddy!" But Michael, he is motivated by an instinctive desire to accomplish his goal at all costs, and needs only his hands, his brain, and the closest available sharp object to get the job done. The giving of the knife that killed Laurie to one of the inmates was pure genius, assuring he would not be suspected of the deed. The incorporation of the internet audience turned out to be a truly novel concept. I was truly interested in the interaction between Sarah and Myles (Deckard). Also, tt seemed to be like the movie really sought to capture the survival instinct we all possess, and Michael's ability to relentlessly pursue that which he seeks, And, true to form, the movie obeyed traditional horror rules: - If you engage in promiscuous activity, then you must die. - If you partake of any illegal substances, then you must die. - At least one minority character must die. - The annoying girl must die. And lastly, as a side note, I seriously doubt Laurie is dead. After all, she's got Myers blood in her, she's a survivor. Her fate and Michael's are intertwined, so look for her to play a pivotal role in Michael's demise, should it happen anytime soon.