If the criteria for a horror classic includes how well the film holds up after repeated viewings, the scare factor, the acting, how effective the music is, it's directorial style, etc., then this baby has it all. The director, John Carpenter calls Halloween "an old country fair haunted house movie" in which all the scares are skillfully "programmed."
The film begins on Halloween, 1963, in Haddenfield, Illinois. A young boy, Michael
Myers, dons a masquerade mask and grabs a large kitchen knife, and heads upstairs to his
sister Judith's bedroom. He brutally stabs her to death. He then runs outside where his
parents who have just returned from a night out take his mask off. The boy looks stunned
and disturbed.
Cut to 15 years later. The boy's psychiatrist, Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and a nurse
are driving towards the sanitarium where the killer has been incarcerated. They notice that
the inmates are walking around on the grounds. When Loomis gets out to investigate,
Michael jumps on top of the car and attacks the nurse. She manages to crawl out of the
car, but Myers escapes by driving away in it.
In Haddenfield, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis in her star-making performance) and her friends
Annie (Nancy Loomis) and Lynda (P. J. Soles), are preparing for Halloween. During one
of her classes, Laurie notices a figure watching her outside of the school. Tommy (Brian
Andrews), the little boy that she's supposed to babysit that night, is being teased by the
other students. One of those kids stumbles upon the same menacing figure. Michael Myers
has returned to his hometown.
In the meantime, Loomis realizes that this community would be the most logical place to
find him. He first visits the cemetary where Judith Myers was buried and finds that her
grave has been desecrated and her tombstone is missing. With the help of Annie's father,
police officer Brackett (Charles Cyphers), he then stakes out the old abandoned Myers'
house. That house is now a magnet for the local kids looking for a good scare.
That night, two of the girls have plans to babysit. Laurie is to take care of Tommy while
Annie is supposed to watch Lindsey (Kyle Richards), the boy's good friend. Myers,
meanwhile, is stalking Annie and kills her dog. When Annie realizes she can unload
Lindsey on the virginal Laurie and get together with her boyfriend Paul, Laurie agrees.
After dropping the girl off, she goes back home to get ready for her date. As she is doing
her laundry, someone is watching her. When she gets into her car, Myers or "The Shape"
as he is called in the credits, strangles her to death and then cuts her throat.
Across the street, Tommy sees a figure carrying Annie's body out of the house. He tells
Laurie but she doesn't believe him. Lynda and her date Bob (John Michael Graham) show
up at Annie's house, not realizing what has happened. They go up to one of the bedrooms
to have sex, and then Bob heads downstairs to get a beer. Suddenly, the Shape picks him
up by his neck and stabs him with a huge butcher knife.
As Linda is talking to Laurie on the phone, someone she thinks is Bob stands at the
doorway with a sheet over his head. But it's not who she thinks it is, and she's strangled to
death. Laurie now suspects something and heads across the street to see what's happening
in Annie's house. In one of the rooms, she finds a horrific sight. Annie's body is layed out
on the bed with Judith Myers' tombstone behind her. She finds Linda's corpse in a closet.
Terrified, she tries to run out of the house, but the shape strikes her with a knife. She
makes it outside and tries to get help but the neighbors won't respond to her cries.
She finally makes it to her house, with Myers in close pursuit, and tells the kids to go
upstairs. In the living room, curled up on the floor, Laurie realizes she forgot to lock all
the entrances. Sure enough, Myers attacks her. She picks up a knitting needle and jabs him
in the neck. Laurie then runs upstairs and finds Tommy and Lindsey, but the Shape is after
her again.
Laurie hides in the closet but the Shape finds her. Again, she jabs him with something, this time a wire hanger. She tells the kids to run out of the house and get help. Loomis hears their screams and heads towards the house just as the Shape is strangling her. He shoots him and Myers falls out of the second story window. When Loomis looks out, he sees that the Shape is nowhere to be found. As with , Halloween spawned a ton of imitations.
It singlehandedly started the whole
slasher craze of the late 70's and early 80's, but it remains a cut above the rest. It's very
stylized, like John Carpenter's earlier film, Assault On Precinct 13. In both films,
Carpenter composed the effective electronic music, an element he would continue with his
later works. With time, Halloween has become sort of an "It's a Wonderful Life" for horror
fans...a yearly tradition.
