HALLOWEEN. Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Directed by John Carpenter. Stars Jamie Lee Curtis,Donald Pleasence,Charles Cyphers,Nancy Loomis, PJ Soles,Nancy Stephens,and Nick Castle as Michael Myers,aka The Shape. Released in 1978.Produced by Moustapha Akkad.
Halloween is one of the first and best slasher movies ever made.It was majorly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece PSYCHO, and in turn majorly influenced Kevin Williamson/Wes Craven's 1996 hit film SCREAM.The story of HALLOWEEN is extremely simplistic.It starts on Halloween Night 1963.Seventeen year old Judith Myers and her boy- friend are alone in the Myers family house and decide to go upstairs to "get physical".What they don't know is that Judith's six year old little brother Michael is outside watching them.When Judith and her boyfriend go upstairs Michael enters the house,goes into the kitchen,gets a large butcher knife out of the knife drawer,watches Judith's boyfriend leave,and then heads upstairs.Michael reaches the top of the stairs and puts a clown mask on,then enters Judith's bedroom to find her sitting infront of a mirror topless,combing her hair and singing.She turns around just as Michael reaches her and is he stabs her to death.Michael looks at her dead body,then turns around,walks downstairs,and goes outside.As soon as Michael gets outside his parents arrive,pulling his mask off.Michael just stands there in the yard,holding the bloody knife, completely emotionless.The coolest part of this opening sequence is that we see the whole thing through Michael's POV.After that,the film jumps to October 30th,1978.For the past fifteen years Michael has been in psychiatric hospital run by Doctor Terence Wynn,under the care of Doctor Sam Loomis.On this dark and stormy night Loomis and Nurse Marion Chambers are headed to the hospital to pick Michael up and take him to court,where he will finally be put on trial for his crime.When Loomis and Chambers arrive at the hospital they find that all of the patients are outside,wandering the grounds.Loomis gets out of the car to check on things and while he does Marion is attacked by Michael.She manages to get out of the car,which Michael then steals.The evil is gone.In Michael's hometown of Haddonfield,Illinois seventeen year old Laurie Strode is going to school and planning to babysit eight year old Tommy Doyle that night.Laurie's friend Annie Brackett,daughter of local Sheriff Leigh Brackett,will be babysitting eight year old Lindsey Wallace right across the street from the Doyle house.Annie and Laurie's friend Lynda plans to go to the Wallace house that night and "get physical" with her boyfriend Bob.While we get to know these teens and Tommy,we see that Michael is stalking them for some reason.He is now dressed in a mechanic's uniform and wearing his now famous white mask.Meanwhile,Loomis is following Michael,driving the 150 miles from the hospital to Haddonfield.Along the way Loomis finds Michael's hospital gown at a gas station but doesn't see the dead body of a mechanic in the weeds nearby.The mechanic's uniform is not on his body.When Loomis reaches Haddonfield he goes to the graveyard and finds that Judith's tombstone has been stolen.Loomis then goes and has Sheriff Brackett take him to the Myers house.Brackett leaves Loomis at the house to keep an eye on things.Nearby Laurie is babysitting Tommy and Annie is babysitting Lindsey.Michael just lurks around,watching.At one point the Wallace family dog Lester starts barking at him so he kills it.Then,Annie gets a phone call from her boyfriend Paul telling her to come over and pick him up.Annie takes Lindsey over to the Doyle house so Laurie can watch her while she's gone.Annie goes back over to the Wallace house,gets into her car,and Michael rises from the backseat.At first he tries to strangle her but it proves too frustrating so he slashes her throat. Soon after Lynda and Bob arrive at the Wallace house and head for the bed- room when they find out that Lindsey will probably be sleeping over at the Doyle house.After Lynda and Bob have sex,Bob heads down to get some beers. Michael comes up and stabs him with a butcher knife,sticking him right to the wall.Michael then goes upstairs.Lynda is lying in bed when the door opens and Michael stands in the doorway with a sheet draped over himself so Lynda will think it's Bob acting like a ghost.She does,then gets annoyed when "Bob" won't talk to her.She gets up and goes to the phone.Michael comes up behind her and strangles her with the phone cord.Lynda is on the phone with Laurie as she gets strangled,so Laurie hears it all.Laurie thinks it's just a joke but just incase it's not she decides to go over and check for herself.The kids are asleep.Laurie goes across the street,and finds Michael and the bodies.A chase ensues,but I don't want to ruin it for you people that haven't seen the film yet.All I'll say that Loomis arrives at the Doyle house just in time to save Laurie by shooting Michael six times.Michael falls off the balconey on the front of the house and lands on the front yard.Loomis checks on Laurie,then looks off the balconey to see that Michael is gone. Director John Carpenter definetely knows how to build suspense,and the film has a very dark feel to it,something that is missing from the slasher films in the 1990s.Four and a half stars out of five.Running Time:Approx. 90 minutes.5 kills.

HALLOWEEN II. Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.Directed by Rick Rosenthal. Stars Jamie Lee Curtis,Donald Pleasence,Lance Guest,Hunter Von Leer, Charles Cyphers,Nancy Stephens,Leo Rossi,and cameo by "Garth" Dana Carvey. Released in 1981 or 82.Produced by Moustapha Akkad and Debra Hill. Halloween II is,in my opinion,one of the best sequels ever made.It begins EXACTLY where the first one ended,with Doctor Loomis coming out of the Doyle house and checking the front yard for Michael.Laurie is taken to the local hospital to get her wounds treated,and Loomis finds Sheriff Brackett and they start patrolling the streets looking for Michael.The sheriff sends all of his men out into the Haddonfield streets to look for him.Meanwhile,Michael enters the home of an old couple and steals a knife.Then he goes to the house next door where young Alice is alone, talking to a friend on the phone.Alice hears a noise and is going to investigate when Michael comes up beside her and stabs her in the stomach. In town Loomis sees a man dressed like Michael and chases him into the street,where the man is hit by a police car,which then catches on fire. Brackett gets news of his daughter's death and they head for the Wallace house.Somewhere else in town a kid is walking down the sidewalk with a boombox,on which the news is reporting that Laurie has been taken to the local hospital.Michael is nearby and hears this,so he heads for the hospital.In the hospital one of the staff,Jimmy,is getting a crush on Laurie and is hanging around her alot.Ambulance driver Budd is trying to get with his nurse girlfriend Karen,head nurse Mrs. Alves is being grouchy,assorted nurses are being slightly airheaded,Doctor Mixter is being very drunk,and security guard/maintenance man Mr. Garrett is being lazy.With Loomis,Sheriff Brackett heads home to tell his wife about Annie's death and leaves Loomis with Deputy Gary Hunt.Loomis wants a coroner to check the body of the guy that was hit by the police car and burnt in the resulting fire so they'll know if Michael is dead or not. In the hospital Mrs. Alves discovers that the phones aren't working so she sends Mr. Garrett out to check on the lines.Mr. Garrett goes outside and messes around,ultimately getting killed by Michael in the storage shed by getting a hammerclaw in the top of his head.Budd finds Karen and talks her into taking a little hydrotherapy with him.They get into the hot tub and Michael turns the heat up.After a couple minutes Karen complains that it's too hot and sends Budd to check on the heat controls. While Budd's checking the controls Michael comes up behind him and strangles him.Karen gets out of the tub and Michael drownds her as the water heat level rises to danger levels.By the time Karen has drownded her face is badly scalded.Meanwhile,Jimmy and nurse Jill find that Laurie is in some kind of half-coma because of a reaction to the medication she was given.Nurse Janet runs down to Dr. Mixter's office and finds him sitting in his chair,a syringe in his eye.Michael comes up behind Janet and sticks a syringe in her temple.Loomis and Hunt have found out that the burnt body was of a teenager named Bennett Tramer,not Michael.They then head out to the local elementary school when reports of a breakin come in.In the hospital Jimmy and Jill are searching for Mrs. Alves, and then Laurie disappears.We see that she's limping through the halls. Jimmy finally finds Mrs. Alves,laying on a hospital bed with an IV in her arm.The IV is hooked into a vein and Mrs. Alves blood is dripping out.It has covered the floor,so it's apparent that she has bled to death. Jimmy turns around to leave but slips in the blood and falls to the floor, hitting his head.At the elementary school Marion Chambers arrives and tells Loomis that the governor is ordering him out of Haddonfield.She and a Marshall start to escort him back to the Smith's Grove sanitarium Michael broke out of.In the hospital Jill finds Laurie walking down a hall.Jill calls Laurie and Laurie turns around just in time to see Michael step up behind Jill and stab her in the back.A chase ensues. In the Marshall's car Marion tells Loomis that Laurie is actually Michael's younger sister.She was 2 when Michael killed Judith,and she was 4 when the Myers mother and father died in a car crash and she was adopted by the Strode family.Loomis realizes what's going on.Michael killed Judith when she was seventeen and now that Laurie's seventeen he wants to kill her too.He makes the Marshall turn the car around and head back toward Haddonfield.At the hospital Laurie is sitting in a car outside when Loomis,Marion,and the Marshall arrive.The trio doesn't notice Laurie, they just go into the hospital.Laurie gets out of the car and Michael chases her.Loomis lets her into the hospital just in time,then Michael enters.Loomis shoots him some more and he falls,motionless.Marion goes out to the Marshall's car to radio for help.The Marshall thinks Michael's dead and kneels down beside the body.Michael springs to life and slits the Marshall's throat.Michael chases Loomis and Laurie through the hospital.Eventually Laurie and Loomis open oxygen bottles and other gas valves and Laurie escapes.Loomis lights his lighter and he and Michael are consumed in flames.Laurie sees the explosion from the hallway,and then from the flames emerges a blazing Michael.He comes toward her and then collapses.At daylight an ambulance takes Laurie away and we are left to believe that Michael burnt to death.He did not.Neither did Loomis. I like Halloween II so much because it starts right when the first ended. Not many sequels do that.(None that I can think of,other than EVIL DEAD 2.)The makers thought they put Michael in it too much,but I really don't think so.He's still scary,and Rick Rosenthal does a good job replacing John Carpenter as director. Dick Warlock makes a pretty good Michael.Four star out of five.Runtime: Approx. 92 minutes.10 kills,2 deaths,1 accident.
Halloween III (click me)