The seasonal slasher classic and one of the great “yell at the screen” suspense movies of the 70s. Horror filmmakers spent the the whole next decade trying to recapture its mojo. Even some of the squarest critics—those writers who think that the entire slasher genre oughta be rounded up and sunk to the bottom of the Pacific—applaud this one. Michael Myers, the heavy-breathing, mute, escaped mental patient mad murderer in a white mask, will live forever, even as the people around him tend to die by his knife.
It’s a strikingly well-made movie. The simple story glides by like a leaf in a strong October wind. Director John Carpenter spends the whole film obsessed with the possibilities of contrasting foregrounds and backgrounds. Sometimes Carpenter puts Michael Myers in the foreground while his stalking victim lollygags obliviously in the background. Other times it’s vice versa. The characters here are continuously unaware of the danger that lurks elsewhere on the screen. Sometimes Myers attacks, but often he just… watches, like an alien trying to figure out how human beings work. It keeps you looking all over the wide screen for him to pop up somewhere at any moment.
Another reason why this feels so darn classic is because it has one foot in horror’s past and one foot in horror’s future. It perfected the slasher movie formula and hundreds of films took after it, but if you really break it down, the story isn’t that much removed from the likes of Dracula. Michael Myers even has his own Van Helsing. It’s Donald Pleasence, the vaguely creepy psychiatrist who’s treated Myers for fifteen years and knows exactly where to go to catch him. Also like Dracula, Myers gets drawn to his circle of victims over his interest in a woman. From the first moment he sees shy high school student Jamie Lee Curtis, he just has to start following her around. She’s sort of the film’s Mina Harker, though Myers doesn’t seem to want her by his side. He just wants to kill her… but not until he studies her from afar for a bit.
One of the most successful independent films ever. Followed by a pile of sequels, of course.