Why HALLOWEEN Works

In 1978, John Carpenter released a title wave of fear in the film Halloween. Ever since its initial release, critics and fans of the horror genre regard it as a classic and the frontrunner for the ever popular slasher sub-genre. It inspired Sean S. Cunningham and Victor Miller to make their direct rip-off Friday the 13th, and it launched the careers of Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers respectively. But when the casual viewer watches the original Halloween without prior knowledge of its cinematic significance, they might see it as a typical, old-school slasher movie, with ditzy teenagers, pointless breast shots, and a relatively predictable cliffhanger. So why is it that this movie still works for so many?

First off, the characters work a lot better than you'd expect in a horror movie. The better portion of the first act let's the viewer get to know Laurie Strode (Curtis) and her friends, and while the other two may be a lot flatter than Laurie, they're still believable teenaged girls. In other horror movies such as the Friday the 13th series and later Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, we're given a dozen characters for the sole purpose of unique kills and a high body count and are less likely to be interesting characters you can invest in. Halloween gives the time to let you identify the characters and grow attached to them.

A portion of the characters in the original Friday the 13th,
all of which are set up to be butchered.

Second, Michael Myers as a villain (at least in the first film) is actually terrifying. Knowing that poor Laurie is essentially battling evil incarnate is a scary thought. At the start of the film when 6 year old Michael murders his older sister for no apparent is an intense high point of the film. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), Michael's psychiatrist, a man of logic, is even convinced that there is nothing else motivating Michael than pure evil. That's all you need to know to make him a truly scary force of supernatural proportions! The sequels try to destroy that, but, that's for another time...

One of the most memorable parts of the film and there
is NO gore.

And the final, and perhaps most important, reason is that the original Halloween is not super gory. There's only a little blood throughout the entire picture. The film relies on crafty cinematography and a tense mood to create a truly haunting movie. The mood of the film really puts you in the perspective of being in a small town on Halloween night being chased by a murderer. Accompany that with one of the most simplistic, yet memorable horror movie scores and you have a recipe for nail-biting suspense.

For these reasons (for me at least), Halloween is more than a dumb slasher movie. It's a very intelligent, dark, and genuinely scary horror movie that may have some faults, but indeed shines out as a classic. Watch the movie and judge for yourself, but no matter what you think, you'll find you're having a great Halloween night.