Watched: 10/20/2025
Format: 4K disc
Viewing: Unknown
Director: John Carpenter
I had been a bit dissatisfied with my Halloween horror movie viewing and decided to put on a favorite to cleanse the palette.
Also, I don't always feel like an upgrade to 4K is necessary if I have a BluRay, but somehow I'd made it to 2025 without a BluRay of Halloween (1978), and I have to say, a 4K disc was the right choice. The picture is phenomenal, the blacks and shadowing, which are key to the whole movie, are rendered perfectly (on my aging Samsung TV) and the image looks great without anything I detected as artificial or weird in the 4K transfer/ clean-up.
Halloween probably seems slow to modern audiences used to getting carried along on a rocket ride from the start of the credits, but I think for this movie to work, you need the sharp shock of the opener and then the hard gear shift to suburban normality as Michael Myers circles closer and closer, slowly building up the speed until we land in the red zone.
It's such a simple movie - it almost feels impressionistic. We get two minutes of backstory via young Michael stabbing his sister, 15 years later he escapes. Then, we're at Halloween day, and then Halloween night. Nothing that happens during the day is of particular consequence except how it sets up the notion of the Boogeyman.
Then, Michael Myers goes to town. How did he learn to drive? No one can say. What is he doing and why in his mind? No one knows. He simply is.
I am unsure if this is the first time we have a villain in a horror movie who is supposed to be fully human who just keeps getting up, no matter what you do to him. And I can just imagine in 1978 how it played when dude sat up again, especially with that core strength.
I've now seen Black Christmas, and I have to believe John Carpenter and Debra Hill had as well. And there's nothing wrong with cruising in a lane carved out a bit ahead of you, but don't think I didn't notice we're making OG slasher movies based around the holidays.
Halloween, despite the kill-count, is more thrilling and less depressing than Black Christmas, after which I just wanted to take a shower. However, Halloween does kind of set the precedent for the Final Girl concept, which is well-covered territory, and sets the table for the repeat villains that would become the attraction in multiple franchises, leading up to today and that Art the Clown fellow.
For what it is, I think Halloween works in part not just because JLC nails the assignment and The Shape is truly frightening in his silence and relentless passion for his work, but because the movie is actually paced well with weird, long, lingering shots of Laurie Strode - like we're peeping on her from afar, our own little Michael Myers. And the dynamic camerawork.
Indie filmmakers take note: if all you have is a camera and cast, get that script tight as hell, then think about every single beat before you film. How long is it? Why does it exist? What is it saying? It's not free, exactly, to do this, but it's a lot better to manage your film up front than in the editing room.
The least convincing part of this film is that a lot of the idle chatter in the movie is about Laurie Strode not dating. Sure, JLC she plays a shy high school girl to perfection, but...
We often don't talk about the kids Laurie and friends are supposed to be watching, but after the recent trilogy of films closing out the series, Tommy and Lindsey seem far more relevant (Kyle Richards, who played Lindsey would reprise her role. She is also a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills, a show I've never once seen). But, man, seeing what follows in those sequels, the kids kinda hit different.
It is wild how the movie just sorta stops more than it ends. Laurie is safe... for the moment. Which is why the studio pushed Carpenter to write a sequel, which he did, but he did not direct. Halloween 2 is more interesting as an artifact than a good movie. And like all Halloween sequels, whether it's canon or not feels very open to interpretation and viewer's choice.
Anyway, the movie still delivers and reset me for my Halloween watching.
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