Halloween: A Retrospect

You know, out of every genre of film that has ever been created, horror movies, more than any other genre, tend to get a bad rap in the critical world, and I would argue rightfully so. Their self-explanatory and simple genre conventions attract inexperienced writers, and these inexperienced writers create underbaked products that attract a cult following who gets a weird, demented pleasure out of watching unintentionally funny cinematic diarrhea, and this creates a repetitive and somewhat amusing death spiral where horror movies never have any incentive to get better because their fans never have any desire for them to. Even a lot of classic horror movies are bad, despite their popularity. Label me a heretic for it, but the original Friday The 13th was pretty terrible, and I never really understood how it became so popular, to say nothing about how it spawned a sprawling, lumbering, and seemingly never-ending chain of sequels. But despite the incessant and relentless stream of horrible that is critically associated with these films, I randomly decided to watch a bunch of classic horror movies for the heck of it the other day, and so naturally, I crossed paths with the very popular 1978 slasher Halloween. I must confess that I had never seen it before, and you know what? Despite spawning a lackluster series of sequels that gave the franchise a bad name, the original film was, to my surprise and delight, really, really good.

I want to start writing some retrospective articles on classic movies that I really loved, and I figured that Halloween would be a good place to start. These articles will be less about reviewing the actual movie, as a lot of these titles I discuss will be readily recognizable by the general public, and more about discussing different techniques utilized in these movies that made them classics in the first place. Now, I'm not the kind of guy who says things like "no one makes good movies anymore" because that saying is objectively untrue and tends to ignore the fact that there are tons of old and terrible movies that have been long forgotten, but I think it would be a disservice to cinema to ignore films that have stood the test of time. Now, let's get started with why I love Halloween.

I'm not a fan of horror movies. Most of them are soulless, flat, and poorly made attempts to make a quick buck off of the giddy fear of teenage movie-goers who won't really be paying attention to the substance of the film anyway. However, every so often, we get that rare horror movie that turns out to be far better than it has any right to be. John Carpenter's Halloween is one of those films. It's suspenseful and, far more importantly, well-plotted and intentional. In simpler terms, it's a good movie. But what exactly makes it good, and what exactly makes pretty much every other Halloween film bad? Well, let's start with the pacing of Halloween. A lot of movies try to do way too much with their plots in an attempt to look smart, and in doing so, they end up lacking any sense of cohesion whatsoever. People often forget that a simple story is not necessarily a bad one, and Halloween tells a simple story for us in a very effective way. In essence, Halloween could be summed up as "a homicidal maniac escapes from prison and terrorizes his childhood town." It's nothing too convoluted, but it accomplishes something special: this simple story allows very little room for error in terms of pacing. The plot may play it safe, but in doing so, it never really derails and makes an eventual meeting/final showdown between Michael and Laurie inevitable. By giving us plenty of time to learn about the life of Laurie, the main protagonist of the film, as well as about who Michael is and what he is capable of, the film creates stakes that are tangible and easily defined. In short, the movie never rushes to get anywhere or do anything fancy and instead focuses on building slowly towards a single climax and creating apprehension about this eventual climax. This was a smartly conservative decision on the part of the writers, and I commend them for being willing to go forward with it.

As for the technical side of things, I want to bring up the cinematography of Halloween. While it may lack a lot of the fancy gimmicks and pretty imagery that modern cameras can bring us, the visual element of this movie is very smart and does more with less. My favorite moment in the film has to be the very beginning of the movie, where we have the slow, one-take first-person shot from young Michael's perspective. The filmmakers made us view the world from the perspective of a psychopath, and while first-person shots have gotten a bad rap in Hollywood since, Halloween showed us how to put them to good use. This take was slow, methodical, brutal, and most importantly, it limited our perspective of the world. If you're looking to get into making horror movies, limiting what the audience sees is one of the most effective tricks you can use. In a more general sense, as most of the movie is not shot from Michael's perspective, the film's use of space is excellent. Generally, medium and close-up shots in the film tend to make the frame feel claustrophobic, as if the characters have nowhere to run. More specifically, a lot of framing subjects through windows seemingly "traps" an unsuspecting character. On the flip side, the wide shots in this film contain a lot of negative space, where something seems missing. Negative space is a universal language for "danger," and Halloween puts it to great use, especially with many of Laurie's POV shots.

The next thing Halloween does well is sticking to a commitment to the idea that atmosphere always trumps jump scares when it comes to putting the audience on edge. The threat of violence is always far more effective than actual violence, and Halloween understands this. And so, the movie takes its merry time just letting the houses and streets of Haddonfield, Illinois look scary. And while this may seem like it wouldn't accomplish much, atmosphere is everything in a horror movie. Anyone can craft a jump scare, but few have the patience to let the world make threats without actually doing anything, letting the tension build until the very end of the movie. As for the actual violence in Halloween, it's pretty tame, even compared to its sequels. However, it tends to be far more effective because the film took its merry time to establish everything that was at stake before releasing Michael to go on his murderous rampage.

All in all, Halloween is a simple story that has withstood the test of time because of its willingness to prioritize small-scale and simple storytelling, effective-enough characterization, and tense atmosphere over torture porn and scares. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about its sequels, but then again, horror movie sequels have never been known to be exceptional, have they? And I get that Halloween was always meant to have a sequel. After all, Michael's body disappears at the end of the film. I just can't help but wish that they had just been willing to end the franchise right then and there because every Halloween installment since the original has been, in true horror movie franchise fashion, decently serviceable at best and laughably bad at worst (I'm looking at you, Halloween Ends). But anyway, that's my piece on Halloween. Just a heads-up if you're curious: this movie contains some moderate violence and sexual content, but Halloween is pretty tame compared to other horror outings while still managing to capture what truly terrifies in a horror movie: that tense atmosphere. On the narrative side of things, it's also simply a heck of a lot better and more effective than other horror movies.

It's Halloween. Everyone is entitled to one good scare.

Halloween - 9/10

Genesis 9:6