Eleven Movies For Halloween

Day 7 – Halloween

Yea, THAT movie. You truly cannot have a Halloween list without listing the one film that actually had the cojones to name itself after the titular holiday.  So why add it to this list? Because it belongs on every person’s Halloween list!  Especially those horror fans who have never seen it. This remains John Carpenter’s crowning directorial achievement (sorry Vampires), and it is a crime that so many of today’s audiences have never given the film a fair shot.  I blame their parents.

Halloween begins with a young Michael Myers, caught literally red-handed after viciously murdering his sister.  After he spends 20 years in a sanitarium, Michael escapes just in time for All Hallow’s Eve. He hunts down a nifty William Shatner mask and begins silently stalking Laurie Strode (a young Jamie Lee Curtis), for reasons we learn as the film progresses, all the while being pursued by his psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis (a not-so-young, yet still terrific,  Donald Pleasance).  The film builds methodically, unlike today’s quick-to-the-chase kills, and ends the way all films meant to terrorize should.

Different people have various favorites in this seemingly endless series (my personal pick being Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers), but there is no denying that if you have never seen the original, you are doing yourself a disservice. It is a classic for a reason.  Is it as fast-paced as today’s horror films?  No, of course not.  This movie was made when people enjoyed building tension, you know, they could wait for it.  Not like now, where audiences need all of the characters dead within 10 minutes because so they can urgently Tweet about it.

It also boasts what is perhaps the greatest score for a horror film ever put to celluloid.  Very few films have a score this recognizable, and Carpenter knew exactly when and where to use it.  Just a few bars of the classic theme song and the hair on the back of your neck is bound to stand directly on end, and you just might start wondering if ole’ Michael Myers is now coming for you…

Is it cliché to have Halloween on this list?  Of course, it is.  Does it belong here? Absolutely.  So stop being such a hipster-hater and go give this classic a spin.  You might be surprised how much you’ll enjoy it.

Oh, and just so we’re clear…I mean the 1978 version, not that awful Rob Zombie hillbilly-dreck-remake-catastrophe-piece-of-dung from 2007.  Just no. Don’t make me clarify that again. – Aaron

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Continue to Day 8!