If you’re looking for a scary movie to watch this Halloween, what can be more apt than a movie with the same name? Directed by John Carpenter, his unassuming, independently produced, horror film titled Halloween became the template of all summer slasher Halloween movies after it.
What’s The Story?
A deranged mental patient named Michael Myers escaped from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium 15 years after he murdered his own sister. He returns to his hometown in Haddonfield, Illinois and begins a gruesome series of murders that recreates what he has done to his sister. Plagued by moral obligations, his doctor, Dr. Loomis, goes after him in hopes of stopping him. But as one of the local girls named Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) comes face to face with Michael Myers, can Dr. Loomis save her on time?
Why We Love It
Just that one scene, where Laurie was walking away from the Myers’ house after dropping the keys. When she was singing a song with the lyrics “I wish I had you all alone, just the two of us” and then cut to a shot of Michael Myers watching her from a distance. That just one bit right there has already set the tone of the entire movie. As if trying to say, “Evil is watching you and you don’t even know it.”
Did You Know?
Star Trek and Halloween have something in common. The mask used by Michael Myers in Halloween was made from a Captain Kirk mask which they bought for less than $2. The art department guys tinkered with it to give it that trademark eerie pale bluish look, that has now become a classic. And as for Michael Myers’ clothes? Well, evil shops in J.C Penney.
Recently, Halloween was chosen by the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for preservation because of its cultural, historical and aesthetic significance.