John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) 2

Written by: James Drew

Boo!

I was having an argument (or at least, the beginnings of an argument) with fellow Picturenose contributor Cillian Donnelly just the other day. That in itself should not really be cause for surprise, any more than the fact that he was, as usual, burbling on concerning something that in fact he knows very little about, namely cinema. However, he stopped me in my tracks when he chose to declare John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) as being, and I quote, “rubbish”. Seriously, I thought, he better go careful now - or I might just set Michael Myers on him…

I suppose, to be fair to young Cillian, he was not exactly arguing with someone who is capable of being particularly objective about the film – in much the same way as a great deal of my love of cinema began with watching Sleuth (1972) for the first time, some enchanted evening long ago, it is fair to say that my adoration of the horror genre began for real when I saw this, on my own in a dark house, late one Saturday night, way back in the day. 

And it *is* scary. Filmed on a shoestring by Carpenter (whose break-out film it was, although he had already got the critics interested with his darkly hysterical 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) spoof Dark Star (1974) and his modern-day Rio Bravo (1959)-made-with-bravura Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)), this went on to become, for a very long time, the most succesful independent film ever made.

Why? Well, because it plays its own trick-and-treat games so very well – forget all the sequels, forget Friday the 13th (1980) and its myriad duplicates and remakes, Michael Myers, aka The Shape, isn’t really interested in killing people (‘no, that is incidental’ as Hannibal Lecter might say), he wants to scare them, and he really wants to take the audience along for the ride.

Michael Myers? Who’s he, I hear you cry? Really? Well, that would be the young boy who, on Halloween in 1963 in the small US town of Haddonfield, inexplicably dons a mask and knifes his sister to death. Taken into the care of Dr Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance), Myers has become a shell – a mute, utterly detached automoton. Loomis, after trying to reach him for eight years, spends the remaining seven (before he escapes on 30 October 1978) trying to keep him locked up, because he is convinced that what lies behind Myers’ eyes is purely and simply…evil. Well, he’s heading back to Haddonfield now (with a brand-new mask) - and a trio of friends, the intelligent, virginal Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) and the sassy, experienced Lynda (P.J. Soles) and Annie (Nancy Loomis) are about to spend a Halloween like no other…

So, what else would you like to know? The joy of Myers, at least for me, was that it was the first time I had encountered the genuinely irrational in film – The Shape is, apparently, a creature of flesh and blood, just as you or I, but he singularly refuses to die. After all, he may well actually be the boogeyman…

Curtis Richards’ novelization (the book is now extremely rare) went more into the rationale of Myers, as did Rob Zombie’s ill-advised 2007 remake, but this I feel is missing the point – the character doesn’t need a back-story, any more than the boogeyman does.

Tricks? Well, Carpenter tricks you at various points into believing that you might have a chance against Michael and, as far as treats are concerned, Carpenter’s widescreen, hand-held cinematography, Pleasance’s wonderfully obsessed performance as the good doctor, and the simple presence of The Shape should be enough for starters. As the title of this review puts it, this is a film with but one purpose – and it achieves it without spilling a drop of blood. Rubbish? I really don’t think so. Over to you, Cillian…  

91 mins.

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