Halloween (1978) Review

Michael Myers brutally murdered his sister on Halloween night in 1963, fifteen years after this he returns to the small town to try to kill again.

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This was my first viewing of this film and I cannot believe I had not been forced to watch it before. The 40th anniversary for the film is this year and we will be seeing an instalment directly linked to everything which happened in this film.

Laurie is very suspicious when she keeps thinking that a man is stalking her and she is very right but her self-absorbed friends would not listen to her, that is certainly how all good horror/thrillers like this work right? Of course!

The score is truly outstanding in this film and really helps build the tension and keep you on the edge of your seat. It was not necessarily what actually happened but what you thought was going to happen. I was pretty much blown away by that aspect of the film, meaning that 40 years later it still has so much substance and energy. Something I really love about films, that it actually doesn’t matter how old they are you can still take something from it. The main thing that ages films is cars, technology and sometimes clothes (fashion seems to have trends that come back).

We don’t really get to see Michael very close up on many occasions and I felt that was another tension builder in terms of actually wanting to see his face. That mask though, when we do actually get a glimpse of him is awful. Haunting if you will and not someone you want to be anywhere near.

His main targets seem to be teenage girls, not much different from Judith his sister who started off the brutal murders. On his escape only his former psychiatrist Dr. Loomis was on his trail and trying to stop anymore killing from happening. He always seems to be a few steps behind though and the police weren’t exactly the most helpful.

The actual killing scenes are probably not as bad as you would expect but I guess with the censorship changes this was truly shocking at the time. I like the less is more approach and this film still carries an 18 rating in the UK! Rightly so with the nature of the serial killer being totally psychotic, we never actually find out why he wants to do this do we?

Jamie Lee Curtis taking the lead in her first full length film was a joy to watch and she really was born to be an actresses, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh being her father and mother. Hollywood and acting were in her from the beginning. Aren’t we really lucky that she decided to go into that! This being the first as well was a very good set up.

I throughly enjoyed this venture into horror and really do need to invest a lot more time on that genre, so if anyone would like to suggest what I should watch next that would be greatly appreciated!