I mean yes it's an enjoyable enough watch during the Halloween season but I don't get the strong love for it. It's nowhere close to my favorite film in the franchise. Most of the characters are boring clichés especially Laurie who is the typical cliche goody 2 shoes horror chick. Literally the best thing about the movie IMO is the score. Anyone else feel the same???
shareWithout this film there would be no "typical cliche goody 2 shoes horror chick."
shareThe OP is high as a kite. This is one of the best horror films ever. You probably watched it after you were saturated with all the crappy hollywood so called horror films. Then you didnt think it was that great because you felt as if you saw it before and it wasn't original. Am I right, pretty sure I am. This is Because Every crappy hollywood film after this stole every part of this movie and made this movie seem boring.
shareSorry if I touched a nerve fanboy but it just isn't that great of a film.
shareAgree totally.
shareI don't get this argument. It's not like Halloween invented all the stuff people are claiming it did. It borrows from others films like Psycho & Black Christmas. Plus it was beaten to the punch by many others.
Many giallo films aren't much different from slashers and they kicked off in the early 60s and became huge in the early 70s. In NA you had Silent Night Bloody Night, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Alice Sweet Alice, The Toolbox Murders and others... stuff like When a Stranger Calls and Tourist Trap were in production/filming before Halloween was released.
If later films borrowed from Halloween and rendered it 'boring' (by one-upping it?) then that's life. Slasher films are basically tits and stabbings with a creepy atmosphere. People who try to act like Halloween is some masterpiece of writing with academy caliber acting are having a laugh. The only two points I'd say it's better than other slashers is the OST and Cundey's cinematography. Arguably Carpenters atmosphere building too.
Many later slashers have much more/better gore (often much higher kill counts) and nudity. Villain back stories are better in most other films (Michaels back story is deliberately vague and minimalist). The writing is no better in Halloween than in any other slasher.
There is a strange narrative around Halloween like it's a piece of genius that invented on screen murders, POV shots, horny teens and the final girl trope. Thus everyone should bow down to it and worship it, propping it above any slasher that came after. Nah.
I love Halloween by the way but it definitely hogs the praise from other films and the narrative that it's die hard fanboys constantly churn out is false and kind of grating. I'm not sure why some films get such strong narratives that people blindly follow.
Honestly without this there would have been no Friday the 13th franchise which was essentially Michael Myers in the woods. Not to mention countless other 80's slasher flicks that were influenced by this one film.
shareIt's tame by today's standards but it's historical impact is something that is still felt today for the genre it helped establish. You have to place yourself in 1978 and realize the slasher film was not an entity. The closest thing to it was Black Christmas, but it wasn't a genre. Audiences in '78 were terrified by the film. It's hard to recapture that feeling now that every other film has ripped it off left and right.
The sequels often have more "excitement" in them because the imitators upped their gore quotient and films gradually became more fast-paced, so really the original is not going to hold up as well if you're used to that style. But it's hard to deny that Halloween is the classiest film in the franchise.
It's very easy to deny since it's subjective after all. Though to be fair I don't have any nostalgia attachment to it as I discovered it very late. It's an enjoyable watch but I don't consider it classic at least from an entertainment standpoint.
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horror movies today aren't as scary as the ones from the 70's and 80's. today its jump scares and quick kills. the old days you had suspense and terror.
maybe you are into modern horror and just not used to scary horror movies?
if you truly don't like it much i can't fault you. i hate Star Wars and Marvel movie garbage and many people like those
Ben-Hur2016 10/10 BvS Ultimate Edition10/10 Suicide Squad 9/10 Terminator Genisys9/10
Too be honest no horror movie has ever scared me. The closest would be nightmare on elm Street.
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Too be honest no horror movie has ever scared me. The closest one would be night on elm Street. Frankfully I don't watch horror movies to get scared I just like the style of the genre.
shareI first saw this movie when I was about 5 years sold and it scared the hell out of me!! that was in 1984 mind you. For a lot of fans of this movie they probably have a similar experiance, brings back some good memories and nostalgia. It was a very innovative film, Dean Cundey using the steady cam, seeing through the eyes of the killer, very creepy lighting etc. All with a complete budget of $320,000!! Scared the hell out of a lot people without hardly showing any blood at all!, it was a mind trick of what you think you saw, very Hitchcock like. I don't know when you first saw this movie but for the time it set the standard for the slasher generation. Countless slasher movies would have never been made if not for this movie, most blatenly ripped it off, with a little creativity on their own right.For what this movie did at the time and the fact that it is very much loved by so many today speaks volumes. Everyone has their own opinion, I state mine while respecting yours.
shareSorry dustn. Didnt mean to beat up on you but I'm sick of this generation accepting these so called horror films these days. They are all so bad for the most part. I saw dont breathe the other day and could have puked coat hangers it was so bad yet it makes millions of dollars. My youth was back in 78 and it was a very different time for films imo. Films today for the most part lack any scares or originality at all. This and Jaws are probably my two favorite horror/ suspense films I have ever seen and today I just see people bashing them yet they defend a friday the 13th remake to the end. So again, sorry for the beat down, I wish people could appreciate these films like I do and see how amazing they are.
shareI wonder if the OP was even alive in 78? I was a teenager myself in the 70's and I understand your points. When Psycho was released in 1960 people were freaked out by it too. Eighteen years later Halloween was released and I'm sure it was shocking to a lot of movie goers. BTW I saw JAWS when it was released and me and my friends at the time loved the movie. Man I miss the 70's....
shareI was born in 68' but had 6 older brothers who babysat me. These were the movies we saw. It was about the suspense, & less about gore. Don't hear the word "suspense" with movies from today. I love all 3 of those movies.
shareSorry Dustin, but I don't agree. I think Halloween is one of the best, if not THE best horror film ever made.
As someone else mentioned there's nothing typical about it since it began the horror genre. Laurie was the original goody two shoes. The score, directing, atmosphere, script, etc are all magical to me. I'm sorry you're missing out!
-Di
Goody 2 shoes characters are boring but I will agree with you about the score.
shareI will agree Laurie was the "boring" one, but I think the message is she's a good wholesome girl knitting on the couch while her friends are screwing around therefore they deserve to die.
Laurie does become more feisty in the sequels. She grew tired of Myer's stalking her and decided to not be the victim.
The score is amazing. I've been listening to it on the way to work all week!
-Di
Well I don't think screwing around and having fun means you should die if anything its the wholesome chikcs that should be killed off :). Thankfully Halloween Resurrection was brave enough to do this. But yeah I will give the film has the best score of any film I have seen.
shareI enjoy it. Yeah, there are issues, but doesn't every movie have those?
Movie Theater: Young Frankenstein 10/10. RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time.
Di - Carpenter himself said that it was a matter of focus and awareness. Not that they had sex, but that they were preoccupied and unfocused and thus not aware of what was going on around them. Laurie, on the other hand, was aware of everything, not preoccupied and focused, therefore she saw Michael and was ready to face him and that's why she survived.
"He came home." - Dr. Sam Loomis from the original HalloweeN
Di - Carpenter himself said that it was a matter of focus and awareness. Not that they had sex, but that they were preoccupied and unfocused and thus not aware of what was going on around them. Laurie, on the other hand, was aware of everything, not preoccupied and focused, therefore she saw Michael and was ready to face him and that's why she survived.
It was on one of the making of documentaries, either Cut Above the Rest or the Inside Story.
"He came home." - Dr. Sam Loomis from the original HalloweeN
As someone else mentioned there's nothing typical about it since it began the horror genre.
No.
<“Every man of courage is a man of his word.” - Pierre Corneille>
It was done on the cheap, and you can clearly see that Michael is wearing the mask even before he breaks into the hardware store. And let's not forget the lack of Halloween imagery--a couple of moldy-looking pumpkins, some tired leaves, and all the foliage still green. And let's not even mention Michael in 1963 having a mop of long hair. No boy wore their hair like that in 1963, not before the Beatles hit.
But with all of that, there's no denying it's a definitive film, even with all its faults. It set the template, and my Halloween isn't complete without a least viewing. I actually like the version with Loomis talking to catatonic Michael in his cell and pleading with the hospital not to let Michael go. That really fleshes out the story.
Warts and all, Halloween is a classic.
Definitely, Scary. Though, the mask thing is a mistake, but not for the reasons you think. He broke into the store like over night, so he's have the mask in the morning. The alarm going off at like 5 in the afternoon or whatever, is the flub part.
Movie Theater: Young Frankenstein 10/10. RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time.
Not the film proper, no way jose.
However, one could probably suggest its legacy is a bit overrated. We're talking about the film which launched the modern slasher era. An era of next to no excellent films to follow - MTV era blood & gore.
Halloween '78 has exceptionally little blood or gore. I prefer linking it in with Psycho to bridge the genre retroactively, rather than enabling the likes of Friday the 13th's endless sequels &/or Candyman or whichever series we're familiar with.
...my essential 50 http://www.imdb.com/list/ls056413299/
I saw Friday the 13th at the theater in the summer of 80 solely because Siskel and Ebert gave it a thumbs-down and complained about the violence. Though I do consider Halloween a "slasher" film in that it had an antagonist who was a merciless killer and used a knife (at least, some of the time), I think Friday the 13th kicked the slasher film genre into OVERDRIVE. I'd go so far as to say it's THE ultimate slasher film of its time, and the only one with balls enough to show gore and its aftermath. Starting with #2, the camera pulled away from a lot of the gore, and with #3, it got even worse.
And look what it started! Not long afterward, there was "My Bloody Valentine," another great slasher film. I remember seeing pix from Valentine in Fangoria and couldn't wait for the movie. When it did finally see it, I was sorely disappointed to find that all the great scenes had been censored! It wasn't until decades later that an unedited version was released to DVD.
Friday the 13th is much, much gorier than Halloween and much gorier that most of the mainstream slashers that followed. It's really a seminal film, I think--much more important than Halloween, at least to the slasher genre.
When I found out an old lady did all those brutal murders, I was turned off. Like his mother could pull off all that stuff. It was preposterous.
Movie Theater: Young Frankenstein 10/10. RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time.
Why couldn't she? It's the element of surprise. Nobody suspected her of being a killer. That played to her advantage.
Don't call it a comeback. I've been here for years.
Because she's a older lady. She wouldn't be able to pull off some of that stuff, come on.
Movie Theater: Young Frankenstein 10/10. RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time.
She was 53 when Friday the 13th was made. Hardly over the hill. Like I said, she surprised a lot of her victims in that movie, which gave her an advantage. It wasn't impossible.
Don't call it a comeback. I've been here for years.
Yes, the surprise element helped her...but if you notice, in the hand to hand combat scenes, she was at a disadvantage. At one point, the heroine had clocked her with a frying pan!
Plus, Mrs. Vorhees was insane and actually spoke like her son. That insanity gave her more strength than a normal, sane person would have at age 53. I thought she was darned scary myself, especially after she started telling the story of how Jason died.
She was older than I thought. Ridiculous. Didn't she shoot an arrow at someone? She didn't have the strength to do some of those things, I don't think.
Movie Theater: Young Frankenstein 10/10. RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time.
You don't have to be He Man to shoot a frickin bow and arrow.
Don't call it a comeback. I've been here for years.
Rambo, would've been a better analogy, or Robin Hood, I guess. And yes you do. Some old lady can't have accuracy just by picking the blooding thing up. And shoving a arrow through a mattress and pillow probably, and Kevin Bacon's neck would be hard for Jason to do let alone his 50 something year old mother. Man! Do you argue with EVERYTHING I say? I don't think you've ever agreed with me on anything.
Movie Theater: Young Frankenstein 10/10. RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time.
Some old lady can't have accuracy just by picking the blooding thing up.
I think Friday the 13th kicked the slasher film genre into OVERDRIVE. I'd go so far as to say it's THE ultimate slasher film of its time.