Halloween (25th Anniversary Edition) (DVD)

...here as the version of Halloween I own on DVD has been superseded by at least one more version since I bought it - so my DVD review would not reflect everything available out there on the market at the moment!!! Anyway... Here goes!!!

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Back in the Spring of 1978, John Carpenter filmed a horror movie in a remarkable 21 days and on a shoe-string budget that would change ...
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The story of Halloween starts when Michael Myers, aged only six years of age, brutally stabs to death his 17 year old sister, Judith.

After the murder, Myers is locked up in a psychiatric institute where he is watched over and treated by Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance). After many years of being responsible for Myers and trying to establish what could possibly make a child commit such an horrific act, he realises that there ... more

*** Please note: This review was originally posted on www.dooyoo.co.uk under my dooyoo alias of dlb74 ***

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Thanks for joining me on another op/review... It's been a while since I've written one and as I do enjoy this and don't want to lose the passion, I decided after a little time away from doing this, that it was time to get back up off the ground, dust myself off and jump back onto the review writing horse, so to speak...

*** Please note ****

I'm writing a FILM ONLY review here as the version of Halloween I own on DVD has been superseded by at least one more version since I bought it - so my DVD review would not reflect everything available out there on the market at the moment!!! Anyway... Here goes!!!

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Back in the Spring of 1978, John Carpenter filmed a horror movie in a remarkable 21 days and on a shoe-string budget that would change horror films forever...

This film was HALLOWEEN...

The story of Halloween starts when Michael Myers, aged only six years of age, brutally stabs to death his 17 year old sister, Judith.

After the murder, Myers is locked up in a psychiatric institute where he is watched over and treated by Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance). After many years of being responsible for Myers and trying to establish what could possibly make a child commit such an horrific act, he realises that there is something far more sinister behind the reasons for the killing. This is summed up perfectly in a line delivered perfectly by Pleasance:

"I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the Devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realised what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil!"

Now if that's not a superb horror movie line, then I don't know what is! It's right up there with and always reminded of Robert Shaw's character Quint speaking about the great white shark in Jaws:

"The idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces."

I hope you can see the parallels I am trying to draw between those unconnected lines. Perhaps it's the whole Devil's eyes/A doll's eyes thing... maybe it's something else more primal that those quotes have always evoked in me... or maybe I'm just full of crap! Anyway, I've always read deeper into such dialogue... and before I digress further, should that be possible, I will move swiftly along!

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Back to the plot of Halloween, when Myers is aged 21, he escapes from the Smith's Grove institution when he is about to be transferred to a more secure facility.

He hijacks the car of Dr. Loomis on a stormy night when as Loomis and an accompanying nurse drive up to the institution in the pouring rain (accompanied with the obligatory thunderstorm, of course!) only to find that all of the patients are aimlessly walking around in a zombie-like state on the grounds of the institute. As Loomis leaves the nurse in the car to find out what is going on, Myers dressed in only his hospital gown jumps onto the roof of the car and scares the wits out of the nurse - forcing her to flee the car in terror - which he promptly steals - heading toward his old town of Haddonfield to continue his reign of terror that had started so many years before.

It's worthy of mentioning some other brilliant dialogue from Donald Pleasance at this stage. When Dr. Loomis is talking to a member of staff from the institute about Myers' escape by stealing a car the night before:

Dr. Terence Wynn: "Now, for God's sake, he can't even drive a car!"

Dr. Sam Loomis: "He was doing very well last night! Maybe someone around here gave him lessons!"

It's for delivery of such lines that the death of Donald Pleasance was such a loss to not only horror movies, but all movies in general...

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Once back in his old stomping and slashing ground of Haddonfield, Michael Myers breaks into a grocery store and steals things that all mass-murdering types should wear:

Boiler Suit (as you just wouldn't want to go on a killing spree wearing a hospital gown now, would you? What would that say about the NHS?!?): Check!

Scary mask: Check!

Kitchen knife: Check!

Now Myers mask in the Halloween series is a pretty screwed up white, emotionless mask with a shock of brown hair which to be honest IS pretty bloody scary...

BUT...

Did you know that the mask that Myers wore in Halloween was actually a William Shatner 'Captain Kirk' mask which was bought by the production crew for the incredible cost of $1.98 as they didn't have the money to design and make a mask? They trimmed away Captain James Tiberius Kirk's side-burns and spray painted the mask white...

Think about that the next time you watch Halloween... It may just change your perception of Michael Myers.

To further note the ingenuity of the crew of this film in order to save money during the filming of the production, as we all know, Halloween is in Autumn but the film (as previously noted above) was filmed in Spring... The crew painted leaves brown and blew them around the streets whilst filming and then would sweep them up and re-use them for subsequent scenes...

Also most of the cast actually wore their own clothes to further save on the budget - with the exception of Jamie Lee Curtis - whose clothing in the film was bought from a J.C. Penney for about $100 dollars.

All in all, if you're going to make a film of any type, this is the way to do it... Spend as little as possible and watch the money roll in upon its release. Absolute genius!!!

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After acquiring "The Serial Killer's Survival Kit" (survival for the serial killer but not his quarry, of course!), Myers' attention gets drawn to Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis in a role that would earn her the nick-name "The Scream Queen), a young girl who is more interested in her high-school grades and baby-sitting than in heading to the prom with a cool guy and "getting laid"... the latter of which might just go very much in her favour (more on that later!).

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It's worth mentioning however, that in Halloween II, we do find out why Myers pinpoints Laurie Strode in this film - although I do have an alternative version of Halloween in my 2 Disc DVD version that has had some extra scenes shot whilst Halloween II was being shot for the US television premiere of the film that would pad out the TV channel's schedule - and ironically would give away the reason that would be revealed in Halloween II! Spooky!!! I however will not reveal that reason here...
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The reason it's a good thing that Laurie is a complete swat with less interest on having sex is that her other friends - who are also babysitting for other families when Laurie is doing the same (do none of these children's' families actually stay in and celebrate Halloween with their offspring?!?) - are shown to have a very BIG interest on jumping between the sheets and 'doing it'! Unfortunately for them, they are also spotted having Halloween nookie (trick or treat? Hmmmm... let me think about that one!!!) by Michael Myers when he goes stalking silently through the houses (Baby sitting + psychopathic, escaped mass-murderer + naughty Halloween sexual relations = UH OH!!!!) and bumps them off (at least showing them the decency to wait until they've actually had it off first!!! HOORAY!!!)...

Thank god Michael Myers is fictional - or I might not have reached my world-wise 32 years of age!!! :o)

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The amazing thing about John Carpenter's Halloween is just how effective it was then and still is now - given that it was shot for next to nothing (an estimated $325,000 which went on to make $47 million at the box office... you do the math - but that's not half bad!!!) in comparison to some of the big budget films in production at that time.

Carpenter also saved a lot of dollars by producing the soundtrack music himself. The amazing thing about this is that the music - like the film itself - is extremely simple in design but very, very effective.

Produced mainly on piano. and credited as the Bowling Green Orchestra, the music is very creepy and eerie and on a personal level I can confirm that it has a theme tune which makes my mum utterly brick it and plead to have it switched off upon hearing it. A good sign for John Carpenter, I should say!

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To summarise, Halloween is as impressive today as it was upon it's release - although slightly dated due to the fashion styles of the time, it is still a classic example of how to make a slasher flick (although it is worth noting that there is actually surprisingly little gore or actual on-screen violence within this film - relying more perhaps on psychological horror - making it perhaps more accessible to more non-horror film types than you would think).

Halloween may have been followed by sequels that tended to get worse with each new instalment. That said, the success of the SCREAM franchise owed a lot to Halloween (with the first Scream movie actually featuring Halloween on a television at a party and being the basis of some of the rules of horror movies that should be adhered to: Such things as saying "I'll be right back" and having sex are absolute death wishes!)...

Following the success of Scream, the Halloween franchise was given a bit of an overhaul following some lacklustre sequels and the very Scream-esque Halloween: H20 and Halloween Resurrection followed after Halloween 6: The Curse Of Michael Myers - which makes H20 (named as it was the 20th anniversary of the original Halloween at the time) and Resurrection 'Halloween 7 & 8'.

I've not seen Halloween Resurrection (although I did quite fancy it) but have just read that a Halloween 9 is in the pipeline for 2007 and directed by Rob Zombie who formed the heavy metal band White Zombie and directed such lovely sounding films as 'The House Of 1000 Corpses' and 'The Devil's Rejects'... none of which appealed to me... despite the fact they were obviously feel-good family comedies(!)...

So it would seem you just can't keep a good mass-murdering movie psychopath/greedy studio exec down and we will be likely seeing more of Michael Myers... I just wonder if William Shatner gets any royalties for the use of his mug in these films? Surely that's scary enough for most movie goers?

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Thanks for reading this bumph... and...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! 

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