A saying springs to mind with this film: 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. This is because this film single handedly reinvented the horror genre and in particular the slasher film. Head and shoulders above all of its predecessors however, in the same way the 'Blair Witch' 20 years later relied more on suspense and the perfectly capable imiginations of its audience rather than the copious amounts of fake blood dreamt up by the special effects department. Made for no money by today's standards and relying mostly on word of mouth for promotion, Michael Myers walked into iconic status in modern pop culture. Made by young film makers John Carpenter and Debra Hill over one summer in 1978, the film remains the epitomy of quality horror stories. Cleverly using the fact that at some point everyone has either been a babysitter or been babysat, it gave the viewers a shared view point. Set over one day (Halloween) a maniacal psychopath stalks young babysitters in the neighbourhood of Haddonfield. The film uses a film score very similar and as memorable as John Williams' Jaws theme. Unlike the spawn of imitators, the characters are both believable and sympathetic which makes the viewer actually care about whether they live or die and no film came close until the 90s Scream (which indeed paid homage to Halloween throughout). Not surprisingly as the film was so successful, it spawned its own series of sequels which fell woefully short of the original. A must for any horror fan's collection - in particular the 25th Anniversary addition which includes a fab documentary with cast and crew.
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Production Year: 1980 - Horror - Director: Paul Lynch - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Leslie Nielsen, Casey Stevens, Anne-Marie Martin, Antoinette Bower
Production Year: 1981 - Horror - Director: Rick Rosenthal - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Lance Guest, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer, Dana Carvey
The Night He Came Home Perhaps the most influential and successful independent film ever ... more
made Halloween is the movie that put director John Carpenter on the map as a viable filmmaker. An exercise in simple pure horror Halloween takes us into the wo...
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Advantages: Score, FX, Acting, Not A Straight-forward Re-Make... Disadvantages: Acting, Repetitive Obscenities, It Will Always Remain Inferior To The Original...
iGayParis 29.04.2008 (29.04.2008)
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Review of Halloween (DVD)
![Halloween [1978] [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78486290.jpg "Halloween [1978] [DVD]")
Dec 16th, 2008
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