Yay I've gone bronze and no tanning bed in sight!!
Thanks to everyone for your ratings and comments...
Yay I've gone bronze and no tanning bed in sight!!
Thanks to everyone for your ratings and comments.
I always try to return all ratings and if I promise an E and don't get back to you feel free to give me a poke.
Sue
Member since:30.05.2009
Reviews:410
Members who trust:91
HALLOWEEN 1978
FILM REVIEW ONLY
I thought that I'd do a review on this old classic on watching it again this weekend on Sky.
By today's standards I suppose it's not that scary.
Back in its day I was a real wimp with Horror films and it was only as my kids grew up and started watching them that I did too!!
This is the film that scared the living daylights out of generations of viewers (especially babysitters)
It is of course John Carpenter's 1978 masterpiece Halloween.
The idea and theme is brilliant, a killer who kills on Halloween night and conceals his identity by wearing a creepy white Halloween mask.
Carpenter's merciless madman Michael Myers is, to be blunt, evil incarnate. "No one is ever born evil". I'm not sure who came up with that phrase, but Michael Myers certainly was evil !!
Evil struck Halloween night 1963 when at the tender
age of 6, without provocation and wearing a Halloween costume, Michael Myers stabbed his older sister to death with a kitchen knife.
We had had a little insight into this child's mental health earlier in the film, it's hardly normal to carry a dead cat in your schoolbag is it?
Michael was institutionalized under the care of Dr. Sam Loomis (played wonderfully by Donald Pleasence),
Michael Myers was cut off from the outside world. Or so it seemed.
Funny how history can find a way of repeating itself.
En route to transfer his psychotic patient on a rain soaked Halloween's Eve, Loomis is aghast when Michael escapes the psychiatric ward that he's been confined to for fifteen years.
"The Evil is loose!"
Confident that Michael is planning an unwelcome visit to his sleepy hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois on the anniversary of his sister's murder, Dr. Loomis & the town's skeptical sheriff (Charles Cyphers) initiate a manhunt in order to stop Michael's campaign of terror.
Jamie Lee Curtis comes in as the girl next door, teenage Laurie Strode. Stuck babysitting on Halloween night, the teenager cures boredom by catching up on gossip over the phone & watching horror films with the kiddies. Laurie has her hands full with two imaginative youths who keep talking about the "bogeyman."
While trick-or-treaters go door-to-do on a seemingly peaceful Halloween night, the prowling homicidal Michael has his eye on innocent young Laurie & fellow babysitters in the area.
Before Laurie knows it, the "bogeyman" (Myers) is in the neighborhood and after her
Donald Pleasence is a joy to watch as the obsessed Dr. Loomis, as he appears to have been born to play the part the way Connery was born to play Bond. (Yes I am of the era that thinks Connery is THE Bond!!)
This film was Jamie Lee Curtis's first film, and after it she was crowned "Scream Queen" & it still holds the test of time as her most popular role. .
Rather than dish out blood & guts gore to induce fright, director Carpenter choose to paint a richly scary atmosphere throughout the film. Oh sure, there's some splotches of blood here & there--it is after all a slasher film. Thankfully Carpenter is was clever enough to leave the majority of the blood and gore off the screen, knowing that the monsters we imagine always hold more power than those fully exposed to us. And that mask!!!
But the true terror of Halloween is the musical score that often hints at impending doom and spooky photography (watch how Michael's mask materializes out of the pitch black of a cupboard behind Laurie--still makes my skin crawl). Carpenter takes advantage of the shadows, the light, and the simple mistakes people make every day, like leaving the back or front door unlocked, this could happen to you, to me , to anyone. He knows how to tap into our greatest fears. With Halloween, it’s what we don’t see coming that is truly terrifying, Michael can be anywhere.
We're even treated to first person perspectives which let us see the world through Michael's eyes, complete with his raspy breathing.
This was a low budget film but the incredible use of the hand-held camerawork, the scary foreground and background action made it a horror classic.
Carpenter's skills are seemingly endless; besides co-writing and directing Halloween, he also composed the films unnervingly spooky score.
And if the very thought of a bloke in a jumpsuit wearing a William Shatner mask & wielding a butcher knife at you from out of the darkness doesn't give you the creeps, well then you need someone to check your pulse.
Main Cast
Brian Andrews - Tommy Doyle Nick Castle - The Shape Jamie Lee Curtis - Laurie Strode John Michael Graham - Bob Nancy Loomis - Annie Donald Pleasence - Dr. Sam Loomis Kyle Richards - Lindsay Wallace P.J. Soles - Lynda Will Sandin - Michael Myers age 6 Nancy Stephens - Marion Chambers
John Carpenter - Director
Pictures of Halloween (DVD)
Halloween (DVD)
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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
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
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...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
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)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Halloween (DVD)
![Halloween [1978] [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78486290.jpg "Halloween [1978] [DVD]")
Nov 2nd, 2009
very helpful by (100%):
