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Halloween

Halloween

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Halloweener? No, a Hollow Weiner.
Review: This movie is not good. ... Past mindless complaints, this movie is fairly plotless, and riddled with idiocy. For instance, why does the killer spend three-fourths of the movie standing around as scary music plays? The horrors of men standing in silly masks, save me! Save your laughter for the scene in which his standing theme resembles the sound of a jet propulsion system. Also, pass the time wondering why Jamie Lee Curtis does not figure out that the killer is probably not dead when she stabs him in the thigh. While this might kill some, he has already survived a coathanger in the eye and a long needle driven into his ear, so you might not want to turn your back. She does, so he can try to kill her again. Also, the killer is generally more impotent than pre-Viagra Bob Dole. Real killers hang in movies like "Welcome to Spring Break." ...Skip Banacheck is a better hero than Jamie Lee any day.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Horror flick!
Review: On Halloween night,1963, Michael Myers had brutuly and savagely murdered his older sister, Judith, and now, 15 years later, Myers has escaped, and Dr. Samuel Loomis, Myers' doctor, must capture him before he goes on a killing rampage. Myers returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where he meets Laurie Strode, a young teenager. Myers gets obsessed with Laurie, and unknowable to her, Myers has only one thing on his mind...Pure Evil. Great suspense with well-fitted music, good screenplay, and great acting. Though I think Laurie could've been a bit more smarter then how she is =0 (Leaving that knife in the floor was the stupidest thing you could've done, no offense.)...other than that, she's a great heroine. This movie is probably one of the best and most famous horror movies ever made. It has the popularity and publicity a horror movie like this so highly deserves. And since Halloween is almost around the corner, it's a good thing to plan to watch this movie with popcorn, soda, and candy this Halloween night with your friends and family-I guarantee it'll be a blast!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is a must-have for any fan of the Halloween series
Review: i recently recieved my copy of this video, and I love it. It is a must-have for any Halloween fan. We only get the movie on television 2 times a year, so it is not that often I get to see the television add-ins. So once again, I love this film, especially in its newly rendered screening (higher quality). I own the old version and it is really nothing compared ot this one. Its great!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Film That Started It All....
Review: John Carpenter's Halloween is the horror film that started it all. The film picks up on Halloween night of 1963, where a cute little six-year-old boy, Michael Audry Myers, grabs a kitchen knife, puts on a clown mask, and bruttaly stabs his sister, Judith Margaret Myers, to death. Just minutes after the brutal massacre, Michael is caught by his two parents, who have just arrived home. The film then jumps to Halloween's eve, October 30th, 1978. Dr. Sam Lommis (a brilliant Doneld Pleasance) and his nurse, Marion Chambers (Nancy Stevens)are driving to the Smith's Grove Mental Institution to transport Myers (Nick Castle) to a Maximum Security Ward. However, Michael attacks Nurse Chambers and steals the car, escaping from the Institution before Loomis can say "The Evil Is Gone From Here". The film goes, then, to Haddonfield, on Halloween morning, where we meet babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, in her first role) who has no boyfriend, and who's friends tease her about it every day. Laurie is planning to babysit 8 year old Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews) while her friend, Lynda (P.J. Soles) is planning to hang out with her boyfriend, Bob (Johnathon-Michael-Graham), and her other friend, Annie (Nancy Kyes/Loomis) is babysitting accross the street, little Linsay Wallace (Kyle Richards). Laurie notices there seems to be someone following her around. She looks out the window of her classroom and sees a strange person standing, and staring at her, and when she looks away, and then turns back, he's gone. There's a strange car going fast down the streets, and stopping the moment he sees her and her friends. She is seeing someone behind the bushes. Annie thinks she's going "Wacko" because she needs a boyfriend. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis, after a debate with Dr. Wynn, heads to Haddonfield to catch the madman. He asks for help from Sherrif Leigh Bracket (Charles Cyphers) who also happens to be Annie's father. That night, when it gets dark, and the trick-or-treaters are out, the evil killer begins stalking the three young girls, the three naive girls, the three unsuspecting girls............

I, myself, love John Carpenter's Halloween. It is a masterpiece. It is a classic. It scared the living daylights out of me the first time, and it still succeeds at sending shivers down my spine. The killer, Michael Myers, was one of the first, copied many times by others like Jason Vorhees (Created by Victor Miller and Sean S. Cunningham), or Freddy Krueger (Created by Wes Craven) but Myers has not been matched. John Carpenter made Halloween what it is..... a scarefest. Carpenter knows the camera. He knows how to use it, and he knows how to succeed in making the camera scare the audience. Some of the scenes in this movie are all done in one long camera take, and ALL the scenes are only good in their original aspect ratio, 2:35:1 Widescreen. Each scene requires widescreen so you can actually SEE WHAT YOU'RE SAPPOSED TO SEE!!!! The ghostley killer, around the corner, integrating slowly in the shadows. That is why this film is only good in widescreen, even if you hate the bars on top of the screen, all of the most frightening scenes in this film are not seen in standard, cropped format.

As for this DVD, well, AMAZING. This picture has never been better!!! Digitally remastered by Lucasfilm, the film could almost pass for a 90's film!!! But, there are a few flaws.

#1. When you watch this movie, the beggining gives you a choice of whether you want to watch this in standard, or widescreen. With this choice, some people may view this film in standard, and miss all the frightening things about this movie. So, I think the film should only be presented in Widescreen, the way it was meant to be.

#2. You have a choice of sound. Dolby Digital, Dolby 2.0 and the Original Mono Soundtrack. In both Dolby versions, the music highley overwhelms the actor's voices, thus you can barely hear what they're saying!!!! So, view the film in Original Mono for the best sound.

#3. This is my biggest complaint. There was a limited two-pack edition of Halloween released complete with twelve minutes of extra footage. When Halloween was such a succes, John Carpenter and Debra Hill started filming a Halloween 2, which reunited Doneld Pleasance, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Stevens, and Charles Cyphers. At the same time, Hallween aired on television. However, the film was edited for television and cut out many things. So, John Carpenter gathered up some of the returning cast and shot several new scenes to have on TV. Another scene, where Laurie and Lynda have some "Girl Talk" was actually cut from the film, and was restored into it on television. So, when Halloween is on TV, these scenes are there too. But, in the limited edition two-pack, both versions of the movie existed in it, and the deleted scenes were even in widescreen!!!! But, that was a LIMITED EDITION and went out of stores before I could reach it. What a cheat!!! And now a one-pack disk is coming with deleted scenes, but they're in STANDARD. Why can't they just put the Limited Edition back out? In widescreen? Is that to much to ask?

Well, those are my complaints, but here are the good things. There's a very insightful documentary, that includes interviews with John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Brian Andrews, Dean Cundey, P.J. Soles, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle, and more!!!!!

There are also trailers, TV spots and Radio Spots!!!

A good DVD, but that Limited Edition needs to be re-released!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must for Halloween fans
Review: This version of the classic chiller contains the 12 minutes that were shot for television. These 12 minutes broaden certain things up. If you love all the other Halloween movies, then this is one for the collection.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Where's the plot???
Review: I thought movies were supposed to have little things called "plots." Well, Halloween has absolutely *no* plot whatsoever. The film is downright boring. The first hour of the film is sooooo boring and slow. The last hour isn't exciting, but it is more suspenseful than the first 60 minutes of the film. I was surprised at how much nudity there was in this film as well. I can't imagine a mother (or father) letting their child watch this film. It's gruesome and demented. I did not like one single solitary thing about Halloween. I do not recommend it at all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Horror Classic!
Review: "Halloween" is a horror movie classic that put slasher movies on the map.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "GREAT"
Review: This movie was amazing. I read another reviewer that said the movie had no plot. I partly agree. BUT I was wrong. In Haloween 6 it explains that Michael Meyers was tormented into killing his family so the movie has a very good plot.

I rate 5 stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Unforgettable! A Horror Masterpiece!!
Review: The first always seems to be the best. Halloween is no different. This original 1978 classic still shines today as a masterpiece of the horror genre! We see no blood, no gore, no grotesque creatures....just the ever-chilling "shape" of Michael Myers and his cutlery! The aura and atmosphere of this film is so vivid! And together with that unforgettable music...a classic was bound to be born. The eerieness of the whole film is hard to put into words. Even the scenes shot in daylight will scare you (especially with that music score to accompany them). It's been copied a million times since, but never been surpassed. The new DVD version is bound to be even better!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Halloween-Restored Limited Edition: a must have DVD!
Review: We all know that Halloween is a masterpiece of horror. Why? Because it doesn't use many cheap shocks to scare us. It focuses on pure, undeniable suspense of the highest caliber to truly horrify us. I should propably tell you, I LOVE gore! I love seeing what clever type of death the make-up artist has in mind and how many guts can spill without getting that dreaded X rating. But Halloween is one of the only splatter films I've seen that didn't need any gore, because there actually was suspense (I love Friday The 13th, but let's face it, that had no suspense). Halloween is also great because of all the attention director John Carpenter pays to detail. The killer is nearly always in the background somewhere, but instead of making that really obvious, Carpenter barely hints at that, so when you see it you say "Wo!" Take, for example, the scene in which one teen girl, Annie (Nancy Kyes/Loomis) accidentally locks herself in the laundry room and then hears the phone ringing. She starts screaming at the kid she's babysitting, Lindsey (Kyle Richards) to pick the phone up. While she's doing this, Michael Myers (Nick Castle) is in the background staring at her through the window. The sad thing is that when Halloween went to video and was put in Pan-And-Scan format, most of this scary stuff was cut off the side of the screen!

That brings me to my next point. This DVD from Anchor Bay, obviously trying to make up for their past mistakes where they released a terrible version of Halloween onto DVD, with bad colors, horrible sound, it was just plain bad! Well, it's amazing what Lucasfilm's THX Digital Mastering Services can do. Halloween looks good as new! It's amazingly clear and clean, free of speckles and grain, and the sound is to equal. You've got yourself Three different sound formats to watch Halloween in, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround 2.0 and it's original mono version, and the 5.1 version is clearly the best. My goodness, how much better this is from the previous release. The voices, while a tad bit overwhelmed by the music near the beggining, are much clearer than they've ever been before, and the music is stronger and much crisper, too. Also, a couple of things have been added into the sound-mix (courtesy of academy award winner Adam Adams), such as in the scene with Loomis and Nurse Marion driving to the mental hospital, several new sounds of lightning help add to the tension. Great new mix!

Also, this version doesn't forget the extras (it does forget the commentary recoreded on the Laserdisk, but that's forgivible). The highlight of the special features section is the 30 minute documentary called "Halloween Unmasked". This is a very interesting behind-the-scenes documentary in which many of the cast and crew talk about fascinating memories (Christopher Lee was originally picked to play Loomis?) and there's some great stuff to learn here, as well as some funny talk with Nich Castle (The Shape). There's still other extras around, as well, though. We've got a great still gallery that you actually want to check out. It contains all sorts of great stuff, as well as Halloween's poster artwork.

Next we've got two trailers (they're both the same except one had a little part on the beggining that says "The one, the only, the classic, Halloween!") and three TV Spots, one o which is just under ten seconds long. You can't forget the radio-spots either, and they're here. Also, we've got some fun trivia and production notes, but that's not it!

If you were lucky and were able to get your hands on the Restored Limited Edition of Halloween, then you've got a second disk with a very nice surprise. That surprise is the entire TV version of Halloween, uncut and featuring all 12 of the restored minutes shot for TV when Halloween aired. Most of the scenes help augment the story, especially one where Loomis fights with two doctors about sending Michael to a maximum security ward. The other scenes are Loomis talking to young Michael in his cell, Loomis finding Michael's room completely trashed and with the word "Sister" carved on the all, and one where Lynda comes over to Laurie's house to borrow a blouse. The great thing here is that all the scenes are presented in widescreen, just like the rest of the movie, and anamorphic, too! The sound isn't as good as the rest of the film, and a hiss is noticeable, but it's an honor to own the TV version of Halloween at all.

AS I have said, Halloween looks good ONLY in widescreen, but for some reason Anchor Bay decided to include both a standard and a widescreen version of the movie on disk one (disk two only has widescreen). I don't see why they did this, since all the beautiful photography turns to mud in standard, particularly in the shot of Laurie walking on the sidewalk, waiting for Annie to pick her up, or in the opening scene with the pumpkin, or the scene with Michael integrating out of the darkness to strike at Laurie. Nearly every scene in this movie was meant for widescreen, so I consider it a downer that Anchor Bay included the pan-and-scan version, since I'm sure that some fools will watch it that way because there aren't any black bars. A shame.

Still, Halloween was and is a great scary movie. It's a classic of horror and it lives on in an almost perfect (no commentary and you've got the ability to watch it in standard) DVD. This is a great DVD that you must get your hands on soon. Buy it used, do anything you can, just be sure to buy the best version of Halloween there is!


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