Halloween

Rating:
Summary: a classic, i would compare it to psycho
Review: halloween gave birth to michael myers. in 1963, he killed his sister with a large butcher knife. now 15 years later he wants to kill his other sister while she is babysitting on halloween, and kills her friends along the way. this is one of the best and scariest horror movies ever, a true classic. ....

Rating:
Summary: "HALLOWEEN": Excellent movie that started it all...
Review: REVIEW: HALLOWEEN

BREAKDOWN
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CHARACTER: *****
- For a horror movie, this movie is at the top of its game with characters. They are interesting and intriguing, and even if some of Laurie's friends are a little annoying or shallow, just think to high school: they were like that. Dr. Loomis pastes the purpose of the movie together, not just making it bland or generic.

ASTHETICS: *****
(This includes acting, music, and setting' just stuff that delights the ear and eyes.)
- The setting and mood was excellent. The music is the best of any horror movie, and John Carpenter should be extremely proud of his little piano notes. They keep you attentive. The makeup is good, and it has a homey feel.

FAST FORWARD: *****
- A star is lost (of 5) for each time I find myself fast forwarding in boredom.

INSTINCTIVE: ****
(This is the rating I'd give right at the end given what my overall impression of the movie is.)
- I really enjoyed the second half, but I thought that the beginning was very slow. Anyone used to the wham-bam movement of violence is going to be slightly bored, waiting for violence. But it sure keeps the suspense!
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OVERALL: ***** (rounded)

RECOMMENDED: Yes.

Rating:
Summary: Halloween: Still Scaring People Today
Review: Halloween is suspensful film about a maniac who escapes a mental institute to kill teenagers on Halloween night. Fifteen years later, he murdered his sister on Halloween as a child. Now he has come back to spread his evil. The only one who may be able to stop him is his psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis (played well by Pleasence). Curtis plays an intended victim who doesn't know about the killer until the end. Plenty of scares, and best of all, it doesn't need gore to get its point across. The end...is the best part of all.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Scary Flick!
Review: This movie although not as scary as the company would make you think is very good. It tells the first part of the story in which Michael Myers attempts to kill his sister (who at this point dosen't realize she's related), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). It was continued by an equally good film called Halloween II in which it continues the same Halloween night of 1978 in Haddonfield.

Rating:
Summary: halloween o god make the series stop!
Review: halloween was not a bad movie for its time and i expected them to make a few more but now, they have pushed it way too far. Forget the sequels, Halloween is a timeless classic.

Rating:
Summary: where's the blood!?
Review: It's Halloween in Haddonfield, and the story of 6 year old Micheal Myers killing his sister still remains in the quiet town.
Only Dr.Loomis (Donald Pleasance) knows what Micheal is like, and what he can do, and that is why Micheal has been put in the mental hospital.
The scene about how he escapes from the hospital is too unlikely, just walking out and stealig a car. But, when he's out, he's out, and he will not stop until his sister, Laurie Strode, (Jamie Lee-Curtis) is dead.
The character of Micheal Myers is played by Tony Moran, and played well too, giving an air of evil. Bullets, knitting needles and clothes hangers won't stop him. Can anyone stop him?
Even though there is a lack of blood, and a slightly slow start, Halloween offers suspence, darkness and murdered teenagers. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: One of the all time greats
Review: This film is seen as one of the greatest horror flicks of all time, many films that came after were similar...Jason the unstopable killing machine was inspired by Micheal Myers for sure.If you don't have this one in your collection you can't be considered a hardcore horror fan.This is the flick that put superstar Jamie Lee Curtis on the map and this is also one of the the films that put slasher flicks on the map it's a must have.

Rating:
Summary: best movie
Review: this is the best horror movie ever made. i dont see why it does not have all five stars who is the loser who did not give halloween a 5 star should be killed by Michael Myers. i have all the halloween movies and can not wait untill HALL8WEEN comes out.

Rating:
Summary: If not the best horror film, certainly the most frightening
Review: It's impossible, in a sense, to see this film for the first time. Because even if you haven't seen it before you've seen most of its best tricks copied in thousands of vastly inferior slasher films. Some of the freshness is inevitably lost, when you see the imitations before the innovator. (The first time I saw _Halloween_ it was being projected onto the wall of a deconsecrated and very drafty old church, with myself almost the only male in an audience of squealing social work students... The best possible atmosphere for encountering a film of this kind, and that memory may mean that I tend to forgive this film some of its faults. But I'll try to keep this objective.)

Basically _Halloween_ rethought and refitted what was then a stale genre, horror, (the genre is stale again now, mainly because it's lived off _Halloween_'s innovations for over 20 years).

Some of _Halloween_'s innovatiuons are easily recognised. One is the now-compulsory scene in which the heroine (or occasionally the hero) has dispatched the killer and leans back panting, exhausted but finally safe... Now we know, whenever we see a scene like that, that the killer is bound to sit up suddenly from the floor, the bath, the grave, etc, and have one last attempt to kill the Last Girl Alive before being defeated again, even more desperately.

These days just the sight of the heroine starting to relax is enough to put us on our guard. But when John Carpenter brought back the apparently mortally wounded Michael Myers at the end of _Halloween_ it was new, something genuinely unexpected and shocking.

Other Carpenter improvements to the genre include the newly relentless pacing. He made things happen faster, streamlining the shock delivery mechanism so that the audience has less time to relax between shocks. Watch an older horror movie and you'll see the difference; even schlock directors like William Castle take their time, excruciatingly slow compared to the faster tempo set by Carpenter. Carpenter also subverted the rhythm by which horror films deliver their shocks. Before Carpenter the experienced horror audience knew that after each scare you could be guaranteed 10 to 15 minutes of exposition and tease, with no futher surprises. Horror punches were well apart and well telegraphed. Carpenter changed that; not only was the action faster, but the scare peaks came at random and largely unpredictable moments. The audience quickly learned that there was no time in which it could relax.

Other features of this film, such as the use of movement at the edges of the frame are brilliantly well done, but there Carpenter is borrowing and adapting rather than innovating. The power of Carpenter's soundtrack is another notable feature of this film, but that is also less groundbreaking; the immediate models are Mike Oldfield's music for _The Exorcist_, and in a different sense Bernard Herrman's superb _Psycho_ score.

Some of Carpenter's other innovations are less positive. The film didn't exactly do much to increase sympathetic understanding of former psychiatric patients, but maybe we can live with that. But the vengeful and puritanical subtext in which those characters who have sex get killed, while virgins survive, is one of the slasher genre's less attractive features, and it is something that is largely taken from this film's template.

On the other hand Carpenter also pioneers the phenomenon of the Last Girl, in which evil is defeated not by the boyfriend, as in most teen horror movies made prior to _Halloween_, but by a heroic and resourceful young woman. The "last girl" (in this case a powerful performance by an astonishingly young Jamie Lee Curtis) has become a feminist icon, and a partial counter to the horror genre's general mysogyny. Carptenter also creates several genuinely likeable, ordinary-girl characters; he quite efficiently makes you care what happens to his mostly female cast.

So this is a hugely inventive and original movie, which ironically suffers because it was so influential. People who come to it after seeing its imitations (which means more or less any horror film made after 1979) may miss how radical and fresh this film was. Scenes that are cliches in films like _Scream_, _Last Summer_ and so on, are not cliches in _Halloween_: here they were _new ideas_.

In its own modest way _Halloween_ is a classic, the _Ivan the Terrible_ of horror films. It's certainly the most genuinely scary horror film I know. One reason for its scariness, compared to the usual run of horror films, is that its monster is both credibly part of everyday life and genuinely frightening. I can't raise a real shiver over a supernatural creature like a vampire, ghost or devil. Suspension of disbelief is seldom really complete; I can't take them seriously enough to be scared by them.

But an unreasonable and unreasoning nutter with a big knife is a different story; dangerous nutters are part of the real world and something genuinely frightening.

The "boogie man", Mike Myers, is a little too good at hiding, at getting from place to place, and finally at surviving being stabbed and then shot to be truly human, but in this first film it is almost always possible to give a naturalist explanation for his activities. The increasing emphasis on Myers' supernatural powers in later films may be one reason why none of the sequels are remotely as scary as this film.

Logic collapses in the later films. And the hack (no pun intended) sequel directors make up for their lack of invention and tension by pouring out gallons of the raspberry cordial instead. Frankly, not one of the sequels is worth your time, let alone your money.)

But the original is a fine, extremely well-crafted film. Other horror films, such as James Whale's _Bride of Frankenstein_, may be better films _as films_, but no other horror film is so effective _as horror_. This film is ruthlessly and effectively terrifying.

Cheers!

Laon

Rating:
Summary: One of the scariest movies ever!
Review: Where do I start? First off, I believe that Halloween is one of the scariest movies of all time. It practically created the slasher genre and inspired countless imitators. Unfortunately, more recent slashers, such as Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer, while fun to watch, are not scary at all. Halloween, on the other hand, scares me to death. What is it that makes Halloween so scary? Is it that theme music that you can't ever forget? Or is it that expressionless mask? Maybe it's the way it all looks like it could happen right in your home town. Whatever it is, no matter who you are, Halloween is one of those movies you will never forget. Watching Michael "The Shape" Myers slowly walk down the street is one image that will, I guarantee you, send chills down your spine.