I first saw Halloween when I was 9 (fittingly, per a babysitter) and from then on it was a traditional watch every October. I'd ritualistically put it off until the 31st, making it the crescendo of Horror Month. I've regarded it as an infallible Classic for, shit, 20 years.
Rewatching it now...I haven't fully outgrown it but I've finally come around to realizing how far it is from greatness.
For everything I still love about it--Carpenter's direction, Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis' performances, the inescapable atmosphere from Dean Cundey's photography and Carpenter's score, and the absolutely perfect ending--there's the stuff I absolutely hate now: Linda and Annie (and Bob), Nancy Loomis' performance, and the tedious third act. Obstinate fans defend Annie and Linda's one-note characterizations with some archetypal bullshit, their logic being that since they kicked off the Horny Teens trope in slasher movies then it's forgivable. "It was the first to do it horribly so it's not horrible. Right?" No, they're underwritten and vapid. If you say this movie is an A+ you're gonna have to be handing out that esteem to a fuckton more movies.
The very sparse criticism that actually exists for this movie docks points for giving Loomis "nothing to do" but I like how he's a doomsayer on a stakeout. Plus, everything he says is actually creepy and Donald Pleasance brings so much to the role, too (especially his chemistry with Charles Cyphers). He's not just there to say MICHAEL IS EVIL even though that is how he is in the sequels. The "Get your ass away from there" moment where he scares Lonnie and his buds (only to be spooked, himself, by "One-Good-Scare" Sheriff [Scare-iff?] Brackett) is a wonderful switch-up. He's proud of and amused with himself and I love it. There's a warm man underneath the paranoid, reckless Looney Loomis.
Back on the Debra Hill shit: PJ Soles is somehow good with what little she's given (especially in the TV Cut where she gets to bring more playfulness), but Nancy Loomis is downright awful as Annie. Every one of her line deliveries is exactly that: reading lines. Insult to injury is Debra Hill's dialog is so one-note and stale. We spend an unforgivable amount of time with Annie so she really brings it down. Her riddance is not only great for my propensity for bad acting but The Shape carrying her body, juxtaposed with the rumbling audio from Forbidden Planet playing on Tommy's TV, is the creepiest and most inspired scene in the movie. It reminds me of the spooky scifi theremin music Romero used in Night Of The Living Dead.
And this shot of Tommy watching Michael, instead of the other way around, is a great inverse of The Shape's stalking. I like how he's frozen in fear until Lindsey bumps into him and then I LOVE his believable terror when he's shouting about how "the Boogeyman is outside!" All of this is employed to great effect because Carpenter does a fantastic job laying out the geography of this street.
Now, Laurie Strode is a great character played with warm humanity by Jamie Lee Curtis; her genuine care for Tommy is something I came to appreciate more this time around. That said, the repetitive climax is a bummer. He chase her, she stab him, he fall down, she wander off, he get up, she run, he chase, she stab him, he fall down, she wander off. The infamous closet scene is still great but it's sandwiched in between that other shit so it loses its flavor a bit. When I was a kid I thought this was Suspenseful but now it's kind of irritating.
Robert McKee says to "always kill 'em in the end" and Carpenter certainly caps it all off with an effectively chilly, spooky closer. BUT: this was about honesty and since everything before it is so lacking I can't say that, overall, Halloween kills. B+
Rewatching it now...I haven't fully outgrown it but I've finally come around to realizing how far it is from greatness.
For everything I still love about it--Carpenter's direction, Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis' performances, the inescapable atmosphere from Dean Cundey's photography and Carpenter's score, and the absolutely perfect ending--there's the stuff I absolutely hate now: Linda and Annie (and Bob), Nancy Loomis' performance, and the tedious third act. Obstinate fans defend Annie and Linda's one-note characterizations with some archetypal bullshit, their logic being that since they kicked off the Horny Teens trope in slasher movies then it's forgivable. "It was the first to do it horribly so it's not horrible. Right?" No, they're underwritten and vapid. If you say this movie is an A+ you're gonna have to be handing out that esteem to a fuckton more movies.
The very sparse criticism that actually exists for this movie docks points for giving Loomis "nothing to do" but I like how he's a doomsayer on a stakeout. Plus, everything he says is actually creepy and Donald Pleasance brings so much to the role, too (especially his chemistry with Charles Cyphers). He's not just there to say MICHAEL IS EVIL even though that is how he is in the sequels. The "Get your ass away from there" moment where he scares Lonnie and his buds (only to be spooked, himself, by "One-Good-Scare" Sheriff [Scare-iff?] Brackett) is a wonderful switch-up. He's proud of and amused with himself and I love it. There's a warm man underneath the paranoid, reckless Looney Loomis.
Back on the Debra Hill shit: PJ Soles is somehow good with what little she's given (especially in the TV Cut where she gets to bring more playfulness), but Nancy Loomis is downright awful as Annie. Every one of her line deliveries is exactly that: reading lines. Insult to injury is Debra Hill's dialog is so one-note and stale. We spend an unforgivable amount of time with Annie so she really brings it down. Her riddance is not only great for my propensity for bad acting but The Shape carrying her body, juxtaposed with the rumbling audio from Forbidden Planet playing on Tommy's TV, is the creepiest and most inspired scene in the movie. It reminds me of the spooky scifi theremin music Romero used in Night Of The Living Dead.
And this shot of Tommy watching Michael, instead of the other way around, is a great inverse of The Shape's stalking. I like how he's frozen in fear until Lindsey bumps into him and then I LOVE his believable terror when he's shouting about how "the Boogeyman is outside!" All of this is employed to great effect because Carpenter does a fantastic job laying out the geography of this street.
Now, Laurie Strode is a great character played with warm humanity by Jamie Lee Curtis; her genuine care for Tommy is something I came to appreciate more this time around. That said, the repetitive climax is a bummer. He chase her, she stab him, he fall down, she wander off, he get up, she run, he chase, she stab him, he fall down, she wander off. The infamous closet scene is still great but it's sandwiched in between that other shit so it loses its flavor a bit. When I was a kid I thought this was Suspenseful but now it's kind of irritating.
Robert McKee says to "always kill 'em in the end" and Carpenter certainly caps it all off with an effectively chilly, spooky closer. BUT: this was about honesty and since everything before it is so lacking I can't say that, overall, Halloween kills. B+
I'll always champion it for existential sparseness (tiny budget and subtle score). And the cinematography obviously. But its shakiness in everything else (premise, mythology, and yes, Nancy) are always my reason to point to most of its sequels (and reboots) and note that there's no barometer of quality here. Most of them have strengths and weaknesses. -p
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