Debra Hill (1950–2005)

Years ago, little Michael Myers stabbed his sister to death on Halloween. In the movie's present, Michael escapes the mental hospital where he's spent the past 15 years imprisoned and has returned to his neighborhood to continue killing. While a psychiatrist who knows just what Michael is capable of desperately tries to find him before he can kill again, high schooler Laurie settles in for a Halloween night of babysitting, not realizing that a cold-blooded killer is stalking her and her show more friends.

I went into this expecting I'd get into it just like I did the Scream franchise and want to plow through the whole thing. Instead, this was painful enough that I was left feeling surprised it was ever continued.

Most of the acting and dialogue was stiff and wooden, with only Jamie Lee Curtis managing to occasionally make her lines sound like something a real person might say. The tense/spooky music was used so heavy-handedly that it came across like the horror movie version of a sitcom's laugh track.

Again, this seems to be one of those areas in which I have unpopular opinions, because I've checked several "Halloween movies ranked worst to best" lists, and somehow this one is always rated as being the best. Is it nostalgia on the part of the people making the lists? I don't know, but rather than giving the franchise another stab (pun intended), I think I'm just going to stop here.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Watched this numerous times and it still remains a potent and powerful low budget chiller. John Carpenter's perfect directorial Hitchcock-referencing technique; his haunting one-note score; the relentless killer ominously lurking in the background; deep shadows in dark rooms; babysitter and escaped lunatic archetypes; a sinister Donald Pleasance; a fresh-faced and innocent Jamie Lee Curtis and Dean Cundey's masterful widescreen photography all add up to an absolute horror masterpiece.

2025 movie #177. 1978. I've never seen this. It's a decent film with much less blood than I expected. Director John Carpenter had a tiny budget and used the dictum that less is more to great effect. Escaped from a mental hospital, Michael Myers goes on a rampage in his home town

An escaped mental patient kills teenagers.

It's an important landmark, and there are a couple of very cool bits. But mostly I was unimpressed.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: A

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.8/4