"I spent 8 years trying to reach him, then another 7 trying to keep him locked up, because
I realised that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply ... evil." - Dr. Loomis
2-Disk Limted Edition
Year of Release - 1978
DVD Release - Anchor Bay Entertainment - 1999
Region 1 - NTSC - Rated R
Running Time - (Original) 91:01 - (Television) 100:59
Director: John Carpenter
Starring: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J. Soles and Nancy Loomis
Music: John Carpenter
John Carpenter and Debra Hill met during the filming of Assault on Precinct 13 and decided to make a movie together. They decided to make a movie tentatively called The Babysitter Murders and named the villain after one of the distributors of Assault.
His name was Michael Myers and the movie was retitled, Halloween.
Up until the (in my opinion) overrated Blair Witch Project, Halloween was the single most successful independent/low budget film ever.
SYNOPSIS
On Halloween night 1963, in Haddonfield, Illinios, 6-year-old Michael Myers took a knife and stabbed his 17-year-old sister, Judith, to death.
15 years later, as Dr. Loomis (Pleasence) arrives to the Smith's Grove Sanitarium to deliver Michael to a court hearing to be tried for the murder as an adult, Michael escapes and steals Loomis' car.
Loomis believes that he knows where Michael is headed. He believes that Michael is coming home!
Laurie Strode (Curtis) is a clean-cut 17-year-old who is going to babysit Tommy Doyle on Halloween night. Her friend Annie (Loomis) is babysitting Lindsey, while her other friend Lynda (Soles) is going on a screwing safari with her boyfriend.
That afternoon, Laurie swears that someone is stalking her, or at the very least, playing a Halloween prank, because she keeps spotting a strange man in a mask looking at her. Naturally, she thinks nothing of it.
Michael Myers is stalking them. He's going on one last trick-or-treat.
It's Halloween night, everyone deserves at least one good scare...
VIDEO
Filmed in Panavision, Halloween is presented in 2.35:1 aspect and is 16:9 enhanced. You can also watch it in Pan & Scan, but if you do, Michael Myers will stalk you and stab you to death with a blunt teaspoon.
The transfer was remastered and restored and on the whole, hasn't looked better. However there are instances of film artefacts throughout the movie. At least there isn't any grain...
According to the back of the cover: The video was transferred by the award-winning colorist Adam Adams (Terminator 2, Titanic) from a new 35mm interpositive (made from the original camera negative) and approved by the film's cinematographer Dean Cundey (Jurassic Park, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?).
Dean Cundey's trademark expertise in lighting composition serves the movie well and is one of the movie's strengths.
AUDIO
There are three audio tracks for Halloween. Dolby Digital 5.1, Dloby Surround 2.0 and the original Mono soundtrack. The Television Version has only the Mono audio track.
The music, composed by John Carpenter, is so simple it's brilliant. The main theme is genuinely creepy and the themes used in the film, heighten the suspense and tension throughout.
According to the back of the cover: The new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack was created by Chace Productions in association with Alan Howarth using the original 16-track music studio master and the recently discovered original 35mm magnetic dialogue & effects tracks.
It's nice to know that a lot of effort went into this DVD, and it shows.
EXTRAS
Disk 1
Halloween Unmasked 2000
This documaentary is excellent. It features interviews with John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Nick Castle (who played Michael Myers) and more. It goes into the history of Halloween in some considerable depth.
Trailers
You get the original theatrical trailer and the re-release trailer. They are of varying video and audio quality.
TV Spots
You get two 30 second TV Spots and one 10 second TV Spot of varying video and audio quality.
Radio Spots
An extra that I have never seen before (or anyone else for that mater...), this disk has three Radio Spots. Very cool.
Talent Bios
Biographies and Filmograpies of John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Irwin Yablans, Moustapha Akkad, Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, and P.J. Soles.
Still Galleries
Split between Publicity Photos and Posters and Behind-the-Scenes. These are very good galleries.
Trivia
A set of interesting tidbits about Halloween, such as: The character Laurie Strode is named after John Carpenter's first girlfriend.
Disk 2
Television Version
When Halloween was sold to NBC in 1980, the network's censors demanded numerous edits to the film. Although she was against the cuts in the first place, Debra Hill decided to film some addditional scenes to fill the movie's 2-hour running time. So while Halloween 2 was being filmed, Hill brought in John Carpenter to direct 11 minutes of new footage.
The new footage is fascinating, but incredibly tedious...
About the TV Version
A slightly more in-depth explanation than the one I just gave you...
OVERALL
What can I say? Halloween is quite easily my favourite Horror film, and quite possible my favourite film of all time.
There is something about the seeming simplicity of the film, both in the photography and the direction, that makes it superior to every other attempt to replicate it. I put this down to the genius of John Carpenter and Dean Cundey.
Jamie Lee Curtis, in her first major film role, is very good. But it's Donald Pleasence's bordeline obsessed Dr. Loomis that really steals the show. Pleasence was an elder statesman of British Cinema whose talent was rivalled by a small few. Interestingly, Carpenter first approached Peter Cushing for the role of Loomis.
Of course, Nick Castle's preformance of "The Shape", Michael Myers, was nothing short of spooky. The Shape represents pure, anadulterated evil. No gimmicks. Just pure evil. And, again, there is something about the seeming simplicity of Castle's performance that perfectly portrays that pure evil.
This 2-Disk Limited Edition DVD has been out of print for some time, but you can get the Television Version on it's own. However you don't get the cool "holographic" cover like with this one!
Note that in 2003, for the 25th Anniversary, Anchor Bay will be re-releasing Halloween on DVD, quite possibly with a Commentary, which this DVD sorely lacks.
Halloween is a classic by any sense of the word and if you haven't seen it, then what are you waiting for?
The Film: 
The Disk: 1/2
"Dark Lord" Paul Lenkic
"Accept the Lord of Darkness as your saviour!" - The Undertaker
© 2002