It all began one cold Halloween night in 1963 when a young boy stalked through his old suburban house, with a butcher knife clasped in his tiny hands. The boy's name was Michael Myers, and what he did that dreadful Halloween would be remembered and talked about in whispers for years to come. In the cover of darkness, Michael crept up the steps to his sisters room and slaughtered her in cold blood... He ran from the house, still holding the butcher knife, and was discovered by his parents.
Fifteen years later Michaels doctor, Doctor Sam Loomis, is preparing to escort his comatose patient from Smiths Grove/Warren County sanitarium to Hardin county where he is set to stand trial as an adult. But Michael Myers has other plans. Through unknown means he escapes his room in the sanitarium, and steals Dr. Loomis very own car. Michael plans upon returning to Haddonfield Illinois where he once lived with his now deceased family, and Michael is hell bent on killing again.
Doctor Sam Loomis pursues Michael as he stalks through the streets of Haddonfield, killing babysitters and hapless other victims.
Enter Laurie Strode, a local girl who is smarter than most of the other students in Haddonfield and is a babysitter to boot. Pandamonium reigns as Myers stalks the poor Strode girl, and kills her babysitter friends in various unique scenes.
Loomis finally tracks Myers down and stops him before he can kill Laurie Strode, but in the startling climax Michael Myers vanishes...
John Carpenter and his team of superb actors and crew saw the release of their low-budget, and perhaps the greatest genre film; Halloween, in 1978.
Halloween launched the careers of both John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis, and it changed the horror genre forever. Without Halloween the slasher movie genre would never have come into existance. In fact most slasher films are merely carbon copies of the Carpenter formula. The proof of its success is evident in the number of times the film has been ripped off. Halloween also spawned one of the longest running Horror film series, seconded by Tobe Hoopers less successful but no less significant The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. But Halloween, with seven films, has much more staying power than Hoopers Texas slasher flick.
Halloween was the first of all the slasher films, and amidst dozens of rip-offs and more than a half dozen sequels it still stands out as the best. This movie also introduved us to perhaps one of the most dynamic characters in genre history; Doctor Sam Loomis.
Carpenters direction is dark and moody, perfectly fitting for the dark subject matter of an escaped mental patient stalking and subsequently killing baby-sitters.
Jamie Lee Curtis portrays babysitter Laurie Strode superbly as the character runs from the deranged psychopath; Michael Myers. Throughout the film veteran British actor Donald Pleasence, as the aforementiond Dr. Sam Loomis, hunts for his patient (Myers) in the tiny little town of Haddonfield.
Culminating in one of the most shocking conclusions to any horror movie prior or since, Halloween is Classic pure and simple.
