Halloween (1978)

Most people I know get into a horror movie mood this time of year. I am guilty of this myself. Already this month I’ve watched a plethora of horror flicks new and old and will continue to do so until the end of October. I don’t know why I love horror movies so much, but I’ve been into them since I was a kid and it doesn’t show any signs of changing anytime soon.

So what movie screams "October"? It’s pretty obvious that I’m talking about the Halloween series of films! The original was my marijuana of the horror world, starting me off with a bang and leading me into the harsher, more crack like flicks that were popular in the 80s (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Friday the 13^th, etc.). The original was also the film responsible for beginning the slasher movie craze that still continues today (and heavily influenced my short film Stalk). So let’s harken back to the early days of blood drenched killer maniac cinema and work our way forward to the present day in this retrospective on the entire Halloween franchise.

The story of escaped mental patient Michael Myers, who killed his sister 15 years prior, and his return to his hometown to recreate his original crime by stalking a group of teenage babysitters on Halloween night.

When I want to watch a taut and scary horror film, I always reach for this on my shelf. Simple in its concept and brilliant in its execution, John Carpenter’s masterpiece still stands up 34 years after its initial release. From the basic cinematography that shows you just enough to make you use your imagination to the eternally creepy musical score by Carpenter himself, this film is a perfect example of taking an exploitation idea and turning it into gold. And even though this is a movie about teenagers getting killed by a lunatic it’s never about gore. There is nary a drop of blood in this flick which I feel makes it resonate more by forcing the audience to use their aforementioned imaginations. This to me is scarier than seeing buckets of blood flying across the screen.

The characters are written in such a way that they come off as real. Well, the Annie character gets a little grating at times, but we all knew someone like her when we were kids. Right? The acting from the young cast, including an impossibly young Jamie Lee Curtis in her first starring role, is pretty good for this type of film. In the case of Donald Pleasence’s obsessed Dr. Loomis, however, is where the movie really shines for me. He throws everything into the part and makes even the most inane exposition scene immensely watchable. And let’s not forget Nick Castle as “The Shape”, Michael Myers. His body language and freakish presence, assisted by that disturbing William Shatner mask, makes his character the stuff of nightmares. And the fact that the character is virtually immortal, which is never explained, is an awesome touch to make him all the more frightening. To this day I still check around corners when the lights are off in certain rooms of my residence.

And best of all, there’s the subtext introduced early in the film about fate. While there is no real reason given as to why Michael is stalking Laurie and her friends, there’s always the fate angle that states that maybe this was destined to occur, motivation or not. It’s something that stays in the back of my mind whenever I watch this masterpiece.

In my opinion this is a perfect horror movie that is just as effective today as it was in the late 70s.

5 out of 5

Halloween II (1981)

This sequel is the complete polar opposite of the original. Where the first film was goreless, this film is drenched in it. Where the violence was implied or shown in shadow in part one, here is it always in-your-face and extremely graphic. Don’t get me wrong, that’s what most people watch horror movies for in the first place, but when you’re following a classic like Halloween you have to admit that this was not the direction you want to go.

Taking place during the same night as the original, Halloween II follows Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), survivor of Michael Myers’ murderous rampage, to the local hospital where she is treated for her injuries. Little does she know that her would-be killer has followed her there and now stalks the halls to finish what he started. Elsewhere, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) investigates the reasons behind Michael’s attack and discovers that Laurie is his sister.

All the major cast members from the original reprise their roles, and they all do an admirable job regardless of the script they have to work from. Donald Pleasence once again makes his Dr. Loomis character the most interesting aspect of the film. The irritating thing is that the movie is supposed to be about Laurie, and she’s only in it for maybe 30 minutes of the 90 minute runtime. The film focuses mostly on Loomis or the irritatingly immature members of the hospital staff (why did that one dude sing “Amazing Grace, come sit on my face”?).

Director Rick Rosenthal replaced John Carpenter here (although Carpenter did direct the multiple reshoots after a disastrous test screening), and he shows an ineptitude of gargantuan proportions. Instead of building up suspense or dread he relies on cheap ‘boo’ scares, pointless nudity and gratuitous gore to keep things moving along. In the place of tension we get needles in eyeballs, burnt off faces, stabbings with multiple hospital tools (including a random hammer) and a victim drained completely of blood that has been spilled all over the floor for some poor schmuck to slip on.

There are some bright spots. The revelation that Laurie is directly related to Michael was a cool twist and gives an explanation as to why he chose to stalk her. There are nice references to the original, like the entire Bennett Tramer sequence. The finale is actually exciting and thrilling, with an explosive ending that caps things off before they go too far.

In the end we see the death of Michael Myers, and it was probably a good thing at the time. As far as I’m concerned he overstayed his welcome with this installment.

2 out of 5

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Just one year after part 2 comes this unrelated sequel that gets a lot of shit for no reason other than the fact that Michael Myers is nowhere to be found within.

John Carpenter, director of the original and co-writer of the second, decided that since Myers was killed off he would keep the franchise going by releasing a Halloween themed movie every October. It turns out that when the masses found out that The Shape wouldn’t be in this installment they stayed away completely and the film tanked. In the 30 years since this has become a bit of a cult classic and for good reason.

The story revolves around Dr. Challis (Tom Atkins), who witnesses the brutal murder of a patient under his care that was clutching a Halloween mask for dear life, by a man with extraordinary strength. He investigates the murder on his own and discovers a conspiracy to kill all the children on the planet on Halloween night through the use of booby trapped Halloween masks.

It sounds a little silly and it is. I still find it very entertaining regardless. Sure it’s improbable in the extreme and takes a trip through a cheese factory on multiple occasions, but the main plot about the elimination of the world’s children via something as innocent as Halloween masks is really creepy and is shown at one point to be extremely horrific and gruesome. There are buckets of gore thrown around here too, from ripped open skulls to mutilated faces, but since it’s not part of the Michael Myers mythos it doesn’t bother me so much.

The cast is decent, with Tom Atkins pulling out all the stops as Dr. Challis. He’s a likable actor and it comes through in his work here. We root for him as he uncovers all the goofy plot devices surrounding him. The rest of the cast is lackluster in the extreme. I have a feeling that they didn’t like the subject matter and just phoned it in. Even veteran actor Dan O’Herlihy, who plays the villain with plans to commit mass murder, seems disinterested in the material.

Director Tommy Lee Wallace doesn’t have much in the way of visual flair, but he does what he can with the material his old pal Carpenter gave him and somehow makes it work. It also has a great ending. It’s not a classic by any means, but it’s a fun and silly film that I get a kick out of repeatedly.

Now if only I can get that damned Silver Shamrock jingle out of my head… “8 more days ‘til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. 8 more days ‘til Halloween. Silver Shamrock!” 

3 out of 5

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Since John Carpenter’s idea of releasing a non-Michael Myers Halloween film every October crashed and burned spectacularly, the powers that be decided to bring back the immortal maniac once again for another night of murder and mayhem. With no support from Carpenter, producer Moustapha Akkad had free reign to do whatever he wanted with the characters he now owned.

Taking place 10 years after the original film Michael wakes up from a coma to discover his sister has died, but left behind a daughter. He sets out to murder his niece Jamie (Danielle Harris) who has been taken in by a foster family in his hometown. Once the mentally and physically scarred Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) learns of Michael’s escape he tracks him down to hopefully stop him once and for all.

Sure it’s a rehash of the other films in the series, but it’s a very well made rehash. Director Dwight Little has quite an eye and a talent for building up suspense so thick you can cut it with a knife (pun intended). His casting decisions were fantastic, and by getting little Danielle Harris to play Michael’s new quarry, Jamie, he found a way to keep the audience drawn into the plight of this tortured child instead of leaving it solely in the hands of the equally fantastic Donald Pleasence. The rest of the cast is decent, with Ellie Cornell playing Jamie’s teenage foster sister Rachel as if she’s the slasher world’s Ellen Ripley; starting off mildly self-centered and bitchy, but when the shit hits the fan takes matters into her own hands to keep her and her foster sister safe no matter what.

The kills are nothing to write home about, but I’m glad to say that they’re not of the splatter variety from the second film. Sure we get a thumb thrust into some poor paramedic’s forehead and some redneck vigilante’s cheek ripped open, but 75% of the kills are off screen or take place in the dark to heighten their impact. Some are completely ridiculous, like the slut who gets impaled and stuck to a door 3 feet above the ground by a shotgun, but it’s all in the name of the genre.

The finale is a bit on the lackluster side since it’s a more amped up version of the finale from the original. If Michael can shrug off being shot six times by a revolver as well as surviving being blown up and burnt alive, what makes the cops think that shotguns would do any better? It’s kind of lame, but the coda is what makes this movie for me, coming full circle and harkening back to the source material in a classy and frightening way. As far as I was concerned they could have ended the series here and I would have been fine with it.

Unfortunately they didn’t.

3.5 out of 5

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

This is the movie that threw the franchise into the rubbish bin, and not counting one bright spot (H20), it was forever tainted by the mark of unwatchable dookie.

Taking place one year after the events of Halloween 4 we learn that Michael survived the police shootout (duh!) and has been in a coma in some hobo’s shack out in the woods. Jamie (Danielle Harris), after stabbing her foster mother, has been institutionalized in a home for disturbed children and has lost the ability to speak. On Halloween Michael wakes up to resume his hunt for his niece who discovers she now has a psychic link to her murderous uncle. And some random dude in cowboy boots wanders around following Michael on his new killing spree.

Yes, there is a random dude in cowboy boots who shares a druid tattoo on his wrist that we learn Michael has as well. This sub-plot is introduced and never explained. 

Donald Pleasence returns again as the crazed Dr. Loomis, but it’s plainly obvious that at this point he’s cashing a paycheck. He phones it in as the uber talented Danielle Harris outperforms him at every opportunity. It saddens me that she isn’t in more movies, as she’s this film’s only saving grace. Old characters we came to love in part 4 are unceremoniously killed off to make way for a gaggle of horribly written and obnoxiously portrayed teenagers that I couldn’t wait to see get slaughtered. Wendy Kaplan’s perpetually coked up and extremely annoying character of Tina being the worst of the lot. I know that when she bites it the audience is supposed to sympathize with her for sacrificing herself to save Jamie, but I always say “FINALLY!” when it happens.

The script by the two hacks I won’t name and the supremely untalented director Dominique Othenin-Girard is nonsensical and inane. There’s just so many bad decisions made here that it’s mindboggling. We have the aforementioned Cowboy Dude. We have the fact that when the hobo is attacked by Michael, who promptly collapses into a coma before killing the old fart, he takes this psycho masked dude in for a whole year and never once alerts the cops. We have an all-points bulletin out on Michael, but he wanders the streets of Haddonfield all day with no one noticing him, not even when he kills Tina’s douchey boyfriend in the open and steals his car. We have the two bumbling cops who are useless in every possible way, and are even given their own clown theme music. We have Tina being picked up by Michael in her dead boyfriend’s car to go to a party, and she doesn’t even notice that this guy has a totally different body type than her main squeeze. Not to mention the fact that he constantly looks at her as if he’d like nothing more than to stab her in the coccyx.

And then there’s the ending. I’m going to spoil it for all of you regardless if you still want to watch this travesty or not, but Loomis uses Jamie to lure Michael back to his old house so he can trap him and kill him. Michael obviously has other plans and manages to kill all the dumb ass police surrounding the place and stalks Jamie until they face off in the attic. She sweet talks him into taking off his mask, and what do we get? A close up of his unblemished eye region… and the sumbitch even sheds a tear because she called him “Uncle”. This mofo was burned alive and in part 4 spent a good chunk of the movie wrapped head to toe in bandages, and here he doesn’t have one burn scar? I call bullshit! Then Loomis drops a chain net on him and beats him to a pulp with an effing 2x4 before the surviving cops show up out of nowhere and arrest him. Yup, Michael gets thrown in the slammer. We even get a ridiculously silly shot of him behind bars that elicits a hearty laugh from me every time I see it. But you haven’t lived until you see Michael’s jailbreak scene. It’s a real hoot.

Where the fourth film had ample tension and mood to spare, this is just a big joke that was obviously rushed out to be in theaters a year after its predecessor. There’s nothing good I can say about this turd, except that Danielle Harris carried the movie on her small shoulders for the entire runtime and she pulls it off like a pro. Too bad she couldn’t have been a better example to everyone else around her. They could learn a thing or two from this talented tyke.

0.5 out of 5