Friday, July 22, 2016

Halloween (1978)

Halloween is a 1978 horror film, the first in a long-running franchise. Directed and scored by John Carpenter, it stars Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis. This was Curtis' film debut and the beginning of a wonderful career both as beloved Scream Queen and in many unrelated roles such as my personal favorite A Fish Called Wanda.

trailer:



Moria calls it a classic. 1000 Misspent Hours gives it a good review and says, "The really remarkable thing about Halloween is that virtually alone in the subgenre it did so much to establish, it has managed to earn and retain the respect of mainstream movie critics." TimeOut calls it "A superb essay in Hitchcockian suspense". HorrorNews.net loves it.

Roger Ebert gives it a positive review that opens with this:
“Halloween” is an absolutely merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that, yes, I would compare it to “Psycho” (1960). It's a terrifying and creepy film about what one of the characters calls Evil Personified.
DVD Talk says, "Halloween still works with an audience." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics rating of 92%.

2 comments:

  1. Funny, I've never been into horror/slasher type movies. Never saw Halloween and avoided most of that genre. Not because they scare me but because they generally don't so I don't get out of them what people go to them for--to be scared. The Godfather. (Remember when that was THE goriest movie ever made and people were throwing up in the aisles and leaving the theaters?) The Exorcist. The Omen. Just don't get scared easily, I guess. Or I always know they aren't real and imagine them filming it or something, I don't know. I really missed out, people have told me. Never saw Chuckie or the guy with the knives for fingers (was he in Halloween?) or any of those. But I do love the old black and white horror films--like the mummy, dracula, and frankenstein movies. But that's because they are such a hoot! ;)

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    1. My older son introduced me to modern horror several years ago, and I've been slowly but surely working my way through the better known and more influential of them. I don't re-watch them. I don't really mind the gore, since -as you say- it's not real. I also don't find them frightening, except for those "jump" scenes which are more startling than scary. I prefer the eerier ones, ghost stories and the like. We do re-watch the old classics, but how can you not! lol

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