John Carpenter’s “Halloween”: As good as candy-corn at Christmas
Tonight was the first time I saw John Carpenter’s “Halloween”, yet another example of my haphazard efforts to watch horror movies just to prove to myself that I can. There was nothing else on the Tube, so I started watching the movie with my laptop on hand to provide a distraction if need be (I was also finishing Macroeconomics hw).
I’ll say right away that if I had anyone with me, that movie wouldn’t have been scary in the least, but I was in the apartment by myself and given my overactive imagination, I was a little creeped out. Emphasis on little
“Halloween” may have been terrifying back in the late 70’s, but given the special effects available today, there wasn’t much to it. It’s hard to be afraid when a first person camera view requires the cameraman to do the stabbing. The most effective element was undoubtedly the music, but as it was essentially the same theme throughout the film, it began to lose its ability to create suspense and uneasiness after awhile.
It was interesting to see a young Jamie Lee Curtis, who I think did a great job with the character she was given. (Incidentally, I barely recognised her at first, not because of how she looked compared to what I’m used to, but because the first 30 minutes of the movie used all these incredibly distant shots that made it difficult to see anything.) It’s easy to hold a poorly written character against the actor, rather than against the writer or director. Jamie’s Laurie Strode, while supposedly intelligent, was essentially an idiot. How many times can you turn your back on a monster/villain you think is dead, only to find out it’s not. OK, so that only happened twice, but that’s 2 times too many. Do you really need someone to tell you not to take your eyes of your attacker, especially when you know he’s a murderer?
I did like the movie’s fairly obvious moral stance, which Carpenter denies exists, according to Wikipedia.
In the end, the movie scared me enough that I waited until my roommate got in before going to bed, but I’ve been known to do that without having watched a horror picture.
Worth watching once, but hardly a favorite. I won’t be making a point to watch any of the sequels either, but if the opportunity arises out of convenience, I may sit one out. I’ll go middle of the road and give “Halloween” 5 out of 9 tails.
