Listen now | The final movie in Spooky Month is John Carpenter’s Halloween. We both really enjoyed this movie! John Carpenter is a skilled filmmaker, and he thrives within the constraints of a low budget. There’s such an ambitious creativity behind Halloween, it’s easy to see why it’s considered a classic.
I didn’t dislike this movie, but I can’t say I got much out of it. It’s so simple that it feels a bit substanceless.
Mike Meyers doesn’t have any depth or personality, he’s just evil. His doctor doesn’t have much to do besides reminding us how evil he is. Jamie Lee Curtis and her friends are like sketches of generic teenagers without a ton of depth. The plot is extremely simple, and for most of the film there’s very little momentum.
None of these things are deal-breakers, but put together, there’s not much I can latch onto in this film besides some effective shots. I feel like you could cut this movie down to a half hour and not lose anything. I haven’t seen many slashers, so this might just be me not connecting with the genre.
It depends on how much weight you put on historical importance, but on a thematic level there are a few elements that could be interesting to compare with teen movies from other decades. The parents are absent, the young girl is watching horror movies on television unsupervised, the other kid prefers reading comics, small town is portrayed as a dystopia with the neighbors not helping... I agree the characters are not really well-rounded but for a global portrait of suburbia/small town I thought there was some interesting ideas.
This is a great movie that works so well because of its simplicity. Not only in the actual production of the movie but in the pretty much every other element as well. I love the main theme and it’s funny to hear John Carpenter talk about writing it and the rest of the score in only three days. He said he was heavily inspired by the theme from The Exorcist as well as the score for Suspiria, two other horror classics. It’s funny that both this and Psycho got selected for this month because Janet Leigh, who plays Marion in Psycho, is Jamie Lee Curtis’ mother. They are both horror icons with Janet Leigh being in the first real slasher movie and her daughter being in the first one that really solidified the template for all the ones to come. If you guys are interested in watching more John Carpenter you’ve got to check out The Thing from 1982, another horror classic.
Oct 28, 2022·edited Oct 28, 2022Liked by Anna Rettberg
It's the first time I watch Halloween and I was really impressed, I wasn't expecting a movie that intense. I haven't watched a ton of slasher films either, but it's the first time I see a film with so many 1st person shots from the point of view of the killer. I think Carpenter really nailed the mood of being stalked. The way he shots from the car driven by Myers creates a contrast between peaceful suburbia and the character's deranged point of view, which makes the whole thing extremely uneasy. I liked how the houses were shown as death traps as well, with every room threshold being a potential place to be attacked. Carpenter uses a lot of frame within a frame shots with door frames or through windows, I thought it really captured well the feeling of being trapped.
For the historical perspective, Psycho is considered the first slasher movie, then in the 60s there were italian Giallo films, and then Halloween was the first film in the 70s to set a trend of slasher movies in the United States. Siskel and Ebert even made a special on that, they were both appalled by the number of low quality slashers movies that came out in the early 80s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2TC1E8nn-M
In a way, for me the highlight of the month may be Psycho, I thought about it for the last two weeks and I think I'm starting to get more out of it. From what I know the usual take on it is how the shower scene editing was new and the plot structure was looser than usual with Marion Crane being killed midway, but to go beyond that I think the key is what you said about how Hitchcock cared about villain characters. For me the interesting part is the intimacy you get with Marion Crane and Norman Bates. Like you said in the Psycho podcast, we hear inner thoughts of both characters, but I would also add that we also see them in really intimate settings. The two scenes that stands out for me is Marion Crane driving under the rain and Norman Bates standing pensively at the swamp. There's also the scene when Marion Crane is interrogated by the policeman in the car, I think Hitchcock succeeded to make you feel how nervous and threatened she feels. So like Halloween is a much better horror slasher movie, but Psycho to me has really interesting psychological slice of life moments and more proximity with characters.
Along the "villains" line, have you seen Strangers on a Train? To me that was much better than Psycho, and it's basically the same kind of thing... I still wouldn't say I loved it, but I definitely enjoyed it more, because as much as I thought Norman Bates was decent in Psycho, it didn't really cross the line into "great" for me... but the villain in Strangers on a Train definitely did :)
No I haven't seen Strangers on a Train. I only watched a few Hitchcocks and that was almost 15 years ago. I had previously seen most of de Palma so I felt that Hitchcock was a bland version of the same idea. With that said, this time around I found Psycho much more interesting. Specifically on the character of Norman Bates, I really liked the actor direction, the character switches mood a few times (when he talks with Marion over a meal, when he is bothered by Sam, etc.) If you compare with Gus Van Sant's version, you see Hitchcock asks for much more subtle things from the actors, it's very good. So it's not writing per say that I liked but more the overall care for details and the feel of some specific moments.
Do you plan to show Strangers on a Train? It would be great to watch it with the club.
I would really like to watch it for the club. Maybe there is a Great Villain Performances month? Strangers on a Train, The Dark Knight, Silence of the Lambs, etc.?
Wait, does Blue Velvet have a great villain performance? Because if so, that would be awesome - I've never seen it and would love to get it into the club rotation...
The villain in Blue Velvet is memorable for sure haha. It's a great performance by Dennis Hopper. The Last Seduction is very good too. I haven't seen Double Indemnity but it's a classic by Billy Wilder, I looked for great villains on the internet and it came up.
Yes I worded that poorly. The wiki of Halloween mentions Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas as predecessors, but that the model for the wave of 80s slashers is Halloween. I have not seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre nor Black Christmas so I don't know how much they differ from the genre.
It would be fun to watch more slashers in a future month, Giallos are supposed to be interesting as well. I remember from some reading that the cinematography of Texas Chainsaw Massacre is supposed to be really good too.
I added Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the movie picking thread! I don't know the other classics of the genre so feel free to add some other recommendations :)
I would definitely like to see another Carpenter movie. I have "seen" both Escape from LA and Starman, but only when I was a little kid, and I don't really remember either of them...
Well, that's not entirely true. I seem to recall Jeff Bridges speeding through a yellow light as Starman, saying something like, "I watched you very closely - red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very very fast", which I thought was funny!
But I believe Halloween is the only Carpenter film I've seen as an adult, and I thought it was great, so I'd like to see what else he's done...
The Thing might be his best movie. It has some of the best practical effects ever, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re squeamish.
Big Trouble in Little China is my favorite of his. It’s a pulp adventure kind of like Indiana Jones, but with some clever twists on the formula. Not a deep movie, but extremely creative and fun.
Escape From New York would be a good fit for Dystopia month. It’s a weird and pretty uneven movie, since it’s kind of an action movie without the budget for any action, but the setting is effective and Kurt Russell is great as the lead. If you’ve played Metal Gear Solid, you’ll find it hilarious how much Kojima borrowed from this film.
Similarly, if you’ve played Duke Nukem, half of his best likes were stolen from the Evil Dead series, and the other half were stolen from Carpenter’s They Live.
I didn’t dislike this movie, but I can’t say I got much out of it. It’s so simple that it feels a bit substanceless.
Mike Meyers doesn’t have any depth or personality, he’s just evil. His doctor doesn’t have much to do besides reminding us how evil he is. Jamie Lee Curtis and her friends are like sketches of generic teenagers without a ton of depth. The plot is extremely simple, and for most of the film there’s very little momentum.
None of these things are deal-breakers, but put together, there’s not much I can latch onto in this film besides some effective shots. I feel like you could cut this movie down to a half hour and not lose anything. I haven’t seen many slashers, so this might just be me not connecting with the genre.
It depends on how much weight you put on historical importance, but on a thematic level there are a few elements that could be interesting to compare with teen movies from other decades. The parents are absent, the young girl is watching horror movies on television unsupervised, the other kid prefers reading comics, small town is portrayed as a dystopia with the neighbors not helping... I agree the characters are not really well-rounded but for a global portrait of suburbia/small town I thought there was some interesting ideas.
This is a great movie that works so well because of its simplicity. Not only in the actual production of the movie but in the pretty much every other element as well. I love the main theme and it’s funny to hear John Carpenter talk about writing it and the rest of the score in only three days. He said he was heavily inspired by the theme from The Exorcist as well as the score for Suspiria, two other horror classics. It’s funny that both this and Psycho got selected for this month because Janet Leigh, who plays Marion in Psycho, is Jamie Lee Curtis’ mother. They are both horror icons with Janet Leigh being in the first real slasher movie and her daughter being in the first one that really solidified the template for all the ones to come. If you guys are interested in watching more John Carpenter you’ve got to check out The Thing from 1982, another horror classic.
It's the first time I watch Halloween and I was really impressed, I wasn't expecting a movie that intense. I haven't watched a ton of slasher films either, but it's the first time I see a film with so many 1st person shots from the point of view of the killer. I think Carpenter really nailed the mood of being stalked. The way he shots from the car driven by Myers creates a contrast between peaceful suburbia and the character's deranged point of view, which makes the whole thing extremely uneasy. I liked how the houses were shown as death traps as well, with every room threshold being a potential place to be attacked. Carpenter uses a lot of frame within a frame shots with door frames or through windows, I thought it really captured well the feeling of being trapped.
For the historical perspective, Psycho is considered the first slasher movie, then in the 60s there were italian Giallo films, and then Halloween was the first film in the 70s to set a trend of slasher movies in the United States. Siskel and Ebert even made a special on that, they were both appalled by the number of low quality slashers movies that came out in the early 80s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2TC1E8nn-M
In a way, for me the highlight of the month may be Psycho, I thought about it for the last two weeks and I think I'm starting to get more out of it. From what I know the usual take on it is how the shower scene editing was new and the plot structure was looser than usual with Marion Crane being killed midway, but to go beyond that I think the key is what you said about how Hitchcock cared about villain characters. For me the interesting part is the intimacy you get with Marion Crane and Norman Bates. Like you said in the Psycho podcast, we hear inner thoughts of both characters, but I would also add that we also see them in really intimate settings. The two scenes that stands out for me is Marion Crane driving under the rain and Norman Bates standing pensively at the swamp. There's also the scene when Marion Crane is interrogated by the policeman in the car, I think Hitchcock succeeded to make you feel how nervous and threatened she feels. So like Halloween is a much better horror slasher movie, but Psycho to me has really interesting psychological slice of life moments and more proximity with characters.
See you in November!
Along the "villains" line, have you seen Strangers on a Train? To me that was much better than Psycho, and it's basically the same kind of thing... I still wouldn't say I loved it, but I definitely enjoyed it more, because as much as I thought Norman Bates was decent in Psycho, it didn't really cross the line into "great" for me... but the villain in Strangers on a Train definitely did :)
No I haven't seen Strangers on a Train. I only watched a few Hitchcocks and that was almost 15 years ago. I had previously seen most of de Palma so I felt that Hitchcock was a bland version of the same idea. With that said, this time around I found Psycho much more interesting. Specifically on the character of Norman Bates, I really liked the actor direction, the character switches mood a few times (when he talks with Marion over a meal, when he is bothered by Sam, etc.) If you compare with Gus Van Sant's version, you see Hitchcock asks for much more subtle things from the actors, it's very good. So it's not writing per say that I liked but more the overall care for details and the feel of some specific moments.
Do you plan to show Strangers on a Train? It would be great to watch it with the club.
I would really like to watch it for the club. Maybe there is a Great Villain Performances month? Strangers on a Train, The Dark Knight, Silence of the Lambs, etc.?
Yes! If you want to stay with villains in film noir, maybe Double Indemnity, The Last Seduction, Blue Velvet...
Wait, does Blue Velvet have a great villain performance? Because if so, that would be awesome - I've never seen it and would love to get it into the club rotation...
The villain in Blue Velvet is memorable for sure haha. It's a great performance by Dennis Hopper. The Last Seduction is very good too. I haven't seen Double Indemnity but it's a classic by Billy Wilder, I looked for great villains on the internet and it came up.
Yes I worded that poorly. The wiki of Halloween mentions Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas as predecessors, but that the model for the wave of 80s slashers is Halloween. I have not seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre nor Black Christmas so I don't know how much they differ from the genre.
It would be fun to watch more slashers in a future month, Giallos are supposed to be interesting as well. I remember from some reading that the cinematography of Texas Chainsaw Massacre is supposed to be really good too.
I added Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the movie picking thread! I don't know the other classics of the genre so feel free to add some other recommendations :)
I would definitely like to see another Carpenter movie. I have "seen" both Escape from LA and Starman, but only when I was a little kid, and I don't really remember either of them...
Well, that's not entirely true. I seem to recall Jeff Bridges speeding through a yellow light as Starman, saying something like, "I watched you very closely - red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very very fast", which I thought was funny!
But I believe Halloween is the only Carpenter film I've seen as an adult, and I thought it was great, so I'd like to see what else he's done...
The Thing might be his best movie. It has some of the best practical effects ever, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re squeamish.
Big Trouble in Little China is my favorite of his. It’s a pulp adventure kind of like Indiana Jones, but with some clever twists on the formula. Not a deep movie, but extremely creative and fun.
Escape From New York would be a good fit for Dystopia month. It’s a weird and pretty uneven movie, since it’s kind of an action movie without the budget for any action, but the setting is effective and Kurt Russell is great as the lead. If you’ve played Metal Gear Solid, you’ll find it hilarious how much Kojima borrowed from this film.
Similarly, if you’ve played Duke Nukem, half of his best likes were stolen from the Evil Dead series, and the other half were stolen from Carpenter’s They Live.