3. Halloween (1979)
Directed by John Carpenter
Starring Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Kyes, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Rochards, Brian Andrews
A psychotic murderer institutionalized since childhood for the murder of his sister, escapes and stalks a bookish adolescent girl and her friends while his doctor chases him through the streets.
“I met him, fifteen years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding; and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes… the devil’s eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply… evil.”
That above speech, read by Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis, is everything that you need to know about Michael Myers, a masked madman who has escaped a mental asylum on Halloween night to get his revenge against his sister, Laurie Stroud. Rob Zombie might have felt the need to spend more time with his formative years, but John Carpenter summed it up in one speech and the movie is all the better for it.
Carpenter is at the top of his game with this genius slice of slasher horror that would inspire an entire decade of imitators throughout the 1980s. But while many came close, none ever managed to be better than Halloween. From the brilliant score, the slow and methodical pacing to the thrilling finale, Halloween is a rollercoaster ride of horror that never lets up, forcing you to endure every bump along the way.
Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of number 10 spot Psycho’s Janet Leigh, cements herself in this early role as a scream queen for the ages and puts up a good fight against Ripley for the best Final Girl of the horror genre.
Originally published October 31, 2014. Updated October 24, 2022.
