Halloween Review

10 out of 10 Skulls
Written by: Poltergeist   

Halloween (1978) is the all-time classic horror film and it still works.  It will scare the goosebumps off of you.  We all remember Janet Leigh (who passed away October 3, 2004) from the Alfred Hitchcock film, PSYCHO (1960).  Her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis (also of Tony Curtis) is the star of Halloween (1978) in this her first film.

 John Carpenter was a struggling filmmaker who made this film on a budget of $320,000. For an independent film, it became the most successsful  released independent film  ever made. They shot the film in 4 weeks for 20 days. 

The art of suspense, dark shadows, sound, close-up shots, building the story, ultimate surprise and the emotional acting of the actors all make this horror film the greatest scary film ever made.

  Jamie Lee Curtis plays a high school student, "Laurie Strode".  There is a stalker, Michael Myers, in the neighborhood.  He killed as a child in 1963, was sent to a mental hospital, escaped as an adult, and is now out to kill again in the same neighborhood.  Michael is a stalker, voyuer and a cold-blooded killer.  It is Laurie he is truly after.  While Laurie is babysitting two young children on Halloween night, Michael gets his real chance.

  This  film is the all-time favorite to watch on Halloween night, but due to its effectiveness, it is NOT FOR CHILDREN TO SEE.  There are scenes of sexual situations, nudity, as well as intense-violence.

Also in the cast: Donald Pleasence, Nancy Stephens, Nancy Loomis, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Brain Andrews, John Michael Graham, Arthur Mallet, Mickey Yablans, Brent LePage, Adam Hollander, Robert Phalen, Sandy Johnson, David Kyle and Peter Griffith.

  Nick Castle played "Michael Myers", Tony Moran also plays "Michael" as his face is revealed. Tommy Lee Wallace played "Michael Myers" in the bedroom closet scenes.  Will Sandin plays "Michael" as a child.

If the "Laurie Strode" storyline really interests you, Jamie Lee Curtis returned in HALLOWEEN II (1981) and later in HALLOWEEN H2O: 20 YEARS LATER (1998). In H2O, Jamie Lee Curtis stars in the film and appears in scenes with her mother, Janet Leigh.

Jamie Lee Curtis also started off the next sequel, the eighth film, HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION (2002) to bring an end to her "Laurie Strode" character, but it wasn't the end of the Halloween film series.

Director and writer, John Carpenter actually wrote the scary piano music score.

The "Michael Myers" mask in the first film only, was a mask of William Shatner, painted over and redone.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis and Charles Cyphers along with Janet Leigh were in John Carpenter's THE FOG (1980).

Alternate version: There is a 101 minute "Extended Version" available on DVD, made for Network Televison broadcast (now shown on American Movie Classics) that cuts out all the gross voilence and nudity.  Those scenes were replaced with newly-filmed 1981 footage specially made for the Network television premiere.

The 25th Anniversary 2-Disc edition is the 91 minute version.  Audio Commentary with Jamie Lee Curtis, John Carpenter and Debra Hill.  Disc 2 contains a 67-minute documentary, "Halloween: A Cut Above The Rest".  "On Location: 25 Years Later"--Used in filming,you will revisit the neighborhoods and the houses in south Pasadena and West Hollywood as they looked in 2003.

The next "Halloween" films are:

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