Day 1: Halloween (1978)

Day One: Halloween (1978)

A Month of Horror

I have always wanted to do a marathon of "HORROR" throughout the month of October, one where I would revisit a new horror movie every day from the first to the thirty-first.  I will revisit the classics as well as new entries into the canon.  There are many movies that define this time of year, and I hope to showcase 31 of them this month...


October 1:  Halloween (1978)

Once upon a time, this was a notorious and scandalous movie.  It is widely credited as the birth of the "slasher" genre (although Bob Clark's "Black Christmas" beat it to the punch by 4 years).  John carpenter's "Halloween" was a unique production for its time, mostly due to the fact that the the antagonist, Michael Myers, was both an unstoppable force, and an unknown quantity, whose only goal was to kill.

Although fairly tame by modern standards, "Halloween" truly did redefine the horror movie genre; and it did so by defining what would become known as the "slasher" genre. Without this one movie, it is quite likely that there would not be the wide range of Hollywood killers that exist today.  It is quite likely that there would at the very least be no Jason and no Freddy if Michael Myers hadn't first arrived on the scene to leave a wake of carnage in his silent path...

The twisted beauty of Carpenter's original Halloween is that Michael Myers was a normal kid, from a normal family, who just so happened to flip a switch on Halloween night and become a crazed killler.  There is no reason behind it, no need for explanation.  There are two protagonists in the movie, Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode, and Donald Pleasance's Sam Loomis.  It is Pleasance's psychiatrist character that brings us closest to an explanation as he refers to Myers throughout as "The Evil".

Rob Zombie missed the point with his remake by turning young Michael Myers into a twisted kid from a broken family.  Michael Myers is a good kid from a good family; not a pet-killing metalhead with a stripper mother, a whore sister, a drunken abuse stepfather, and a long line of bullies waiting for him at school.  By including a shopping list of "serial killer" stereotypes and tropes into the character's back story, Zombie removed the mystique from the unstoppable killer.

"Halloween" is an iconic film:  from the white "Shatner" masked killer, to the brilliant use of every inch of the full widescreen presentation, to the hauntingly simple synth score by the Bowling Green Orchestra (a.k.a. John Carpenter).

"Halloween" is, and always has been, one of my favourite movies.  I admit that this is due in no small part to my love of the season, and the holiday the movie borrows its name from, but the true affection I feel for the story hinges primarily on the incredible ratcheting of tension that builds up throughout the film.

This is a movie that helped define my love of what films were capable of doing.  It is a movie, a series of movies, that exist within the confines of one of my favourite times of year, and they wear the iconography of Halloween proudly.  Starting this project with "Halloween" seemed like the right choice, and the perfect way to set the scene for what is to come.

Tomorrow, I'll be sinking my teeth into one of the all-time classics...