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10
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9 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Troy
Howarth |
Halloween
night, 1963. Michael Myers, a disturbed little boy, murders
his sister after catching her flagrante delecto... A
judge declares the boy legally insane and he's locked away in
a mental institution. Fifteen years later, Michael escapes and
returns to his home town of Haddonfield, Illinois. There he
targets a group of young girls as prospective victims, and it's
up to his psychiatrist, the intrepid Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence),
to stop him before it's too late.
John Carpenter's Halloween
is a masterpiece of simplicity — a simple story beautifully,
but unpretentiously, rendered by a gifted young filmmaker at
the height of his powers. A fan of the stylized, convoluted
gialli of Italian maestro Dario Argento, Carpenter delivered
an Americanized version of the giallo as a lean, mean scare
machine that avoids the maze-like plotting of its models. The
film's success solidified its makers as a force to be reckoned
with and helped to kick off a cycle of slasher films. There's
no question that a gradually declining series of sequels and
imitations have hurt Halloween's
reputation over the years, but revisiting it reveals some surprises:
firstly, unlike the majority of the films that came along after
it, it's a tremendously subtle film. There's hardly any
blood to speak of. Violence erupts quickly and is over just
as fast. What little sex there is is handled in a chaste manner,
with only a few fleeting images of above-the-waist female nudity.
Like Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(1974) it's a film whose violent reputation rests more on the
imitations than followed.
Halloween
is also very much a product of filmmakers in love with the medium.
In-jokes abound (Pleasence's Dr. Loomis is named after John
Gavin's character in 1960's Psycho,
while imperiled heroine Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of
Psycho star Janet Leigh) but unlike
later obnoxious efforts like Scream
(1996), it never wallows in its own cleverness. Nonetheless,
despite its obvious qualities, Halloween
has remained a lightning rod for controversy with accusations
of Puritanism lingering to this day. While it's true that the
highschoolers who fall victim to Michael's blade are sexually
active, it would be a mistake to assume that Carpenter (anything
but conservative in his real life) is passing some kind of perverse
judgment on them. As the director has stated many times, the
horny teens perish simply because they are too preoccupied to
notice that there is a killer around. In contrast, virginal
Laurie Strode (Curtis) is a loner who is used to watching things
from a distance — that she survives is due to the fact that
she is alert and ahead of the situation, unlike her friends.
Halloween does not condemn its
teenage victims, either. On the contrary, Carpenter spends a
lot of time establishing the three major female characters are
sympathetic and realistically depicted. Unlike many slasher
films, one is actually encouraged to feel sorry for the victims
— one senses a life has been taken and feels sorry for that
act. Questions of intent to one side, one can hardly argue with
Halloween's strengths as a film.
Carpenter is one of the few current filmmakers who insists on
shooting all his films in 2.35 Panavision, and his expert use
of the frame recalls the best of Sergio Leone. Anybody who has
ever seen Halloween (or any of
his films, really) only on TV in Pan and Scan has effectively
not seen the film. Shots which incorporate Michael into the
frame become cropped and seem to take on the point of view of
the killer, thus lending credence to the "filmmaker as judge
and executioner" argument. One can see in the properly formatted
widescreen edition that such arguments do not apply.
Carpenter is also
a rarity in that he usually composes the music for his films,
and his soundtrack for Halloween
has passed into the annals of screen history as one of the finest
of its kind. Though heavily influenced by Goblin's work on Deep
Red and Suspiria, a fact the
director acknowledges, his simple and haunting themes add an
extra layer of suspense to the film. Unlike many of its ilk,
Halloween is also a very well acted
film. Donald Pleasence is superb as the obsessed Dr. Loomis
— Carpenter first offered the role to Christopher Lee and then
to Peter Cushing, and while I'm sure either would have done
well by the role (though Cushing's ill health would have prevented
him from appearing in many of the sequels), Pleasence fits the
part like a glove. The veteran actor confessed to Carpenter
(whom he later referred to as the best director he ever worked
with; high praise indeed from a man who worked with Roman Polanski,
John Sturges, George Stevens and Woody Allen, to name but a
few) that he accepted the role only because his daughter Angela
loved Carpenter's Assault On
Precinct 13 (1975), so one should be grateful to Ms. Pleasence
for encouraging her father to take on what would become an iconic
role. Jamie Lee Curtis, then a virtual unknown, is also superb
as Laurie, covering a wide range of emotions and convincingly
spending the final act in a state of heightened hysteria. Carpenter
favorites Nancy Loomis (The Fog) and Charles
Cyphers (Escape
From New York) are also fine in their roles, and
who can forget cute P.J. Soles as the bubble-headed Annie? ("Totally!")
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| Halloween
has had a long and varied history on DVD, rivaling such re-re-re-released
titles as Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy. The edition under review
here is not the controversial "color-corrected"
25th Anniversary release, but the previous THX-mastered edition
from 1999. There's little question that this version better replicates
the visual scheme of the film as we all know and love it, and
until Carpenter and director of photography Dean Cundy make clear
their feelings towards the 25th Anniversary edition one may assume
it to be the definitive presentation. Perfectly framed at 2.35:1,
one also has the option of watching it fullframe —
and I advise people to try it that way just to appreciate how
well composed this film really is. The print utilized is in terrific
shape, with strong, vivid colors and moody shadows (note how even
when the film is set in the day, Carpenter makes use of shadows
from trees and the like to suggest menace). Anchor Bay's disc
also makes use of a newly created 5.1 mix supervised by Carpenter
associate Alan Howarth (no relation); it's an effective track
and one has the option of watching it with the original mono mix
which is in superb condition. Extras include theatrical trailers,
TV spots, talent bios for Carpenter, Pleasence and Curtis, a poster
and still gallery and a documentary on the film titled Halloween
Unmasked 2000. This 26-minute featurette covers a lot of ground
and incorporates comments from Carpenter and others, but it definitely
pales in comparison to the feature-length documentary AB assembled
for the 25th Anniversary DVD. 12/03/03 |
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