Halloween 1978

 

Written and Directed by: John Carpenter
Produced by: Mustapha Akkad
Written by: Debra Hill
Featuring:  
            Jamie Lee Curtis (Film Debut) as Laurie Strode
            Donald Pleasance as Dr. Samuel Loomis
            P.J. Soles as Lynda Van Der Klok
            Nick Castle as The Shape (Michael Myers)
Rating: R
Runtime: 91 mins
Release Date: October 25, 1978

 

John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978)

In the late 70’s, John Carpenter and Debra Hill set out to make a horror film based on the murdering of babysitters. With nothing more than an idea and some loose pocket change, the duo made one of the largest impacts in moviemaking history.  This phenom of a film shows how hard work and dedication are what truly achieves goals. It also breathed life into the careers of many people still in Hollywood today, as well as kick-starting a whole new era in motion pictures…the “slasher” show. Love it or hate it, you have to give this devil its due.

This review may get a little lengthy due to the fact that it is such a huge success, and it is the blueprint for up and coming movie makers that would like to make a good classic horror film without all the fancy digital effects that everyone seems to rely on these days. There are many versions of this film, but the 25^th Anniversary Edition DVD and Blu-ray versions have a documentary called, “Halloween: A Cut Above the Rest” which delves deep into the history of this film, and what made it work. It is very informative and even if you’re not a film maker but just a fan of the arts, I would strongly suggest you check it out.

Halloween starts out with a first person view of someone watching, through a window, a horny young couple making out on the couch. Then they retreat to the bedroom for, what I would say is, the shortest most unfulfilling romp of sex ever implied on film. The boy then comes downstairs and leaves, as the person watching finds a clown mask and grabs a butcher knife. The peeping pervert makes their way to the teen girl’s bedroom and watches her brush her hair in the nude. She looks up and yells out “Michael!” in disgust. Then she is stabbed repeatedly by “Michael”.  

 

Making his way downstairs and out the front door, Michael is greeted by his parents. They take off his clown mask and reveal a small 6 year old boy... Flash forward 17 years to the same old quiet town of Haddonfield Illinois. Michael has escaped the asylum he was filed away in and has headed home for another murderous rampage, or is he there with an agenda? It turns out the 17 year old girl he murdered as a child was his older sister, Judith Myers.

 

Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasance – You Only Live Twice, Escape to Witch Mountain, and many of the Halloween movies) is riding up to the Smith’s Grove Sanitarium to transfer Michael to another facility. As he is pulling into the hospital, it is pouring rain, and the nurse driving with him is inquiring about Michael’s condition. She is cut off when they find patients of the facility roaming around in the stormy darkness. Loomis exits the car to try and figure out what is happening, when Michael attacks the nurse and steals Loomis’s car. The nurse narrowly escapes death and Loomis tends to her before screaming about the Evil being gone from there.

 

The next day, three young girls are walking home from school, Annie Brackett (Nancy Loomis, no relation to the fictional character Sam Loomis who is Michael Myers doctor), Lynda Van Der Klok (P.J. Soles – Carrie, The Devil’s Rejects, and the God awful Mirror Mirror IV: Reflection), and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis – Prom Night, The Fog, Several Halloween films, and Freaky Friday. This is her first full length movie). Annie and Laurie realize they will be babysitting across the street from each other later in the night and are talking about typical teenage girl stuff, i.e. prom, boys, sex, etc. They are being followed. Laurie had noticed a man watching her outside the school; a station wagon that has been following them; and a man standing in her backyard.  Annie comes and picks Laurie up to go babysit, and they begin talking about Bennett Tramer, the boy Laurie has a crush on and comes into play in one of the sequels.

 

The girls run into Annie’s dad, the sheriff in town, as he is finishing up investigating a burglary in a local General Store. He is certain that kids did it since they just stole a mask a knife and some rope; I would be more worried about a psycho trying to make a rape kit, but hey, that’s why I’m not a sheriff in Illinois. Anyway, the girls take off to work glad that Mr. Brackett didn’t smell the weed they were smoking in the car. They arrive to the neighborhood as the sun is going down; the evil continues to creep in with the darkness, and sparks one of horror’s most famous film franchises.

 

Michael Myers has become a household name. It’s rare to meet someone that doesn’t know the chalky faced unstoppable force that has chilled horror fans for over 30 years.  In this first installment of the franchise there is a lot left to the imagination. Who is Michael Myers? What makes him want to kill? Where does he get his superhuman power? Most times this would be perceived as loop holes in the plot or poor writing; however, I believe this stigma is the exact reason for the film’s success.  It was a completely believable story that left the audience in the dark and craving answers.

 

John Carpenter didn’t want to use a lot of blood and gore to portray his vision, and that also played into the mystery of the film. In an age where films were beginning to show more vulgarities, more bloodshed and more mayhem, why would this film be so appealing to audiences? It flipped the script. Audiences would come in expecting one thing and get caught completely off guard. Now this sounds like a fairly simple concept, but it took a lot of hard work and the backing of a foreign film producer (Moustapha Akkad 1930-2005), that didn’t exactly like the idea of the film, but was convinced to help by one of the film’s Executive Producers, Irwin Yablans.  

John Carpenter’s masterpiece was highly inspired by his love for Hitchcock films. He believed Psycho to be the film that modernized horror and brought it out of the castles and medieval times and brought them up to speed. Well, Mr. Carpenter, I believe you have brought the horror genre right to neighborhoods almost anyone can relate to, suburban America.  He was lucky to find a great cast that would work for little pay and double as the crew; a crew that would go above and beyond to make this film happen; and just over $325,000.  The benefits to come out of this little low budget film are practically endless. The worldwide return on this film was around $55 million; It sparked a film franchise that has birthed 6 sequels and a 2 part remake; and a horror icon that has more drive and spark than anything of this earth.

 

Most everyone has seen this film, or at least knows of it. I would say, going into the Halloween season and with the recent release of the films on Blu-ray, now is the perfect time to take another look at these classics and fulfill a guilty pleasure that has been around for over 30 years and will be remembered forever.

 

Body Count: 4 “and surprisingly, the life of a German Shepard.”
Nude Points: 4

 

 

My rating of this film: 5 out of 5

Honorable Mentions:

1.      Donald Pleasance for taking a role for such little money, for the simple fact that his daughter liked John Carpenter’s musical score on his previous film, Assault on Precinct 13.

2.      Moustapha Akkad for giving this film a chance, and later becoming the Godfather of Michael Myers’ films.

3.      Jamie Lee Curtis! I have never found her attractive; I have never found her as a good actor; and I have never enjoyed any of her movies outside of the horror realm, but I could never see anyone playing a better Laurie Strode.

4.      Michael Myers for being such a quiet and unemotional man, but still managing to throw a little comedy in his routine…

Clownhouse (1989) Review

 

 

Written and Directed by Victor Salva (Jeepers Creepers I & II, Powder)
Featuring:  
            Nathan Forrest Winters as Casey Collins
            Brian McHugh as Geoffrey Collins
            Sam Rockwell (Film Debut) as Randy Collins
Rating: R
Runtime: 81 mins
Victims: 6
Nudity: None (Thankfully)

Clownhouse is one of the most underrated and forgotten movies I have ever seen. I was 8 years old when this film came out, but I knew it was a masterpiece in the low budget realm of B-movies. For years I was unable to remember the title of this film or find anything that resembled it anywhere. I had seen it on one of the premium movie channels and shortly after it was gone like a thief in the night, that was until 2008. I found this movie at BuyBacks Entertainment store in Columbus Ohio. After watching it again and still loving it, I began to research why it was such an unknown movie to people. The answer I found was quite shocking.

 

While filming this movie, the director (Victor Salva) was molesting one of the young actors. He was convicted for the lewd acts he bestowed upon his young victim and spent time in prison and has since had to register as a sex offender. Mr. Salva has blamed this unfortunate encounter on being young, dumb, and the product of a “deeply dysfunctional family.” Since being released Victor has continued making stories about young characters, mostly boys, which are picked on or mistreated. He has many scenes with boys that are shirtless, pant less, and even bottomless. I noticed in other movies of Victor’s there were scenes that just seemed awkward even before I knew about this situation. I will review more of his work in the future so keep an eye peeled. I will be sure to include the uncomfortable situations in those articles. Victor has served his time, and has come out and reentered filmmaking, but I am in no way trying to defend what he did. What I am trying to do is look at this movie as what it is and was made to be; which is a great horror film.


Clownhouse starts off with a young man named Casey (Nathan Forrest Winters) walking through his house in the dark. He is frightened and alone. Suddenly, he looks out the window and a flyer for the circus hits the glass. It shows the joyful face of a clown and the boy pisses all down through his pants and onto the floor. Then it flashes forward to show it was only a dream, none of it was real, well except for the piss, which really happened. Casey takes off his soiled garments and goes back to bed.


The next morning Casey’s brother, Geoffrey (Brian McHugh), walks in on their older brother masturbating (Nothing is shown, just implied, thankfully), then goes to see if Casey is awake. A few seconds later, Randy (Sam Rockwell – Happy Hell Night, The Green Mile, and Seven Psychopaths), barges into Casey’s room threatening Geoffrey never to walk in on him again. All three boys get into an argument, and all three boys are standing around in their underwear (Queue the awkward scenes). The mother says the boys will be left home alone all night and have to stick together and take care of each other. Randy is mad because he has a date at the Circus and doesn’t want his dorky brothers ruining his night. Randy seems to be the typical mid-teen punk that thinks he has to tough talk everyone and be a badass, but doesn’t seem like he could back it up much. Geoffrey is a protective middle brother who is always sticking up for Casey from Randy’s attitude. Casey is an evolving character; he starts out being the wimpy younger child, grows into a more assertive character, and then tries to be a protector of his older brothers.

 

When the boys are heading home from school they see a police car headed to the loony bin and joke about escaped patients. Then joke about evil killer clowns coming for Casey, and then they run off to the carnival where Casey has a run-in with a fortune teller warning the boys of danger; after that, Casey has an altercation with a clown in the main event of the Circus; and is given a hard time from Randy for ruining the evening.

 

After the Circus has closed, the boys head home, and the clowns are cleaning up for the night. The escaped lunatics sneak into the big top and kill off the original clowns and take over their personas. This is when the film begins to get very creepy. I am not even a coulrophobic, but the clowns in this movie were quite sinister. They are very sneaky, eerie, and dreadful jokesters.

 

The acting in this movie can be lackluster at times, but the main stars are fairly young so give them a break. The cryptic clown trio, as I already mentioned, are largely effective in providing a scary tone. The audio track plays well throughout continuing to create a terrifying ride; the camera work also emphasizes this; and in the nature of Michael Myers and Halloween there is little to no gore in this film, but it works just fine. I love this film. It is hard to find; I hate buying low budget movies when they are used, I like to support the arts, but this one is practically out of print. You can find it on Amazon.com or EBay; though, it is quite pricey. I would say if you are a fan of the B-movie craze, it would be well worth the extra money…

 

Honorable Mentions:           

1.)    “No man can hide from his fears; as they are a part of him, they will always know where he is hiding.”    – This quote plays at the end, just before the credits role, and I think is fitting to this film on many levels. a.) It is very true and proves you need to face your fears. b.) In the film, no matter where the boys hid, they could not elude the wicked clowns. and c.) I think this quote has a direct link to the life of Victor Salve. I don’t know him or his past, but I feel he is a man trying to escape his fears and this quote was a prelude to who he really is.

2.)    Sam Rockwell for the funny line he gives us when Casey wants to visit the fortune teller… “You want your fortune told? Give me a buck…You’re ugly and you’ll probably pee in your bed again!!!”

3.)    I have to mention again, the three clowns. They were just such an addition to the delivery of this film…

My View: 4.5 / 5