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Created Apr 25, 2009 01:35AM PST • Edited Apr 25, 2009 01:35AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Shot on a shoestring budget that didn’t originally promise much, “Halloween” saw John Carpenter strike horror gold, kickstarting a sturdy career for himself within the genre, one of the mainstay horror franchises up until the present day, and the so-called ‘golden age’ of the slasher subgenre that saw pretty much countless rip-offs and derivations attempt to ape Carpenter’s sensational classic, all of them failing to come close to the perfection that “Halloween” manages. The plot here is deceptively simple, revolving around the psychotic Michael Myers (Tony Moran), a man confined to a mental hospital following a Halloween night murder he committed of his own sister while still a young boy in 1963. When he manages an escape in the days leading up to Halloween 1978, he makes his way towards his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois — his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence) on his trail — where begins following teenage babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends (Nancy Loomis and P.J. Soles), the threat of more Halloween night bloodshed growing the longer we watch Myers stalk his potential victims.

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   Jamie Lee Curtis would get typecast in many cases as the one-time ‘scream queen’ of horror due to her feature film debut performance as Laurie Strode, subsequent parts in both “Prom Night” and Carpenter’s own “The Fog” furthering her genre credibility — and acting credentials. She fits precisely into the bland babysitter character Carpenter has given her, applying her own fluorishes to the character so that one comes to sympathise, empathise with her, the result being that — unlike with many leads in the endless slashers that followed in these footsteps — Curtis has given us a protagonist totally worth rooting for. That she embodies and encapsulates the virginal, morally sound teenage character that would be the mould for the near-entire subgenre’s leading ladies is further testament to this convergence of lead actress and thoughtful writer-director.

   Pursuing the masked, murderous Michael Myers throughout is Donald Pleasence in a well-known series regular part as Dr. Samuel Loomis, the former psychiatrist trying to convince all available authorities that the psychotic, evil Myers must be stopped and pursued at all costs. He doesn’t go into the lugubrious ranting of a “Halloween 5” but instead plays it just right as a guilt-ridden psychiatrist who can’t help but feel that his behaviour towards Michael has failed to prevent his oncoming massacre. It’s a quieter, more restrained portrayal than typically allowed of the series, and Pleasence deserves props for being so memorable even when his character drifts in and out of the central narrative.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    The skill John Carpenter has managed to show behind the camera while utilising such a small budget is shocking, setting up scenes of nerve-jangling suspense as the late sequences where Laurie is pitted against the masked antagonist with consummate ease. What he’s achieved with “Halloween” is a career-best, equipping it with the most ominous of feels and the most iconic of soundtracks. He’s told a would-be simple tale and made it scary in a way one rarely sees today. If you haven’t — for some bizarre reason — seen this film, you should certainly seek it out.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.1

17. Sex Titillating 2.1

18. Violence Fierce 2.2

19. Rudeness Salty 2.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.3

23. Biological Glib 1.3

24. Physical Glib 1.3