Something Rank (#2)

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(#2) Halloween (1978)

"The Night HE Came Home..."

"The blackest eyes... The devil's eyes..." The eyes of an eight-year-old boy who saw to turning a holiday not for making profits but for making cuts. Who saw something more than pumpkins in need of being carved. A seasonal icon whose face is memorialized in shops across the country, in window displays, on mannequins, and under the heading "True Crime." How did Michael Myers have the foresight behind those alternatingly shallow and endless black eye sockets? To know he would become as crucial to seasonal carnage as the urban myth of the razor blade in the candy apple?


More of a "suburban" legend, Michael Myers' legacy has lingered like a madman in the shrubs. Simple family homicide that continues to tear his hometown to shreds. What began with a boy playing butcher knife in his sister's bedroom has evolved to Michael's "boogeyman"-level infamy. Was he ever really just a child or was it a mask all along?

John Carpenter's consummate chiller tingles with its equally iconic score, settling on a serene Americana as it settles into night. A surreal anniversary on neighborhood streets on the eve when, "Everyone's entitled to one good scare." Giggles of sugar-strung children streak through the Autumnal hues as a mental patient watches and waits, planning his trick. This time it's the horror genre's treat.


Like the holiday itself, John Carpenter's Halloween is all about the simple thrills. It's dressed up just enough to score all the goods. The seminal film uniquely pulses with tension as it leisurely stalks and stings its audience with a paranoia of the unknown in our own backyard. Atmosphere is essential to this otherwise simple story of stalk-and-slash, orchestrating what would become a terrifying brand name for suspense. Brainy/chaste babysitter Laurie Strode (the essential Jamie Lee Curtis) tends to the tots as they watch monster movies, unable to see the one building around her. Halloween effortlessly captures the palpable fear of shapes moving in the shadows, the raspy, heavy breaths on a telephone line, and the mysterious macabre of Midwest streets. With patience, persistence, and a passionate hatred for adolescents, Michael Myers transcended being just another small town horror story and became a historical horror icon. A face for the genre with simple, terrifying features.

The Face of Fear:

Killer Looks:

1) Michael Audrey Myers:
Haddonfield's own pride and killjoy

2) "Can't I get your ghost, Bob?"

3) William Shatner in the house

4) Face to... Face?

My Thoughts Exactly...

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