Editorials
‘Halloween’ at 40: The 8 Scariest Moments from John Carpenter’s Original Classic
When Halloween released in theaters on October 25, 1978, it wasn’t an immediate hit. The indie movie made with a miniscule budget only dropped in a small number of theaters. But positive word of mouth spread fast, causing Halloween to release in more theaters across the country and four weeks later it was an undeniable hit. The stylish slasher was a perfect amalgam of talented people at the beginning of their careers; director/co-writer John Carpenter, producer/co-writer Debra Hill, final girl extraordinaire Jamie Lee Curtis, cinematographer Dean Cundey, production designer Tommy Lee Wallace, the Shape actor Nick Castle, executive producers Irwin Yablan and Moustapha Akkad, and just about everyone who had a hand in it all worked in unison to make a definitive classic.
Under Carpenter’s direction a simple premise, in which a babysitter is stalked over Halloween night by an escaped psychopath, turned into the stuff of nightmares. To celebrate 40 years of Halloween, we look back at its scariest, genre-defining moments.
Opening scene reveal
The opening sequence, set on Halloween night in 1963, sets the bar high straight away with the first-person perspective of someone dressed in a clown costume stalking then murdering their older sister mere moments after her boyfriend leaves post-coital. The voyeuristic quality makes the whole scene unnerving, and that’s before it explodes with shocking violence as we watch through the killer’s eyes while he stabs his sister to death. If you think it couldn’t get any more terrifying, the scene concludes with the killer being unmasked; he was only a child.
Stalking his prey
Between Michael Myer’s escape from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and his systematic homicidal spree on Halloween night, this silent killer is content to lurk in the background, stalking and studying his prey. All of whom are oblivious. Nothing really ever happens in the safe little town of Haddonfield, right? Wrong. Michael Myers’ consistent background appearances are creepy. It’s an effective means of building tension; we know these teens are in trouble long before they do.
Head Tilt
Lynda Van Der Klok’s boyfriend Bob goes downstairs for a beer but finds himself with a knife to his gut instead. Nevermind the sheer strength displayed, as Michael Myers lifts Bob off the ground and then pins him to the wall with the knife. What makes this so scary is Michael Myers subtle, simple head tilt. It’s a small gesture that has massive implications, namely in just how evil this killer really is.
Bob’s body swings down
Poor Laurie found much more than she bargained for when she went across the street to investigate the Wallace house. She finds her friend Annie’s dead body splayed across the bed with Judith Myers’ headstone at her head. It’s a traumatic enough moment, but her escape is then blocked by the swinging dead body of Bob. It’s unexpected both for Laurie and for the viewer; when we last saw Bob he was pinned downstairs to a wall. This is a jump scare done well.
Annie’s death
Halloween is a slasher that favors mounting dread over overt violence, so when there are violent moments it really packs a punch. Annie Brackett’s death is the perfect example. The audience is always clued in to Michael Myers’ presence long before the protagonists and waiting for Annie to finally catch on feels like an eternity. The dread coils tighter by the minute. When Annie finally realizes something is amiss, it’s too late. Yet, it still catches us off guard. The loud honking of the car horn is enough to give us a jolt, but that Michael Myers isn’t just content to strangle Annie, but slit her throat too is bone-chilling.
Let me in!
As if you needed any more proof that Halloween is a master class in fear, I present you with this intense chase scene. Our observant final girl, Laurie Strode, is suspicious that something’s not quite right. So, she leaves the kids she’s babysitting behind to venture across the street to the Wallace household and investigate. She survives her first encounter with Michael Myers and a harrowing chase ensues as she rushes back to the Doyle house. The door is locked, but will the kids open it in time before Michael Myers closes in?
He’s not a monster
When you think of the Boogeyman, you think of something much more ghoulish and hideous. Someone who systematically stalks and kills without emotion is surely a monster, right? But just as he’s finally about to kill Laurie, she makes him pause when she rips off his mask. For the briefest moment, the audience sees that there’s nothing monstrous at all about Michael Myers. It’s a frightening reminder that killers could be anyone and anywhere; they could appear normal.
But he is the Boogeyman
Up until the final moments, Michael Myers was just a human. Albeit, a psychotic killer, but human nonetheless. When Dr. Sam Loomis shoots Myers six times, knocking him off the second-floor balcony into the yard below, the killer should be dead. Yet seconds later our worst fears are realized when Loomis discovers Myers is gone. The boogeyman is real, and he could be anywhere.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
You must be logged in to post a comment.