The movie opens with the point of view perspective of a five year old boy with a clown mask, so you see everything through the eyes of this mask. The boy picks up a knife, walks up the stairs, and stabs his sister to death. This scene is an absolute ode to the shower scene in "Psycho", filmed in a very similar manner but from his perspective not the victims. Flash forward 15 yrs and this psychopath named Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital. It's clear to his doctor (Loomis) that Michael is coming home on Halloween and that the town better prepare for a bloodbath. " I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding, even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six year old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes. The Devil's eyes." This is the setup. It's Halloween in the small town of Haddonfield and Michael Myers, who his doctor believes to be the boogeyman is coming home.
This movie is more than the sum of its parts. John Carpenter is setting the audience up with several elements of suspense, fear, and terror. He allows a full day to play out. In the morning you see Laurie Strode (the heroine) walking to school. Later in the afternoon she's walking with her friends, and driving around town. You see trick or treaters, and all of this in an environment of sweeping trees, and wide roads, green as can be in this small town America where it's ordinary and safe.
The characters feel very real. They talk like teenagers talked during the late 70's when this was made. They tease Laurie for being innocent and it feels cruel sometimes but that's how teenagers and teenage friends sometimes treat each other. Not all the characters are likeable but they are real. In the midst of watching this typical day play out there is this buildup of suspense and fear because we are reminded again and again that the boogeyman Michael Myers is lurking around every corner.
Even when we don't see him we are reminded of him through the iconic, sinister piano and synthesizer score by Carpenter. We feel his presence through this incredibly ominous music. Just thinking about the music makes me cringe. Laurie is walking to school, a typical walk that she would take any other day but with this music accompanying this ordinary moment in this ordinary town we are reminded that this evil being is in the midst of all this and all that might seem well is going to go very wrong at some point.
There are these incredibly creepy moments where Laurie witnesses this random man in a creepy mask standing and staring at her, and man this is a scary mask. Something about the fact that it isn't a monster mask. It's a human mask that isn't quite human. It's blank and cold and the freaky hair pushes it over the edge. Every time you see it your blood gets a little colder. These are some of the scariest moments. Picture it. You're in class and you look out the window and there's this man with a creepy mask across the street standing behind his car and staring at you. You're walking on the sidewalk with your friend and this same creepy dude is standing beside some bushes once again just standing there and staring at you. They are just these quick chills that add to the overall thickness of fear.
There's a great moment where Laurie and her friend are driving along having a conversation about boys and a high school dance coming up. Then there is a cut to a wider shot showing Michael Myers in his car following right along behind them. The sinister music kicks in and you can see that the sun is going down. Shivers. The next shot you see it will be complete darkness and the atmosphere shifts from suspense and fear edging towards terror. It's like you've been walking along in a tunnel and the further you get from the opening the darker it gets until you reach the middle where it's pitch black and it's all about surrender. There's no turning back and it's primal because you're stuck in it for a while. Carpenter leads us into the night and now it's not about bad shit is going to happen at some point. Now it's about "Holy shit. This is it." The bad shit is now and I have no idea where it's coming from or how. I just know that it's now. This is the terror. This is the bump in the night, the strange noise outside, the door opening and closing inexplicably.
To add to this we have the eyes of a child in little Tommy Doyle. He's freaked out about the boogeyman. Bullies yell at him "The boogeyman's gonna get you. The boogeyman's gonna get you.", and he's got that in the back of his head. We know what it's like to be a kid and to be scared of the boogeyman, the thing that hides under the bed or in the closet. Laurie is babysitting Tommy and it's the bad time, the time when bad shit's about to go down. He looks out the window and sees the silhouette of a man standing in front of the house across the street. He knows in his veins that it's the boogeyman and we know it's the boogeyman. He's seeing what isn't supposed to be real, and the audience can relate to what that would be like. It's terrifying. The fucking boogeyman is standing across the street. Jesus Christ. Later after we've already witnessed Michael murdering one of the teenage girls Tommy randomly looks out the window again and a man in a mask is carrying a body into the house across the street. The fucking boogeyman again. Holy shit. This can't really be happening.
When the shit goes down Carpenter cross cuts between Laurie babysitting and a terrifying buildup of each murder. So once again the typical back and forth with the ordinary and the horrifying. Tommy and later another little girl are watching a horror movie on the television ("The Thing") while eating popcorn on a cozy sofa. The movie, which Carpenter will later do a remake of is very, very safe. It's a 50's horror film and there's nothing too threatening in it. It feels very artificial, the acting is bad, the effects are horrible. It's a safe horror flick. It works really well to cut from all this safety to these horrifying things happening right across the street. In the house that Laurie is babysitting it feels like the real world where there are no boogeymen. Then we cut to another house in the same neighborhood where the boogeyman does exist. No one is safe even though there is the illusion of safety.
Frankly I'm not going to talk that much about the bad shit. It isn't why this film is a horror masterpiece. The genius is in the slow build, the gradual journey into the darkness. Once we are there just about anything is going to be terrifying. We have been played like a fine-tuned piano. We are seriously thick in it. Don't get me wrong. In this area he does an amazing job too. Even in this area he takes his time and allows for the tension and the terror to build. A sound outside, a door closing by itself, the camera always in the foreground so that something quick and unexpected can jump in from the side. With all of this there are a number of quick, terrifying jolts. We're in the middle of that dark tunnel, at our most vulnerable and then we're waiting, the tension building again. Shit. Shit, and blindsided.
There is one element from this last section that I'll talk about and that's because it's the chase, and it's executed to perfection. Hitchcock would be proud and I have an idea that he probably influenced it in some way. Laurie, when things seem suspicious checks on her friends at the house across the street. She discovers the aftermath of the slaughter and it's terrifying and then Michael's coming at her. From here on out its amazing suspense and fear. It's the chase. We really like Laurie. We've gotten to know her and we're routing for her, and her world has just been obliterated. She barely escapes the house and she's running, screaming in the streets for someone to help her. She's in primal-ville. No one will help her. You see Michael enter the picture and he's coming after her. She arrives at the house that she's babysitting and she has lost the key and the kids are asleep. Fuck. Michael is getting closer. She screams for Tommy to wake up and open the door. There's this brilliant moment of tension because Michael is getting closer from the outside, and from inside the house Tommy is half asleep, has no idea that anything is wrong, so he's slowly walking down the steps and to the door. He might not make it in time. Carpenter milks this. At the last second he opens the door. More than once after this Laurie barely alludes Michael, apparently kills him, and just when you think it's safe he comes at her again. Uuuuuugh it's good!!!
