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Halloween
This movie appears on so many top movie lists and has relatively good reviews from critics and audiences alike.
I’m confused how they all got it so wrong. Perhaps its nostalgia or that the ratings or the critiques about the film are more about its influence on the genre and film making in general.
Let’s get that out of the way first. The film is iconic. It was one of the first horror films to get a major release and to have A list actors in it. It changed the landscape for horror films forever. It should be recognised for the massive impact that it had.
Was the Story Good?
The story was fine. It ticked all the boxes in a ticking-the-boxes kind of way. I could have almost printed out a checklist of the twelve stages of the heroes journey and marked them off as they came up.
How about the Characters?
The characters all fulfilled their roles. They almost felt like they were playing cardboard cut-outs of the roles. The mentor, the allies, the enemies, could have been called that rather than their actual character names. But perhaps that would have been a step too far.
But they didn’t do anything wrong. The characters did what they needed to and so did the story. When I’m reviewing a movie and it does all these things well the movie is getting seven out of ten – pretty good. Not great, not bad – pretty good.
Reality is Scarier than Fiction
What made this movie great beyond the normal story and character arc stuff? For me it was the tone and the believability of this film that made it great.
The small town was believable. The relationships that Lauire had with her friends and family all rung true. It was the truth and believability that these terrible things could happen that made them much more terrifying.
In the last thirty minutes of the film Mr. Carpenter lost his marbles.
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What Destroyed a Pretty Good Movie?
There were a number of major flaws towards the end of the film that destroyed the suspension of disbelief and left me laughing and confused. Had the head of continuity quit?
When Michael moves into the house where Bob and Lynda are shacked up. Bob is searching the kitchen for an intruder when he opens and closes one of those flimsy concertina doors. He turns around to find Michael behind him.
Bob is knifed into the flimsy door behind him. He is lifted off the ground and the knife and door hold his whole weight. It was completely unbelievable.
Time wasn't on their side
Dr. Loomis stands outside of the abandoned Myers house for some time during the night. We keep cutting back to him as he waits. At one point he notices the car that Michael stole parked almost directly across the road from him. The car had been there the whole time Loomis had been waiting. How hadn’t he spotted it?
When the girls drive to babysitting it goes from full daylight to night. This indicates that it is a long way from Laurie’s house to Tommy’s. Fine, if you don’t think back to the start of the movie. Tommy meets Laurie on the way to school. They are both walking and we have watched Laurie since she left her house.
So, there are two possibilities. One, the girls drove around for hours before arriving at Tommy’s house but this cannot be true because they were in a hurry. Second, Tommy’s parents make him leave well before dawn. This is the only way he could have arrived to meet Laurie on the way. I doubt he would be as chipper as he was.
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How to Lock a Door - A Users Guide
The first door that has been locked all movie is when Laurie is trying to escape from Tommy’s house after finding the bodies. The backdoor has been sealed closed from the outside, with a rake or spade or something. So this had to be done from the outside.
There is no way that Michael could done this, gone around to the front door and then locked that from the inside. He then headed upstairs to hide. All this needs to happen while Laurie is in the house.
Laurie almost immediately heads up stairs when she enters the house and then finds Michael. So this entire sequence just couldn’t have happened.
So while the movie still ticks all the required boxes it gets a bad rating from me because it breaks suspension of disbelief in such a dramatic fashion. The film has also been using suspension of disbelief as a cornerstone so this makes it so much worse when it is broken.
