On First Looking Into Carpenter’s Halloween

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gore,

And many unstoppable slashers and killers seen;

Round many summer camps have I been

Which teens in fealty to horniness hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-mask’d Myers ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Laurie Strode speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Hitchcock when with eagle eyes

He star’d at the Bates Motel — and all his birds

Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —

Silent, upon a telephone wire in San Francisco.

All of which is to say, I watched John Carpenter’s Halloween for the first time this past week. It took me forty years to do so, although to be fair I wasn’t born for the first year, and I think it was pretty inappropriate for me to watch it for the first ten or eleven years of my life. I think it’s more accurate to say it took me twenty-eight years to watch Halloween — it would be intolerant of you to demand I watch it before 1990 in my opinion.

I watched John Carpenter’s Halloween because I decided I wanted to see the new sequel out this year, and I would’ve felt silly watching that without having ever seen the original. Interestingly, the Halloween franchise has multiple overlapping chronologies that have been revised and altered many times over the years. There is not one Halloween series, but several. The various timelines run thus:

The Founding Saga, which runs through Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

The Aborted Saga, which features Halloween III: Season of the Witch, but stops there because the third movie was an incredibly stupid one that nobody liked and plans to make the franchise an anthology series were abruptly abandoned and Myers brought back from the dead.

The New Strode Saga, which again begins with Halloween and continues with Halloween II, but then doesn’t pick up again until Halloween H20: 20 years Later, and finishes with Halloween: Resurrection. In this timeline movies 4–6 are erased and the latter two films pick up from Halloween II under the assumption that none of the other movies happened in between.

The Zombieverse, which begins with Rob Zombie’s remake, also called Halloween, and Rob Zombie’s sequel to the remake — which is not, however, a remake of the sequel — which is also called Halloween II. These are the only Zombieverse films, because after them we returned to:

The New New Strode Saga, which is the third timeline to begin with Halloween (the first one, not the Zombie one), but this time skips over every other sequel, including Halloween II, Halloween H20 and Halloween: Resurrection as well as the sequels that were already ignored once. This saga includes the first movie called Halloween from 1978, and the third movie called Halloween from 2018, but NOT the second film called Halloween from 2007, which was the Rob Zombie one. At time of writing the New New Strode Saga has only these two movies in it, and Halloween II-Halloween II never happened.

So, in a nutshell, there’s:

Halloween (1978)-Halloween II (1981)-Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers-Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers-Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween (1978)-Halloween II (1981)-Halloween H20: 20 Years Later-Halloween: Resurrection

Halloween (2007)-Halloween II (2009)

Halloween (1978)-Halloween (2018)

Everyone GOT that?

Knowing this convoluted history, I felt ready to finally drink in John Carpenter’s fabled masterpiece, the film that kicked off the slasher craze and inspired countless imitators, from Friday the 13th to Prom Night to Sleepaway Camp to I Know What You Did Last Summer to Jurassic Park.

The trouble with watching a movie that inspired countless imitators, many decades after the fact, is that you’re so familiar with the imitators that what they’re imitating isn’t really all that fresh anymore. The things that did surprise about the original Halloween are:

1. Michael Myers, by the standards of the genre to come, kills very few people — only five, and only three on the titular night in question.
2. There is hardly any blood. It’s an extremely non-graphic film, and what little blood there is looks not even a little bit convincing.
3. The nudity, on the other hand, is so gratuitous it rivals National Lampoon’s European Vacation for the least effort put into providing justification for nudity.
4. Michael Myers in the movie, contrary to popular belief, is NOT the same Michael Myers from Wayne’s World.

Here’s how Halloween goes, basically:

In 1963, in Haddonfield, Illinois, six-year-old Michael Myers sees his sister canoodling with her boyfriend. Said sister and said boyfriend go upstairs, have sex, the boyfriend gets dressed again and leaves, all in about a minute in a display of carnal efficiency rarely seen. Little Michael doesn’t much like his sister engaging in such filthy acts, so he puts on a clown mask, picks up a knife, goes upstairs to where she is brushing her hair while nude, and stabs her all over her torso, leaving her lightly smeared with food colouring and very dead. His parents arrive home and are not happy.

Fifteen years later, Donald Pleasence, having survived the Nazis, is driving to the mental hospital to deal with his patient, Michael Myers, who has been locked up for fifteen years while Pleasence tries to figure out why he started stabbing nude girls. Unfortunately there’s been a breakout at the hospital, and Michael grabs Donald’s nurse’s head and steals their car. Michael knows how to drive even though he’s been locked up since he was six, which some people think is a plot hole but isn’t really because use your imagination people.

So Donald is very unhappy that the most evil child ever is on the loose, and even less happy that nobody is taking him seriously. Donald finds a truck and a hospital gown. Michael has killed the driver and taken his clothes. Michael is going home to Haddonfield to kill more nude girls. Donald phones ahead but everyone thinks he’s a crazy person which is IRONY.

In Haddonfield, Laurie is Jamie Lee Curtis, the least stupid of three stupid friends who are preparing for Halloween. Laurie’s two stupid friends have sex but Laurie does not because she is saving herself for Dan Aykroyd. Laurie will be babysitting on Halloween because she has no plans to have sex. Her stupid friend Annie will also be babysitting even though she wants to have sex instead, and her other stupid friend Lynda will be having sex. Laurie makes plans to hang out with Annie because the houses they are babysitting at are only three doors down from each other even though when they get there they’re right across the road from each other as if John Carpenter didn’t know which houses he was going to use when he was filming this scene.

On the way home from school Michael Myers, in a creepy white mask which he apparently will steal from a hardware store shortly after he starts wearing it, follows Laurie and her friends and watches them intently, but does not kill them yet because they are not nude. At school, Tommy, who Laurie will be babysitting, gets bullied by some weird kids who tell him the boogeyman is coming to get him as if that’s a thing kids say. They squash his pumpkin, not a euphemism.

Halloween night comes and Tommy is scared of the boogeyman but Laurie is like don’t be a dickhead Tommy. Annie is babysitting a girl called Lindsey who has no emotions and likes watching scary movies. Annie’s night is interrupted when she spills food on her clothes and has to immediately take all her clothes off and go to the laundry immediately. She accidentally locks herself into the laundry and Michael watches her. Lindsey lets her out. Nobody is dead yet. At some point a dog dies though. Dunno if it’s now.

Annie takes Lindsey over to Tommy’s house because she has to go pick up her stupid boyfriend so they can have sex at Lindsey’s house. She never does pick up her stupid boyfriend because Michael kills her in the car. Classic Michael.

Lynda and her stupid boyfriend show up at Lindsey’s house while Annie is out getting murdered, and they have some sex. After the sex Lynda’s stupid boyfriend goes downstairs to get them some beer which they are not legally allowed to drink. Michael kills him and pins him to the wall with his knife even though it’s not long enough to do this. Then he puts a sheet over his head and goes upstairs to see Lynda. Lynda thinks it’s her boyfriend with a sheet on because that’s just like his wacky ghost-centric sense of humour. But it’s not her boyfriend, it’s Michael Myers and he totally kills her.

Meanwhile Donald Pleasence has arrived in Haddonfield and is rushing around looking for Michael and ordering the sheriff — who is also Annie’s father so he’s in for some bad news — around. The sheriff finds Donald Pleasence very annoying but puts up with him because what else is there to do in this dumb town? At least he’s someone to talk to. Donald Pleasence has a gun, which is clever of him.

Tommy sees Michael out the window and is all like ooh the boogeyman help. Laurie looks out and sees nothing. Tommy insists he saw the boogeyman. He could’ve been more specific and said, “I saw a big man carrying the body of a woman into Lindsey’s house across the street, isn’t that strange?” But no, all he says is “the boogeyman”, so of course Laurie doesn’t believe you you twat.

Laurie thinks something is up so she goes across the road and into the house. She finds Annie on a bed along with the gravestone of Michael Myers’s sister. Laurie knows this isn’t normal so she screams. Then Lynda’s boyfriend’s corpse pops out of a cupboard and she screams. Then Lynda’s body shows up too and she screams. You can’t blame her really.

Then Michael attacks her and she falls down the stairs and limps back to Tommy’s house, after trying to get the neighbours’ attention but the neighbours ignored her because damn kids. Michael follows her and they have a fight and Laurie stabs him with a knitting needle and thinks he’s dead. She’s so sure he’s dead that she leaves his knife conveniently by him.

But he’s not dead and he chases her again. She hides in a wardrobe and when he attacks again she stabs him with a coathanger. She fights him off again, and again she puts the knife carefully down next to his body even though he came back to life once already. Which he does again. She fights him again. She pulls off his mask. His face is kind of weird. He pulls his mask back on. He tries to kill her.

Donald Pleasence arrives in the nick of time and shoots Michael repeatedly. Michael falls over the balcony and lies prone on the lawn. Laurie cries. Donald Pleasence comforts her, which isn’t much comfort because he’s just a creepy-looking stranger who suddenly appeared with a gun, but at least he shot Michael so she gives him the benefit of the doubt.

Everyone is safe but oops, Michael isn’t on the lawn anymore I guess we need a sequel.

That’s Halloween. I looked forward to recapping the rest of the franchise in good time. Especially Season of the Witch, which according to the Wikipedia synopsis is the stupidest movie ever made.

Bye for now.