Halloween [DVD]

John Carpenter’s much imitated “Halloween” defined the eighties stalk and slasher genre, spawning inferior copies like the “Friday the 13th” series (including six sequels of its own), and for a time making the star Jamie Lee Curtis into the premium “scream queen”. Later on the conventions of the genre were clevely re-invented for a nineties audience by director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson in “Scream”, which plays direct homage to “Halloween”. John Carpenter opens his film with an unnerving point of view shot of the young psychotic Michael Myers brutally stabbing his teenage sister to death on Halloween night. Flash forward to Halloween fifteen years later and Michael has escaped the mental institution he had been locked up in. Meanwhile shy, virginal teacher Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her girlfriends are preparing for Halloween, unaware of the menace that lurks in their quiet suburban community. Carpenter makes great use of the sparse, atmospheric music score (which he also composed), and uses to the maximum creepy effect the white mask Michael Myers wears throughout the film. “Halloween” also establishes the classic horror genre rule - if you’re a sexually active teenager, you die! Cast also includes Donald Pleasence, P.J. Soles, Tony Moran.