Halloween is a 1978 American slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, who co-wrote it with producer Debra Hill. It stars Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis (in her film debut), P. J. Soles, and Nancy Loomis. The film follows escaped mental patient Michael Myers, who was committed to a mental institution for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween in the fictional Illinois town of Haddonfield; 15 years later, he returns to Haddonfield, where he stalks teenage babysitter Laurie Strode (Curtis) and her friends while his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (Pleasence) pursues him.
The film was shot in Southern California, produced by Compass International Pictures, and Falcon International Productions. The film was released by Compass International and Aquarius Releasing in October and grossed $70 million (equivalent to $ million in ) on a budget of , becoming one of the most profitable independent films of all time. Primarily praised for Carpenter's direction and score, many critics credit the film as pioneering the slasher genre, alongside other films such as Psycho (1960), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas (both 1974).
Halloween is considered one of the greatest horror films ever made and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2006 as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It spawned a film franchise comprising thirteen films, with some sequels narratively diverging entirely from previous installments, as well as a novelization, video game, board game, and comic book series.
Plot
On October 31, 1963, in the suburban Illinois town of Haddonfield, six-year-old Michael Myers brutally stabs his teenage sister Judith to death with a chef's knife.
On October 30, 1978, psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis and nurse Marion Chambers drive to the sanitarium, where Michael is incarcerated, to escort him to a court hearing. Upon arrival, they realize the patients have broken out of the hospital. A male patient jumps on the car roof and attacks Marion from the passenger window. She then runs from the vehicle, allowing the patient to steal the car and drive away. Dr. Loomis concludes that it was Michael Myers. Michael returns to Haddonfield, killing a mechanic and taking his coveralls before stealing a white mask, a rope, and two kitchen knives from a hardware store.
The next morning, on Halloween, Michael begins stalking a teenage girl, Laurie Strode, when she drops off a key at his abandoned childhood home that her realtor father is trying to sell. Laurie notices Michael throughout the day, but her friends Annie Brackett and Lynda Van Der Klok dismiss her concerns. Loomis arrives in Haddonfield and discovers that Michael has stolen Judith's tombstone from the local cemetery. He meets up with the town sheriff, Annie's father Leigh Brackett, and they visit Michael's home where they are convinced that Michael has returned to Haddonfield.
That evening, Michael follows Annie and Laurie to their babysitting jobs. Laurie watches Tommy Doyle, while Annie stays with Lindsey Wallace across the street. Michael spies on Annie and kills Lester, the family's German Shepherd. Tommy spots Michael from the windows and thinks he is the boogeyman, but Laurie sees nothing and dismisses him. Annie takes Lindsey to the Doyle house so she can pick up her boyfriend while Laurie watches both of the kids. Michael hides in Annie's car and strangles her before cutting her throat. Lynda and her boyfriend Bob arrive at the Wallace house and have sex. Bob then goes downstairs to get a beer from the kitchen, where Michael pins him to the wall with a chef's knife. Michael poses as Bob in a ghost costume to taunt Lynda, who teases him to no effect. Annoyed, she calls Laurie to find out what happened to Annie, but Michael strangles her with the phone cord while Laurie listens on the other end, not knowing what is happening. Meanwhile, Loomis discovers the stolen car and searches the streets.
Worried by the phone call, Laurie goes to the Wallace house and finds her friends' bodies and Judith's tombstone in one of the upstairs bedrooms. She runs into the hallway, where Michael slashes her arm, causing her to fall over the banister to the first floor. Though injured, she escapes the house and flees back to the Doyle house with Michael in pursuit. Tommy lets her in, and she orders him and Lindsey to hide. Laurie tries to call for help, only to find the phone dead. Michael sneaks in through the window and attempts to attack Laurie again, but she defends herself by stabbing him in the neck with a knitting needle, causing him to collapse.
Thinking Michael is dead, Laurie staggers upstairs to check on the children, where she tells them that she killed the "boogeyman", but Tommy insists that you cannot kill the boogeyman just as Michael reappears upstairs with a knife causing the trio to retreat. While Tommy and Lindsey hide in the bathroom, Laurie lures Michael to the bedroom closet and stabs him in the eye with a piece of wire hanger and in the chest with his own knife. After Laurie sends Tommy and Lindsey to a neighbor's house to call the police, Michael rises and attacks her again. Seeing the kids screaming from the house, Loomis investigates and finds Laurie fighting Michael off by dislodging his mask, revealing his face. As Michael puts his mask back on, Loomis recognizes him and shoots him repeatedly, causing him to fall off the bedroom balcony. When Loomis goes to check on the body, he is unsurprised to see that Michael has vanished. He stares into the night as Laurie sobs in terror, telling him "it was the boogeyman."
Cast
Analysis Themes
Scholar Carol J. Clover has argued that the film, and its genre at large, links sexuality with danger, saying that killers in slasher films are fueled by a "psychosexual fury" and that all the killings are sexual in nature. She reinforces this idea by saying that "guns have no place in slasher films" and when examining the film I Spit on Your Grave she notes that "a hands-on killing answers a hands-on rape in a way that a shooting, even a shooting preceded by a humiliation, does not." Equating sex with violence is important in Halloween and the slasher genre according to film scholar Pat Gill, who made a note of this in her essay "The Monstrous Years: Teens, Slasher Films, and the Family". She remarks that Laurie's friends "think of their babysitting jobs as opportunities to share drinks and beds with their boyfriends. One by one they are killed ... by Michael Myers an asylum escapee who years ago at the age of six murdered his sister for preferring sex to taking care of him." Carpenter has distanced himself from these interpretations, saying "It has been suggested that I was making some kind of moral statement. Believe me, I'm not. In Halloween, I viewed the characters as simply normal teenagers." In another interview, Carpenter said that readings of the film as a morality play "completely missed the point," adding, "The one girl who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing this guy with a long knife. She's the most sexually frustrated. She's the one that's killed him. Not because she's a virgin but because all that sexually repressed energy starts coming out. She uses all those phallic symbols on the guy." Debra Hill, who co-wrote and produced the film, also dismissed the idea saying, "There was absolutely no intent for that to be the underlying reason. I was raised a Catholic schoolgirl and what leaked into the script is my Catholic sensibility. It was totally unintentional."
Some feminist critics, according to historian Nicholas Rogers, "have seen the slasher movies since Halloween as debasing women in as decisive a manner as hard-core pornography." Critics such as John Kenneth Muir state that female characters such as Laurie Strode survive not because of "any good planning" or their own resourcefulness, but sheer luck. Although she manages to repel the killer several times, in the end, Strode is rescued in Halloween and Halloween II only when Dr. Loomis arrives to shoot Myers. However, Clover has argued that despite the violence against women, Halloween and other slasher films turned women into heroines. In many pre-Halloween horror films, women are depicted as helpless victims and are not safe until they are rescued by a strong masculine hero. Despite the fact that Loomis saves Strode, Clover asserts that Halloween initiates the role of the "final girl" who ultimately triumphs. Strode fights back against Myers and severely wounds him. Had Myers been a normal man, Strode's attacks would have killed him; even Loomis, the male hero of the story, who shoots Michael repeatedly with a revolver, cannot kill him. Aviva Briefel argued that moments such as when Michael's face was temporarily revealed are meant to give pleasure to the male viewer. Briefel further argues that these moments are masochistic in nature and give pleasure to men because they are willingly submitting themselves to the women of the film; they submit themselves temporarily because it will make their return to authority even more powerful.
Critics, such as Gill, see Halloween as a critique of American social values. She remarks that parental figures are almost entirely absent throughout the film, noting that when Laurie is attacked by Michael while babysitting, "No parents, either of the teenagers or of the children left in their charge, call to check on their children or arrive to keen over them."
According to Gill, the dangers of suburbia is another major theme that runs throughout the film and the slasher genre at large: Gill states that slasher films "seem to mock white flight to gated communities, in particular the attempts of parents to shield their children from the dangerous influences represented by the city." Halloween and slasher films, generally, represent the underside of suburbia to Gill. Myers was raised in a suburban household and after he escapes the mental hospital he returns to his hometown to kill again; Myers is a product of the suburban environment, writes Gill.
Michael is thought by some to represent evil in the film. This is based on the common belief that evil never dies, nor does evil show remorse. This idea is demonstrated in the film when Dr. Loomis discusses Michael's history with the sheriff. Loomis states, "I spent eight years trying to reach him [Michael Myers], and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply ... evil." Loomis also refers to Michael as "evil" when he steals his car at the sanitarium. This further emphasizes why Michael wears the mask as he " Wears his villainy plainly on his face." Yet we still question how evil Michael is without knowing his true motivation throughout the first film. We come to the end of the film, and Michael once again roams the streets of Haddonfield as evil never dies.
Aesthetic elements