If you were never quite sure why critics and fans of horror movies consider John Carpenter's 'Halloween' to be a genre classic, The Criterion Collection's new deluxe edition will let you see the light. A low-budget movie filmed in 22 days, 'Halloween' went on to become one of the most successful independent films ever produced, spawning an entire subgenre of inferior slasher and splatter movies.
But this one is considered to be the best. The irony is that John Carpenter achieved effective scares and nail-biting suspense with a minimalistic approach, necessitated by the film's shoe-string budget. Through simplicity, a love for his characters and an understanding of how to manipulate the audience without resorting to cheap tricks, Carpenter fashioned a frightful psycho-thriller worthy of being compared to Hitchcock's 'Psycho'.
There is brutal violence but the gore is implied; surprisingly, there's almost no blood in the film. Carpenter speaks about this during the running audio essay, commenting on how flattered he is that the dozens of subsequent splatter flicks copied him, but very quick to point out the many reasons why those movies can't hold a candle to his film. Carpenter also gives a play-by-play account of the many technical glitches and gaffes evident throughout the film (and reveals the fascinating, little-known trival fact that Michael Myers wears a mask of Captain Kirk!).
Co-writer Debra Hill also contributes to the commentary, but it's Jamie Lee Curtis who has the most fun. She looks back with great fondness on the movie that made her a star, speaks of how it influenced her career and occasionally yells out impressed-teenager endorsements like "woah, THAT'S cool!" as if she were watching the movie for the first time, aware that it's a classic and agreeing with its admirers more and more with every scene.
The CAV disc presents the film in its full-width Panavision aspect ratio, enhancing Carpenter's use of wide spaces and dark shadows to heighten the suspense. Dean Cundey's camerawork is perfect, with darkness and manipulated light working not only as an additional element to provide a sense of dread, but also as an artistic touch that the many subsequent splatter films didn't even aspire to.
More noteworthy is how great the film itself LOOKS: I'm very impressed Criterion was able to find such a pristine print of the movie, almost completely devoid of the scratches and dirt most film buffs usually allow for in low-budget movies.
John Carpenter's chilling piano score is isolated on another auxiliary audio channel, allowing you to hear the music without dialogue. A scene presented in the supplementary section minus the music will make you appreciate just how effective this simplistic, repetitive score really is.
Additional supplementary materials include the theatrical trailer and a text-screen chapter that lists the many splatter-movie pretenders to 'Halloween''s throne. There are a few errors and ommissions: Carpenter is mistakenly credited as director of 'Halloween II' and 'Halloween III'; and the list of films stops in 1989, neglecting to mention later splatter films like the three most recent 'Nightmare on Elm Street' movies and the final 'Friday the 13th' flick.
Also included on this disc are the scenes Carpenter filmed two years later in 1980, during the shoot of 'Halloween II', that were used especially for the network broadcast of 'Halloween'. A handy guide explains how to program these scenes in sequence to put them back into the original theatrical version, but the new scenes are all panned-and-scanned, having been mastered from a 1" videotape rather than the original film elements.
Vital statistics: The Criterion Collection, 4 sides, CAV, Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1), Chapter stops, Monural, $99.95.
S. Damien Segal.
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