I watched Halloween (1978). 🎥
I was probably supposed to watch this before A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, but I didn’t.
It explains a lot about those other films - I see where a lot of the tropes perhaps originated, and in particular, though I still don’t agree with it, I begin to see why they made Jason the way he was in the subsequent Ft13 films…but I should talk about my critique of Jason as not being a scrawny swampy manchild elsewhere.
After watching those films and so many of their sequels, Halloween feels taught and well-crafted in comparison. It’s not shaky or sloppy or corny. The music is perfectly attuned, the pacing is pretty good, the dialogue and acting are fine, the villain sticks to his established MO without a lot of confused lore that will only be broken or ignored later…but with all that assured competence, it’s just not quite as fun as those campier movies?
I’m definitely going to try more John Carpenter films, and I’m going to try at least one Halloween sequel, but at this point I kind of doubt that I’m going to compulsively watch Halloween sequels like I did the Elm Street (x6) and Friday the 13th (x4) films.
✅ Hooptober13 Criteria
- Film #23
- Country #1 - USA (x15)
- Decade #3 - 1980s (x12)
- baaaad kid film
Also counts towards one (possibly two) of my 3-film mini-challenges:
- 3 classic slasher flicks from three different franchises (and if I can stand it, 3 or 4 movies within each of those franchises) - #3-1
- 3 Halloween franchise films - #1
- 3 John Carpenter (Director) films - #1
Source: HALLOWEEN 1978 ORANGE MEDIA VHS RIP.mp4 | Internet Archive
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