Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)
I've always despised this film for amping up the trend of slaughtering sexually operational teenagers (and let's be specific here - Gen X teenagers in the most immediate wake of forever-aging Boomers). This time, I liked it both more and less. The puritanism came off more muted because the violence is far less gory than I remembered. In fact, the slower editing rhythms feel positively ancient today. There's even a noteworthy pause after Michael kills Bob. I'm not sure what it means. It definitely doesn't feel like it's a moment of remorse or even reflection for Michael, more like blasé curiosity. But the resulting languor juts out in a genre where the dispatched are quickly forgotten.
I also admired the lazy tracking shots which had the effect of delineating the ambient boredom of the suburbs, the precondition for teens smoking pot, drinking beer, and having sex. At this remove, it feels more like an art film and I wonder if my students today would even bother finishing it.
But wow is the story ever a botch! Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is barely fleshed out so we have little idea as to why he's so willing to stop Michael that he'll wait for him in Michael's abandoned childhood home (and strongarm the local police into letting him do so). (Yes, I know he's fleshed out in the footage Carpenter shot for the TV version. That info and $2 won't get you an Irish cream cold brew at Starbucks.) Who exactly is Loomis? Carpenter gives us the barest portrait of an adversary and then moves on to his drifting dolly shots.
And as with Jason, what does Michael want? Why does he slaughter these particular teenagers? Furthermore, why does he try to kill Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis, fab)? As the final girl, she's not sexually operational. So then why must he torment her? The characters are just these empty vessels for Good and Evil. As we've learned from the structure of musicals and feature-length pornography, there has to be something at narrative stake for the spectacle (of song and dance, of hardcore sex, of gore) to signify. Halloween just feels like a template for dozens of crappy films to come. And, of course, there's a great deal of historical significance to that. But this review consecrates the fact that I need never watch it again.
Grade: B (upped a notch for that historical significance)
Labels: bad movies, horror, horror films, John Carpenter, slasher films
posted by Kevin John at 10:32 AM
1 Comments:
"But the resulting languor juts out in a genre where the dispatched are quickly forgotten."
Are there any slasher films that do this, that actually show any form of mourning no matter how brief for a victim?
I have no urge to watch another Rob Zombie film (two was too many) but I do remember reading that one of his Halloween remakes does precisely this: has a scene where a parent watches childhood footage of their slain teenage daughter and breaks down, and how startling it was to have that kind of scene in these films.
Also reminds me of Grandrieux's arty slasher SOMBRE, which did not live up to a friend's description as "Brakhage does a slasher film"; in fact was often terrible especially with the whole fairy-tale allegory bits (was this a 90s thing?). But!! There is an incredible scene right near the end where an old lady never seen before or again calmly tells her life story of regret and loss, one that is both tragic and yet utterly commonplace, as one long monologue, and it *blows the movie apart*. It's as if Grandriuex was criticizing not just his own film but the whole slasher genre, that the heartbreaks that people carry around with them daily are far more devastating than any hack-and-slash bogeyman.
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