Halloween

Movie Title--  Halloween

Release Year--  1978

Running Time--  1 Hour and 31 Minutes

Director--  John Carpenter

Cast--  Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Brian Andrews, John Michael Graham, WIll Sandin, Sandy Johnson

15 years after her murdered his sisters, Michael Myers has escaped from the institution he has been imprisoned in only to return home and go on a killing spree.

October 31, 1963, in Haddonfield, Illonios a 6 year old boy named Michael Myers (Will Sandin) stabs his older sister Judith (Sandy Johnson) to death.  He is then committed to Warren County Smith's Grove Sanitarium.  Fifteen years later, October 30, 1978, a transport car is making it's way up to the sanitarium carrying Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence) to pick up Myers and take him to a court hearing where Dr. Loomis plans to tell the court that Myers needs to stay locked up in the sanitarium for the rest of his life.  When the car gets to the gate, Dr. Loomis and the other passenger notice that some of the patients are wandering around unsupervised on the lawn in the rain.  Dr. Loomis discovers that the now 21 year old Michael Myers (Tony Moran) has escaped and Myers has left in the car.

The next day Laurie, a high school student in Haddonfield notices that a strange man dressed in a blue jump suit and a William Shatner mask is stalking her.  Laurie tells her friends Annie (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda (P.J. Soles) that she thinks someone is following them but they just laugh at her and blow the thoughts off.  Laurie becomes more and more alarmed when she begins seeing the masked man everywhere.  

Elsewhere, Dr. Loomis has predicted that Myers will return to his hometown, so he goes to Haddonfield as a precaution and warns the Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) that if Myers has returned home that no one in town is safe.  

This film is considered a slasher film and compared to today's standards, there isn't too much gore in it but there is still it's fair share of blood and killing.  It is films like this one (as well as "Night of the Living Dead", 1968 and "The Exorcist", 1973) that helped to shape modern day horror films.  After this, the simple job of babysitting will never be the same.  What babysitter hasn't sat alone, in a dark and quite house after the child has gone to bed and not heard all kinds of strange sounds around them?  This film just helps to add to the uneasiness of doing this job in an unknown place.

Anyone that calls themselves a fan of horror films needs to see this or else they aren't truly a horror fan.  If it weren't for this film as well as some of the other horror films that came out around this time period, there is a very good chance that we wouldn't have as many excellent films in this genre as we do today.

You may want to lock your doors before you watch this one but Don't Forget the Popcorn!