Halloween by The Make up Wizz Chick

Halloween – Restored DVD version

Directed by: John Carpenter

Written by: John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J.Soles and Nancy Loomis

Before I give my opinion of the movie, I want to explain the intentions behind watching it, for this might be the reason why I didn’t find it as fantastic as the credit it had been given. Halloween came highly recommended. I wanted to watch a movie that would make my legs tingle with fear as I cowardly hid behind a cushion (not a hard feat for me – a girl who watched Silence of the Lambs with every sharp kitchen utensil I could find placed next to me in order of practicality and brutality – I rather favoured the bread knife). I wanted gore, a visual display of crimson and bone – slightly disturbing, I admit, but I harbour an interest in makeup and recreating realistic scenes which enraptured an audience so much no one paused to think it was created with hours of intricate talent.

Halloween was advised by a few people, all repeating what seemed to become a tantra “an original horror movie”. This was accompanied with wide eyes and apparently needed no further explanation. Ignorantly I thought of The Shinning – a fantastically intriguing, gripping and twitching horror which had my knuckles stark white gripping the spatula.

I was ecstatic. It had been a mission to get the original Halloween – time was spent searching through the depths of crap that fill Blockbuster’s £3 sin buckets with the promise, “the system says we have one”. But they weren’t lying and I found the little bastard. A lot of effort went into finding a film and rooting it out and still I was confident at the end it would be justifiable. I had too much hope. I can only think that it was for this reason the film was so disappointing. Perhaps if I had watched it with no prior conviction, it would have rocked my pants off (it’s either that or my mind must function in anomaly land).

Halloween started off well. The introduction was fairly long but the classic horror music reminded me once again of The Shining and I started to tingle. So far I couldn’t fault it and then there was an unbelievably fake stabbing (most probably only there to capture the naked boob) and I couldn’t fault that. It was humorous and a quickly reminded me to appreciate the grip these movies can have with their audience despite the lack of new age special effects.

*SPOILER*

The climax of the introduction – he murdered when he was a child. It hadn’t been expected and that’s what made it fantastically mind blowing. Unfortunately, after that the film went a bit ‘still’. Myers (our child psychopath who escapes from his mental hospital to wreak havoc and despair upon his former home town) strangled his victims (classic horror movie victims – the girl and boyfriend hooking up in a mate’s house, the negligent babysitter). It just seemed so ‘tame’ for want of a better word. People’s reviews of the movie had me more terrified of Halloween than actually watching it.

To add insult to injury, the lack of bloody deaths wasn’t stimulating my visual desire for gore. Three quarters of the way through Halloween, however, I discovered profound respect for the film – I wasn’t scared, but I had respect. It was unique against all other horror movies because it made practical sense, no one did anything stupid and you never found yourself screaming at the television “no, don’t you go in there, you idiot!”. And then my last string of hope was strung up like Myer’s victims as she dropped the fucking knife! It was soul destroying – I wasn’t scared, there was nothing extraordinary to replicate with makeup and then suddenly, so close to the end, it severed my respect. How can someone survive four bullets but they could be maintained for fifteen years on medication? I so desperately wanted to enjoy this film and so I am welcoming your views. Is this film as great as hearsay had led me to believe? Or are there people out there, who like me, just didn’t bloody get it?

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