Halloween

Halloween was out on the 25th Of October 1978, it was a surprise hit

as it was a low budget film. Halloween is an independent horror film

directed and produced by the young film director John Carpenter who

has also previously directed two cut cinema classics, Dark Star (Sc-fi)

and Precinct 13 (Crime genre). Halloween was made with around

$300,000 and grossed to $60,000,000 worldwide, becoming one of

the most profitable independent films. The film has similar effects

from other horror flick series such as Friday The 13th and Nightmare

on Elm Street. As Halloween did the whole ‘the killer won’t die time

after time’ plot it added more suspense in the film, as we are in 2011

now we’re used to seeing that a lot in horror movies but as Halloween

was the first to do it, it shows that this film is a full time classic. As to

the success of the film there was a sequel; Halloween II (1981),

Halloween III: Season of The Witch (1982), Halloween 4: The Return of

The Michael Myers (1988), Halloween 5 aka The Revenge of Michael

Myers (1989), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995),

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), Halloween: Resurrection

(2002). As they were all a big hit the director Rob Zombie remade the

series with Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009),

The film starts off with the opening title which already sets the mood

for the movie; this is because the screen is pitched black with a

Halloween pumpkin and the title of the movie with the director’s

name on top of it with smaller writing, the only colors used were black

and orange/yellow. The first scene shown goes straight to the murder

of Judith Myers (sister of the serial killer), its shot in first person for

the audience to see from the killer’s point of view.

Another famous scene was towards the end of the film also known as

the closet scene, this is when the main character Laurie is running

away from the boogie man and runs to her home to keep her children

safe, the scene is dark and the camera is shot from a low angle, this

shows that something big and scary is about to happen in the film. As

soon as Laurie and her children see the boogie man they run and

hide, then the music starts to build up which adds a lot of tension. As

Laurie hides in the closet, the camera moves to the boogie man which

in this scene he is walking slowly towards Laurie in confidence that he

is going to kill her. Whilst Laurie is in the closet the camera is shooting

from her angle and doesn’t show when the boogie man is going to

open the closet door, as he opens it slowly and then with aggression it

terrifies the viewers. As soon as he is about to get his hands on

Laurie, the light in the closet stays on for a while and starts flashing,

she picks up a weapon and slashes him. The lighting in this vaguely

shows that the power has flashed on to her side as the boogie man is

supposedly dead.