Halloween

It's finally that time of year again. Even though this holiday isn't celebrated by everyone, and it's meant for kids, I still enjoy the spirit of it. While I no longer bother trick or treating or even dressing up, I do still have one tradition. That tradition is to watch John Carpenter's Halloween. Not Rob Zombie's. John Carpetner's.

What can I say about this movie? This was easily the first slasher film that I ever watched as a child. Every year since I could remember, my family would gather around the old Zenith with either a rented VHS of this, or it would be airing as a special for tv. This movie manages to be creepy as hell every year for me without having incessant amounts of gore and violence. So following up my tradition, I waited until this evening to watch it, went out and bought some candy, and my 19th year of seeing this film began. And I couldn't have asked for a better time to begin watching it:

This was taken at about 5:30 this evening. Now it's 8:03, and the atmosphere is perfect outside. There's a brilliant half moon going. I would try and take a picture, but I don't know how well the camera on my iPod would pick it up. Use your imagination. Anyway, halfway through the page and I haven't even begun to talk about the movie itself.

Halloween was directed by John Carpenter in 1978, and you can tell. Like a lot of 70s films involving teenagers, there's always at least one scene where two of them are smoking a joint in someone's car, and then of course there's the trippy sex scene involved. The basis here is that a mentally deranged, borderline possessed killer known as Michael Myers has escaped his fifteen year imprisonment at a mental institution, and is loose in Haddonfield, Illinois. Sounds like a mindless plot, I know. But trust me, there's a lot more to it than that.

I really would prefer you guys to watch it yourself. If I try and explain it, it would sound dull and stereotypical of a 70s film. I don't know about you all, but I enjoy getting creeped out by old slasher films. The way I see it, if it left you creeped out, no matter how cheesy it was, it did it's job correctly. Unfortunately it's hard to get creeped out here because there's always people around in my dorm. While not a whole lot goes on (compared to a modern horror film), Carpenter's ever talented soundtrack sends chills down your spine, and you pretty much end up waiting in suspense for Myers to find his victims. If you haven't watched it, look into it. I know I've been enjoying it since I could hold a remote. A Happy Halloween to those of you who bother reading my B.S., and please actually try and do something fun other than wasting your time at a boring Halloween party or doing what I'm doing, which is sitting in a dark room, stuffing my face full of candy, and watching horror films from the late 70s and mid 80s.