Halloween (1978) changed the horror genre forever. We get introduced to a serial killer with a mask who never speaks but has unnatural super human strength and an innocent, intelligent teen girl who is stronger than she realizes. Michael Meyers, is a violent murderer who escaped a psychiatric facility because he murdered his older sister when he was a child seeks out for more death in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois.
Laurie Strode is just a regular teenage girl who babysits to earn extra money. She has two besties in Lynda (P.J. Soles) and Annie (Nancy Loomis) who are more outgoing and extroverted than she is. Laurie thinks a good time is studying for her next test or tucking in the kids she babysits to bed, Lynda and Annie on the other hand prefer to party a little harder.
On Halloween, Michael notices Laurie drop off a key to the long abandoned Meyers house that her father is trying to sell. After that brief encounter it seems as though Michael has taken a liking to Laurie and begins to stalk her. Things escalate quickly as the stalking turns violent and deadly for Laurie and her friends. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) who was Michael's psychiatrist seeks out Michael because he fears he is pure evil and will seek out only violence and death. Dr. Loomis is soon proven right as the Halloween day turns into Halloween night.
Things start out creepy from the beginning of the film and towards the end things are just terrifying. Halloween (1978) introduces a monster who isn't something from outer space or from the depths of the black lagoon but someone who is human. John Carpenter who directed and co-wrote this film alongside Debra Hill, tells us a story of a creature that is flesh and bone just like the rest of us. We don't know why he kills or if he is truly evil like Dr. Loomis states, but what we do know is that he is real and he kills without remorse.
Halloween (1978) changed the horror genre by introducing a monster who not like any other we have seen in films before. Was he human with supernatural strength or was a a sociopath that was inherently evil? The film also introduced the idea of a final girl, which is a girl or woman who is the last to live at the end of a movie. Laurie Strode not only becomes the first final girl in horror movie history but also a scream queen. She is the person who overcomes an impossible monster but is left to live with the aftermath of what she saw and experienced that Halloween night in 1978.
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