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When
UK film critic Mark Kermode interviewed John Carpenter, specifically about
the film on it's 21st anniversary, he bemoaned the fact that modern audiences
needed to be spoon fed- that the plot and all its details have to spelt out
loud and clear. This is something that he stubbornly refuses to do in HALLOWEEN.
One thing he says in the interview though that I disagree with is the fact
that he states that, "..none of the 
sequels
have hurt the original". I'd say that they have. HALLOWEEN gains
a lot of its strength from the fact that much of it remains unexplained. What's
scarier- knowing that somebody is intent on killing, but the victims are purely
random? Or knowing who exactly has been targeted and why? … I'd argue that
what makes HALLOWEEN so terrifying is the fact that there's no reason
why Michael Myers targets the specific group of teenagers in the film. He
stumbles across them and attaches himself like a Grim Reaper limpet- perhaps
the girls remind him of his sister a little, but, for a cruel twist of fate,
he chooses that particular group to target. Now, when the sequel came out
and it turns out that Michael had a mission- he had, in Jamie Lee Curtis,
another sister to kill, well, for one it doesn't make a great deal of sense;
and two it goes a long way to destroying that horrible uncertainty and nagging
feeling at the back of your mind that anyone could be the victim of an unpredictable
monster like Myers- even you! Carpenter admits culpability, "…well, you
know, that was the sequel. I didn't want to direct it. I got forced into writing
it. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, I had a six pack of beer and it was the
only idea I could think of." … Now, it's not really Carpenter's fault-
he never intended a sequel in the first place anyway. The ending of the original
was intended as a type of TWILIGHT ZONE conclusion- that, as Carpenter
states, "Michael Myers, he's 
everywhere,
he's in the dark- he lives in the dark." The only sequels that Myers was
originally slated to appear in were the ones that occur in the dark- in the
nightmares of the people who had just watched HALLOWEEN! Still, box-office
decreed that a sequel did follow (three years later- in 1981), and Carpenter
was left with a sizeable problem- how can you successfully repeat a film that
was essentially about so very little? In-so-much that one of the main strengths
of HALLOWEEN was the fact that it was so lean- there was no storytelling
flab. An audience would not accept the amount of loose ends that worked so
well in the original, in a sequel- if he could not take anything further away
then his only choice was to add. The truth is that producing a movie as brilliantly
simple as HALLOWEEN is not a trick that could be repeated. Adding the
further exposition with the family connection- and expanding the Myers mythos
to go some way to explaining, albeit obliquely, his supernatural nature with
references to Samhaim, was a way of forcefully extending the story. But, this
very move, whilst allowing a sequel, actually lessens the impact of the original-
I mean, who can watch the original without having at the back of your mind
the fact that Laurie Strode is supposed to be Michael's sister?
Despite all of this HALLOWEEN remains a movie to cherish. It's incredible that it can still seem so vibrant and engaging- it's ability to grab the viewer and scare them shitless is resolutely undiminished. None of the films that followed in its wake (many with final-girls with masculine sounding names like Laurie, and with boogey men (and women) of their own) are as good- but then again, how could they possibly top near perfect film making? Having said that, many of those films are highly enjoyable (be they cheesy or classy) and are, indeed, things to cherish themselves (well, at least if you're anyone like me!); but Carpenter's film remains a cut above.
BODYCOUNT
5 
female:3 / male:2
1) Female repeatedly stabbed with
butcher's knife
2) Male- corpse glimpsed in undergrowth
3) Female strangled and stabbed
4) Male impaled on butcher's knife
5) Female strangled with telephone
cord
