Movie poster.

Truly one of the biggest achievements in the horror sub-genre of slasher movies, and it wasn’t alone during that period in the 80s. John Carpenter is one of my most favorite actors; he’s up there with Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick as some of the greatest directors of all time. Halloween is a favorite of mine to view during the respective holiday, and it’s a timeless movie with the almost Hitchcock type of atmosphere, it feels almost like I’m watching Hitchcock’s Psycho. Michael Myers has quickly become one of the faces of horror, and the character really deserves it, Halloween showed that slashers aren’t just mindless killing, but suspenseful horror movies. It would’ve been fun living in the late 70s, you had two revolutionary horror movies come out in that 78-79, Halloween and Alien.

Halloween’s story is a very interesting one, after murdering his sister; Michael is taken to a psychiatric hospital and never to be released. Fifteen years later, he does escape wearing his famous jumpsuit and acquires a mask of William Shatner’s face, and then the horror story begins there. Michael’s tactics are quite simple, stalk and kill any and all people who get in his way, and he stalks Laurie Strode. On the other side of the story, Dr. Loomis is searching for Michael and waiting to see when he’ll return. While this may seem like a terrible story, it’s really not, it plays out very well and the suspense helps it a lot.

Michael is so terrifying, we never truly see his face and he’s silent, and as Loomis said, “The blackest eyes, the devil’s eyes”. Just the underlying themes are pretty unsettling; the slow pace of the film builds this tension and makes it much scarier than it actually is. Just Loomis’s phrase makes me think that there are some religious themes going on here, what if Michael is like a demon? He seems almost immune to any form of attack and he disappears at the end of them film. I admit, I’m not the most religious person, never really have been, but I enjoy when people inject that religious type stuff into films. It makes it seem larger than life at times. If you would like to see more analyses, go to the link below.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_%281978_film%29#Themes_and_analysis

(Beware: Some themes and analyses are rather disturbing and may not be appropriate for all audiences)

A Venture To The Overlook Hotel

One of the many movie posters for advertising of the horror classic.

By far, the scariest movie of all time, and one of the greatest horror movies ever to be made, it was made by the one and only, Stanley Kubrick. It is quite literally, one of the crowning achievements of the horror genre. The story is great, just the thought of a father taking his family on a getaway to write his book is good, but when you learn about the isolated Overlook hotel, it gets a little creepy. It only gets better from there, most of the occupants of the hotel leave so Mr. Torrance can write his book, and from there on, the feelings of isolation and madness start to overtake the family. This is a great plot for a horror movie as it shows how insane you can become from isolation and mind tricks.

The family even starts seeing things, like little Danny seeing the two twins in the hallway and then seeing their dead bodies on the floor, but they disappear afterwards. Danny’s psychic abilities to see things and talk telepathically, it’s horrifying. To top it all off, you can’t really tell if they’re seeing ghosts or if they’re ascending into insanity. Wendy seeing the elevator with blood coming out of it, Jack talking with Floyd at the bar, Danny seeing the twins repeatedly, and Halloran’s visions, it all makes the atmosphere even more scary. It’s one of the few horror movies that actually do scare me a little, and that’s saying a lot, I’ve seen so many horror movies that they really don’t scare me, but The Shining legitimately does give me a feeling of tension and uneasiness.

Kubrick was famous for hiding various sub-themes throughout his movies, and he would just pack so many hidden things into one movie. Almost every single movie he’s created has some form of hidden imagery that is subconsciously affecting you, and no, I’m not talking about conspiracy theories or far-fetched stuff like that, I mean psychological things. Plenty of directors have said they have hid things in their films like sub-themes, hidden imagery, visual allusions, and deep psychology. The Shining is full of all of that stuff. If you’d like to read more about it, go to the link below.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(film)#Ambiguities_in_the_film

(Beware: the link does contain things that are very deep and may not be appropriate for all audiences)

Now, to address the thousand pound gorilla in the room, Stephen King has said plenty of times that he doesn’t like the movie. I love Stephen King’s books, but this adaption is way better than the book due to the horror and the story is much better. King’s book wasn’t that great, and if anything, Kubrick improved on the source material greatly.

Grade: A++

Thoughts on today’s movies

Things have changed so much, not just the culture and society, but movies have really taken a turn for the worst these days. From my viewings of older movies, I’ve really taken a good look at today’s cinema, and technology may have advanced but the writing and substance declined so much. I’m so tired of movies that are full of pop culture references that are just there to attract that younger audience, I’m tired of movies that feel like they’re written by teenagers. I know that could be seen as me just being a hypocrite, it doesn’t change the fact that most movies today are done poorly.

In the 60s, there were tons of classic movies like Planet of the Apes, Psycho, The Birds, and To Kill A Mockingbird. In the 70s, we had movies such as The Godfather, Deliverance, Alien, Jaws, Star Wars, and plenty of other classics. The 80s was churning out great movies like The Shining, Predator, Terminator, Aliens, A Nightmare on Elm Street. The 90s had Jurassic Park, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, Scream, and other classics. Though, in the 2000s, the great fruits of past writers stated to spoil, and then we got writers in their places to attempt to entertain. It may be a generalization, but at this point, I think it’s true.

What happened? Why can’t a good movie be released? Well, they’re bringing back Mad Max soon, and I hope they come out with a good sequel. Mad Max is a great series, you could argue the sequels aren’t as good as the first, but they’re extremely well done and great. I hope that this trend of bad writing and awful attempts to appeal to this generation dies off. They didn’t do it back then and flaunt around about making good movies. Instead of bragging about one good movie, start making multiple good ones. There’s a good start, and don’t forget, put some heart into it.