Halloween starts off in Haddonfield, Ill, 1963. Michael Myers, who is six currently, spots his sister Judith Myers in her bedroom upstairs undressed as a boy leaves the house. Michael grabs a knife on the kitchen table and walks upstairs stabbing his sister several times without a second thought. Fifteen years later Michael escapes from a mental hospital in Smith’s Grove Illinois and steals a car heading back to his hometown to resume what he had started by killing his sister.

Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis, otherwise known in the horror film industry as the “Scream Queen” for her Hollywood scream debuted as the protagonist. Laurie is your classic do-good protagonist who does her homework and for the most part, void of a few cigarettes, follows the rules. As classic horror movies go the one who babysits and studies gets to survive the murder, and in this case Michael. Michael can be seen stalking Laurie and her friends Linda and Annie and appearing and disappearing quite mysteriously.

Most of the movie is suspenseful build up which didn’t quite get the effect it was aiming for. The suspenseful build up made the majority of the first three quarters drag on and actually made the viewer just want to see Michael strike already. This does however have significance to the night he waited till which happened to be Halloween, hence the title, which is also the night in which Michael murdered his older sister. Halloween night is where most of the killings take place and in order not to spoil it let’s just say characters were dropping like flies.

The way the character died however was via strangulation and then being stabbed. A let down and a screw up of the directors is never showing the actual knife or the stab wound just the actors face as they over emphasized their death.

Horror films need the blood and not just squeals coming from the actors as they are strangled because the blood itself sends more fear into the viewers. The director John Carpenter gave a shameless self promo as he showed Laurie Strode and kids she was babysitting watching “The Thing” on Halloween night, which just so happens to be another film Carpenter has directed. This Easter egg does incite nostalgia into some of the horror film fanatics and was a good addition.

Out of a ten I would give this film a 5. It was decent to watch but missing the thrilling aspect that some other horror movies possess. Even with a five rating, the way it cut off at the end with a cliffhanger still leaves the need to watch the rest of the series, I myself would do so only for the need to know what happened to Michael and how a mediocre movie as Halloween managed to become part of a strain of thirteen.