Halloween (movie)

The first film, Halloween, was written and directed by John Carpenter and was released in 1978, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance. In the movie, six years old Michael Myers brutally kills his older sister in 1963 and is locked in a mental institution. Fifteen years later, he escapes and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois to continue his rampage.

Shot on a budget of $300,000 it was the highest grossing independent film[?] ever, until Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in 1988, and then later The Blair Witch Project in 1999 Its success led to a 1981 sequel, Halloween II[?], also written by Carpenter and directed by Rick Rosenthal[?].

Halloween is generally considered the first of a long line of modern-day "slasher" movies, though some film scholars (and cult movie fans) say the credit for this goes to either Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho or Tobe Hooper's[?] The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Nonetheless, this movie originated a great many of the cliches seen in an uncounted number of low-budget "splatter" films of the 1980s and 1990s. (First-time viewers of Halloween may be surprised by the fact that compared to its many imitators and competitors, the original film actually has very few explicitly violent scenes.)

Deeper meaning has been read into this movie by some film critics, including the idea that everyone who dies in the film is sexually promiscuous, while the "innocent" (chaste) heroine survives. Carpenter has been quoted as saying that inclusion of this sort of morality into the story was entirely unintentional, and he did not mean for the movie to be seen as a form of "punishment" for sinners who indulge in sex and drug use.

A third film in the series, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was released in 1982. Whereas the first sequel had used similar plot themes and characters to the original, Halloween III was an entirely unrelated film. Despite some acceptance by horror film fanatics, some Halloween fans were disappointed by this perceived dilution of the brand.

Those left wanting more were rewarded, as a further five films based on the original's themes were made, the most recent being Halloween: Resurrection[?] (2002).

External link

• The official website of Michael Myers (http://www.halloweenmovies.com/)