Average Rating: 8.4/10
Reviews Counted: 45
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 3
Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, Halloween set the standard for modern horror films.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 4
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 1
Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, Halloween set the standard for modern horror films.
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Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 270,590
It was "The Night HE Came Home," warned the posters for John Carpenter's career-making horror smash. In Haddonfield, IL, on Halloween night 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers inexplicably slaughters his teenage sister. His psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) can't penetrate Michael's psyche after years of institutionalization, but he knows that, when Myers escapes before Halloween in 1978, there is going to be hell to pay in Haddonfield. While Loomis heads to Haddonfield to alert police,
Oct 25, 1978 Wide
Oct 27, 1997
Compass International Pictures
All Critics (45) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (6) | DVD (43)
After a promising opening, Halloween becomes just another maniac-on-the-loose suspenser.
John Carpenter's 1978 tour de force, perhaps the most widely imitated film of the 70s.
Halloween is an absolutely merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that, yes, I would compare it to Psycho.
Halloween remains untouched -- a modern classic of the most horrific kind.
... if there's one John Carpenter film which is a must-see, it's Halloween.
First Michael Myers slasher fest isn't for kids.
A seminal slasher that gets better with age.
... except for its shamelessly (and irresistibly) zingy music score (by the director), Halloween achieves its considerable power almost entirely through visual means.
To call Halloween merely brilliant isn't giving it enough credit. As a horror film and as a historical milestone that single-handedly shaped and altered the future of an entire genre, it's downright transcendent.
Who could have predicted that the low-budget pic Halloween would have a profound influence on an industry, not to mention on the concept of Halloween itself?
Virtually perfect. It is the one horror film that I would beg each and every lover of movies to watch, if I could pick only one.
John Carpenter and Debra Hill's film is a genuine landmark in the horror-thriller genre.
The movie itself is repressed; Hitchcock would have admired the way Carpenter artfully avoids explicit bloodshed.
The only fathomable reason for Anchor Bay's new DVD edition of Halloween is to coincide with the theatrical release of Rob Zombie's remake.
The film hits us at a level deeper than most slasher films, and even as we are entertained by it, we are drawn in by its powerful suspense and implications.
A modern horror classic.
Regardless of how silly you think it all is, this will have you scared witless by the time the end credits roll; low budget horror hog heaven.
...the kind of fright flick in which the plodding monster has his victim in his grasp and then inexplicably stabs the couch five feet to the right of her.
Perhaps not quite so resonant as Psycho to which it pays due homage, but it breathes the same air.
If Donald Pleasance tells you something is important, you should listen to him.
One of the best horror films ever made. John Carpenter deserves a medal for his effective build-up of suspense, his knack for casting and his sensationally-scary Michael Myers!
As far as I'm concerned, this was not only the original "slasher" film, but it is, and always will be, the greatest. John Carpenter can never receive enough praise for bringing the "boogie-man" to life, in the form of Michael Myers. Halloween was also my introduction to horror movies. A testament to the film's
November 4, 2011Super Reviewer
A very suspenseful horror film perfect for the Halloween season. The psychotic killer always lurking and planning his strike will certainly give you a fright. This is a horror classic that will never be topped by any of it's many sequels.
November 1, 2011Super Reviewer
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