Halloween (1978)
Average Rating: 8.5/10
Reviews Counted: 49
Fresh: 46 | Rotten: 3
Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, Halloween set the standard for modern horror films.
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 4 | 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
My Rating
Movie Info
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
Watch It Now
Cast
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Donald Pleasence
Doctor Loomis -
Jamie Lee Curtis
Laurie -
Nancy Loomis
Annie -
P.J. Soles
Lynda -
Charles Cyphers
Brackett -
Kyle Richards
Lindsay -
Brian Andrews
Tommy -
-
Nancy Stephens
Marion -
Sandy Johnson
Judith Myers -
David Kyle
Boyfriend -
Arthur Malet
Graveyard Keeper -
Tony Moran
Michael Myers age 21 -
Robert Phalen
Dr. Wynn -
Mickey Yablans
Richie -
Adam Holender
Keith -
-
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All Critics (49) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (49) | Rotten (6) | DVD (43)
After a promising opening, Halloween becomes just another maniac-on-the-loose suspenser.
Top CriticJohn Carpenter's 1978 tour de force, perhaps the most widely imitated film of the 70s.
Perhaps not quite so resonant as Psycho to which it pays due homage, but it breathes the same air.
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.
Still relevant. Still scary. Make a date on Halloween night to witness cinema's scariest Michael Myers (unless you've seen The Love Guru) causing carnage on the big screen.
[A] simple but horribly effective low-budget suburban horror ...
Well worth another look on the big screen.
Made on a tiny budget of $300,000, and shot in only 20 days, Halloween is one of the most influential, imitated, and commercial indies in American film history.
... 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.
Audience Reviews for Halloween
Super Reviewer
Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho provided a lot of inspiration for Halloween and yet John Carpenter's film has been deemed even more inspiring to the slasher sub genre of horror film making and that's all a bit confusing. But it's definetely not a bad horror movie, it has some very good jumps, an absolutely spine tingling soundtrack and amazing direction from horror expert John Carpenter. However, despite a fine execution the film is very predictable and unambitious. The story has been done before, the acting is pretty terrible and the villian goes under developed because of an unfortuate half told back story. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A Nightmare on Elm Street at least had some sense of personality. I dont want to give the impression I didn't enjoy watching it, I greatly admire elements of it such as the superb shooting and brilliant build up's. It works but it's not amazing.
Super Reviewer
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- Graveyard Keeper: Damn kids. They do this all the time.
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- Brackett: Doctor, do you know what Haddonfield is? Families, children, all lined up in rows up and down these streets. You're telling me they're lined up for a slaughterhouse?
- Doctor Loomis: They could be.
- Brackett: Alright, I'll stay with you through the night, just on the chance that you're right. And if you are right... damn you for letting him go.
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- Doctor Loomis: He came home!
- Doctor Loomis: This isn't a man!
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- Brackett: You know it's Halloween. I guess everyone's entitled to one good scare, huh?
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- Doctor Loomis: I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the *devil's* eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... *evil*.
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- Annie: I have a place for that!
- Boyfriend: I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor.
- Lynda: Totally!
Discussion Forum
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Foreign Titles
- Halloween (1978) (UK)
- Halloween (1978) (CA)
