I was NEVER into horror films until recently. I was petrified of literally anything and thought why would I want to subject myself to some sort of psychological torture by forcing myself to have nightmares! Maybe when you realize you're scared shitless in the day-to-day times we live in, turning to horror films actually becomes a sort of comfort genre; a realization that shit could be so much more fucked up. Okay enough projecting.

HALLOWEEN WAS AWESOME. I'm amazed this is John Carpenter and only 5 years later he does The Thing. You a film geek? You'll notice about 30 minutes in, the little girl Lindsey, whom Annie is babysitting is hooked on the 1951 movie The Thing From Another World, the movie from which Carpenter will adapt his 1982 movie! And the part we see Lindsey watching is the moment when the group of scientists realize they've stumbled upon an 'almost perfect spaceship'. This big realization in another movie and cut to the present movie with Annie doing laundry. Michael outside stalking her. It's like one in the same. Whether in the barren arctic landscape or your own backyard, something mysteriously presently lurks our characters.

For a movie with Jamie Lee Curtis as the star, she has very little what I'll call 'action' time, when she'll inevitably fight off Michael. And I think it makes those final 20 minutes or so even more harrowing. It had me jumping. Not just jumping. Actively yelling. Like YES STAB HIM LAURIE.
[Note to self: NEVER let go of your goddamn knife until you see the paramedics zip your attacker up in a body bag. Laurie!]

I was gonna say this is 4.5 stars. I thought...you know...I feel like this could have had a better second half. But I'm thinking of how masterful Carpenter was at making me jump. Literally every take that lasted more than 2 seconds had me on edge. Every time a person was to the left or the right of the frame, I was expecting Michael to jump out. And he doesn't. It's Carpenter Rick-Rolling us before Rick-Rolling was a thing. There was at least 23 different scenarios in which Michael could have killed Annie before he actually did it and all 23 of them I was WAITING for and it made every next potential scenario that much more thrilling.

And yeah that opening sequence is...euphoric.