If the above paragraph reads to you as clichéd, it’s because it is clichéd. However, a much deserved set of truths reinforce the affection and reverence afforded to Halloween, so the almost fetishist idolisation bestowed upon it by horror nerds everywhere is well deserved. It’s impossible to deny the influence of the film within the horror genre and also with how horror villains have been perceived and created over the years. For better or worse (predominantly the latter), the film reshaped the horror industry. Halloween was the film that accidentally spawned the ‘slasher’ subgenre (inevitably, horror historians will call your attention to Halloweens various predecessors, but let’s be honest – Black Christmas didn’t have anywhere near the financial success or emotional impact upon its audiences during its release), which dominated the small, local video stores of the 80s.
It wasn’t so much these films themselves that burned their way into my psyche, but instead, the possibilities of them. I didn’t need to actually see them; I needed to hear about them through playground whispers from the same children that had heard their parents ‘screaming’ in the bedroom. I needed to read about them in the second-hand copies of Fangoria, which sat on the top shelf alongside the pornography in book exchanges and shitty comic shops. Above all, I needed to imagine them. Beginning with their evocative titles and cover images that suggested so much more, merging with my own fears and culminating in the shadows that haunted the back garden. The night-time noises of the council estate and the ‘strangers’ that dwelled in child safety commercials, outside school gates and in the woods nearby.
In short, slasher films – or at least my imaginings of them, sure enough became my own private fairytales. Associated, as their crude and effective posters were, with warnings and all things dark, sordid and forbidden, I was drawn to them just as Little Red Riding Hood was drawn unwittingly to the Big Bad Wolf. Everyone needs a bogeyman of their very own…
Enter Halloween.
I attended a church school at the time, but October 31st was still celebrated. Only a few years after I moved on, this would not be the case, as the local Reverend decreed the night blasphemy due to its ‘pagan origins’. The previous member of clergy had left both his wife and the church to flee the town with his mistress, so something had to take the fall of redemption. Fortunately, such bullshit had not yet occurred, and I took great pride in wearing my papier-mâché mask, apple-bobbing, singing ‘Halloween’s Coming!’ and throwing plastic bats at girls in an attempt to remind them that I existed. ‘Trick Or Treaters’ were not common however – the nearest we would get would be teenagers scavenging for cigarettes and heroin money.
“You’re not watching that”, came the parental voice – the voice which alas could not be argued with. Fortunately, luck, and my Nanna’s perpetual naiveté (we never used the word ‘Grandma’) were on my side. As my parents went out, I switched the television over, and it began.
Now, hyperbole is a dangerous thing, and I know that I’m probably swimming in those waters here. So be it. Unlike, for example, Friday The 13th: Part 2, which could never love up to the schoolyard hype (and a particularly visceral and excitable retelling from tubby school thug, Craig Noone), Halloween delivered. It delivered and then went far beyond what any experience of cinema should do.
“That’s the killer,” I informed my Nana proudly as the film began with its famous extended P.O.V. shot. And correct I was. From that moment on, I was mesmerised and terrified in equal measure. The actual fear began as soon as The Shape leapt upon the roof of Sam Loomis’ station wagon, accompanied by the electronic sting of Carpenter’s incredible score; and despite being scared to the point of turning white, I could not look away.
At the root of the film’s brilliance was its simplicity. The story didn’t so much hint at those fairytales that had lodged themselves in my young, impressionable mind, but instead actually was one of them – living and breathing the same nightmarish air. It followed the same archetypal structure as the children’s fairytale – no sudden plot twists or surprises, but instead a terrifying playing-out of the inevitable. As such, it felt familiar and thus closer to home. Halloween didn’t try and outsmart your fears, it attached itself to them, cleanly and perfectly in a way that hasn’t really been done since.
From that point on, I was literally scared of the dark. I was scared of every corner of the room that could be a nesting place for some horrible shadow-creature, for some ethereal nightmare that would pounce upon me as soon as my eyes closed. I transformed from a child desperate to hear the stories in the playground to a child desperate to tell them. Halloween made me a geek of the highest order.
Thirty years on, and the film still has the same power that it originally had – none of the sequels, or the remake have come close to touching it. The simple, primal nature of the film is timeless, and one can only feel sadness looking at the wave of films that followed it. While I have a million glowing terms for Halloween, I only have one for most of the imitators – and that word is “dogshit”.
So, this year, let’s forget about the film’s legacy. Let’s take a moment to go back to the source, to where it all started. Let’s take a journey back to a bygone age, and a bygone style of storytelling; one that wouldn’t really show us anything, but would keep its horror shrouded in darkness and mystery. These stories are immortal, just like Halloween‘s villain, so let us hope then, that soon enough somebody tells us another story just like it. Just as we need heroes, we need monsters, and we haven’t seen so many of late. There’s a whole new generation waiting to be terrified – a generation waiting for THEIR bogeyman to come home…
