One Of The Scariest Scenes In Halloween Is Through The Eyes Of A Child
(Welcome to Scariest Scene Ever, a column dedicated to the most pulse-pounding moments in horror with your tour guides, horror experts Chris Evangelista and Matt Donato. In this edition, Chris gets into the spirit of spooky season with the original "Halloween.")
It's almost Halloween, so of course we here at Scariest Scene Ever have to go back to the OG, the one that started it all, John Carpenter's immortal classic, "Halloween." This might sound like hyperbole, but I firmly believe "Halloween" is a perfect movie, from top to bottom. Carpenter and company were able to conjure up some sort of dark magic with that film, creating the ultimate experience in horror. While years of sequels and reboots have altered the shape of Michael Myers, the original incarnation of the character — a soulless, motiveless being who kills for seemingly no reason at all — remains terrifying. And even after all these years, Carpenter's original movie is unbeatable.
The setup
It's Halloween, and the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, is in for a rough night when escaped mental patient Michael Myers returns home and starts bumping off babysitters. That's it, really! And that's part of the film's power — it's brutal simplicity. Sequels would add to the mythology and complicate things, but the original, as penned by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, is simply the story of unimaginable evil let loose, killing at random. At the center of it all is our heroine, nerdy babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who ends up coming face to face with the Shape after all her friends are brutally murdered (spoiler alert).
The story so far
This Scariest Scene Ever will be highlighting the first scene of the film, which means there really isn't much of a story so far. All you need to know is that the film opens in 1963 on Halloween night. Judith Myers is at home with her boyfriend, and the teens are engaged in some premarital sex (gasp!). But someone is watching them ... someone lurking around in the shadows outside before creeping into the house. Judith's boyfriend eventually leaves, and the teenage girl is soon all alone in the house.
The scene
The opening of "Halloween" is a classic for a reason. Its POV shot immediately hooks us, drawing us in, putting us into the head of a stalking killer. And you have to remember that we don't know who the killer is. We have no information of who this person might be, or why they're doing what they're doing. We just know they're watching, lurking, creeping about. Carpenter and cinematographer Dean Cundey shot this opening with a Panaglide (not a Steadicam, as it is often erroneously reported), and the camera glides along, going from outside then inside the Myers house. "The whole idea of that opening scene was predicated on the Panaglide," Cundey said in the book "Taking Shape." "We wanted the audience to move through that long continuous shot in a way that they'd never seen before. I have a certain amount of pride in the fact that we utilized Panaglide as a storytelling device to create mood and apprehension and suspense."
As the POV shot continues, we see a hand grab a knife from a kitchen drawer. The tension mounts, all as Carpenter's musical score burrows into our brains. The stalker climbs the stairs and enters Judith Myers' bedroom. She recognizes him, and calls him "Michael." But at this moment, that is meaningless to us. And then, whoever "Michael" is proceeds to stab her, again and again. And we're forced to watch it all through this killer's eyes. But it's not the kill that's the scariest part of the scene. No, it's what comes after. The killer makes their way outside, and eventually, the POV shot breaks and we finally get to see who this assailant is: a child. It's six-year-old Michael Myers, who has stabbed his sister to death for seemingly no real reason. The senselessness of the act, coupled with the innocent look on young Michael's face, makes the moment all the more horrifying.
The impact (Matt's take)
We usually talk about the first-person perspective of horror filmmaking tied to found footage movies after "The Blair Witch Project," but history recalls many earlier titles that toy with their killer's point of view as the camera's lens. Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" is a classic example, as is the opening to John Carpenter's prototype slasher "Halloween." There's something about the cruel intimacy of becoming Michael Myers, or in 2012's "Maniac" remake, Elijah Wood's Frank Zito. Filmmakers want us to feel complicit, like a psychotic ride-along — it's such an effective cinematic method of marrying fear and emotion. Carpenter depicts murder not as cheesy midnight entertainment value in this unique prelude, but as a brutal act that we witness first-hand and cannot prevent or escape.