I Don't Really Like Halloween

Well, Halloween is near and depending on who you are, you're going to celebrate in one or more ways. Usually, it's either to go outside and get free candy, go to a costume party, watch horror movies at home or any combination. Unfortunately, I'm doing the third option this year because the only things that I want to dress-up as have their costumes cost a lot of money, at least well-made costumes, because the usual retail costume for a Power Ranger or Kamen Rider sucks. Anyways, most people (or at least, I assume it's most people) celebrate Halloween this way, by watching the 1979 John Carpenter classic, Halloween. Sadly, I lived a disturbing childhood where I never experienced certain TV shows and movies until I was at a more recent age. One of these movies was Halloween... sort of. I did see the original Halloween when I was in middle school, but I never saw it all the way through. Instead, it was the sequels that had most of my viewing attention. And by sequels, I mean 3 through 5, and H20. Tragic isn't it?

The earliest time I can remember watching Halloween all the way through was when the Rob Zombie remake came out, and the general consensus was that it didn't hold a candle to the original movie (people liked the original more than the remake? what is this madness!?), and a lot of people I heard who had this opinion made Halloween sound like it was some masterpiece in film-making. So I watched it to see what all the fuss was at that time, and I'm sorry to say that I didn't really like it. Yeah, I know it was a major influence in the slasher movie genre and laid the foundation for horror movies to come, but to me, it just hasn't aged well.

Movie critics like to respond negatively towards slasher flicks, and for good reason. I mean, the characters are usually bland or annoying and the events that happen in these movies are pretty predictable and formulaic. However it bothers me that these same critics brag about how Halloween is so much better than these movies even though it's pretty much the same thing. What's so special about Halloween compared to other slasher flicks today?

Well one aspect that's said to be different is the character of Michael Myers whose back-story and descent into madness is made to be very ambiguous, making him an interesting character, but to me, the ambiguity isn't really handled well. I think ambiguity works best when the audience is given some insight on the mystery without spoiling things outright and make that same audience look through the story again, looking for any semblance of an answer even though in the end, there really isn't one. With Halloween, the only thing we know about Michael is that he killed his older sister and his psychologist describes him as simply being "evil", and for me, that's not enough for me to be interested in the character the same way I was interested in the events that happened in The Exorcist or Paranormal Activity. I mean, whenever Dr. Loomis describes Michael to his companion and goes on his "pure evil" rant, it just seems childishly-written and something that I can't take seriously. Plus from what I understand about what's revealed about Micheal's back story in the sequels, it doesn't really make sense for Michael to be killing Laurie Strode's friends when he could've just killed Laurie in the first place, because she and the rest of her family are apparently Michael's only targets.

Another bit that's said to be done better is how atmospheric and tension-building it is. This again, isn't really something that I can agree with. I suppose by tension, you mean the lead killer stalking the main character, chase scenes that has the killer walking at a snail's pace, slow pacing, and pretty much everything else that's present in slasher movies, than yeah it does build tension. I want to talk about the slow pacing for a moment, and say that this was the main reason why I didn't like Halloween. It just made the movie soo boring. I mean people complain how The Blair Witch Project was boring, saying that it really just about people rambling nonsense with camera shots of the woods, but that's what Halloween is most of time, just replace "woods" with "houses" and "rooms that are too dark to look at". I mean, pretty much nothing happens in the first three quarters of the movie and none of the characters (with the exception of Loomis) are interesting or likeable and it's all just set up for the inevitable, and even when Michael comes into action and starts killing people, it's still boring. And at moments when it's suppose to build tension, by having scenes shot in rooms with no source of light whatsoever, I'm not going to be surprised that Michael's gonna make a jump-scare and stab the lone person in the room.

Again, what is so special about Halloween compared to other slasher movies!? I know it was one of the firsts, but like I said, I'm looking at this movie in terms of how it holds up today, without looking through rose-tinted glasses, and I'm sorry but I don't think this movie has aged well. People may complain how the terrible the sequels were, especially the ones that came after Halloween III, but I'm probably going to be the first one to say that I actually prefer watching those movies over the original. Personally, I found them more entertaining and more attention-grabbing than the first movie. Now I don't really expect anybody to agree with me here, but this is just my opinion that I wanted to express, and if you think I'm a moron for having this opinion, well... I can't really blame you.