Movies: They're Pretty Good!
Movies: They're Pretty Good!
Halloween (1978)
Ready to journey through the dark, horrifying streets of Haddonfield, Illinois? Brace yourself for a detailed discussion of the 1978 horror classic, Halloween. We dissect the spine-chilling narrative, from the opening sequence featuring young Michael Myers to the unforgettable introduction of Dr. Loomis. Our path takes us through the terrifying events that unfold on Halloween Eve and Day, and into the mind of the masked murderer himself, Michael Myers. The terrifying POV of Myers during his ruthless killings will surely leave you on the edge of your seat.
As we continue our exploration, we witness the eerie aftermath of the film's opening sequence, delving into scenes of chilling murders and haunting encounters. From Loomis's visit to the Myers' house to the chilling murder scenes, we leave no stone unturned. In our final act, we shed light on the importance of Halloween safety while sneaking in some film recommendations for the horror aficionados out there. So, turn off the lights, grab your popcorn, and prepare yourself for a thrilling investigation of one of the greatest horror movies of all time, Halloween. And remember, don’t forget to check your closet before you go to bed tonight!
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Movies, colin. They're pretty good. I'm your host, travis Dutting, and today is Halloween, so naturally let's do the movie Halloween, talking about the original 1978 film by John Carpenter, the one that gave us Michael Myers and kind of rebirthed and started the modern slasher era, I guess. So let's get right into it All right. So opening credits we get a slow zoom on a jack-o-lantern with the iconic score, also by John Carpenter.
Speaker 1:Opening sequence we got young Michael Myers. Everything is through his POV. We see him, like, looking into the windows of his own house. I'm guessing he was out trick-or-treating and came home early, probably because his sister has a boy over. We see him coming downstairs shortly after Michael has pulled a knife from the kitchen drawer. We see him watch this guy come down the stairs putting a shirt on, saying like hey, I'll call you later and he leaves. Michael puts on a mask and we can see like the. All we're seeing is through the eye holes of the mask and we can hear him breathing in the mask. Then we see him go upstairs and go to his sister's room and his sister's there brushing her hair naked, sitting under underwear the normal thing you do with the door wide open at your house. Then she's like Michael and then he starts stabbing her with the knife. But the crazy thing is that he this is, like I said, shot through his POV and we get a shot of him looking up at the knife that he's using to stab his sister. We see him stabbing her, but then he has to turn and look up at the knife coming down at her. I guess he knew that he was in a movie so he needed to show the audience what was happening. But yeah, I don't know, that's just a wild, some wild logic there on that. Yeah, so yeah, kills his big sister, goes downstairs, goes outside right as his parents are coming home, and they pull up and they're like Michael, what's going on? And then pull his mask off and then we see. Then we can see young Michael Myers and he's like pretty young let's say like maximum 10 years old at this point, but I think younger and he's got this clown costume on. It was a clown mask that he was wearing. He's holding the knife still and you can still see the blood on it. And then they kind of like zoom out from that and then we cut to Smith's Grove, illinois, illinois, yeah, illinois, and it's October 30th, halloween Eve, 1978. It's dark, it's rainy.
Speaker 1:We see Dr Loomis, main character of the series, pretty much like the, besides Michael Myers, dr Loomis is the most recurring character throughout the Halloween series. He's driving well, he's in the passenger seat and the nurse is driving them. They're in the rain, they're going to I don't know if they're going to pick up Michael Myers or what the deal is, but whatever this purpose of this trip, he wants to make sure that Michael Myers isn't gonna get out of prison ever, or psychiatric hospital ever, that he wants to make sure that he never gets out Because that he hasn't spoken a word in 15 years. So we know that this is 15 years since he killed his sister. They start getting closer to where the hospital is and we see the patients have gotten out and they're just wandering around in the field and they're like oh, oh my, oh God, what's going on? Like here, get up close to the gate and everything. Loomis gets out, tries to call at the gate, but then someone climbs on the car. It's Michael. We don't really see his face at this point. Climbs on top of the car, tries to attack the nurse, like through the window, like, breaks his hand through the window, but she luckily escapes and then he gets down and gets in the car and drives away.
Speaker 1:Cut to the next day in Haddonfield, illinois, halloween day. Obviously. If yesterday was Halloween Eve, today is Halloween. We see Laurie, our main character, played by the main character of the movie. Like I said, michael Myers is the main character of the franchise. Then we got Dr Loomis, but Laurie is our lead for this film, played by Jamie Lee Curtis.
Speaker 1:We see her leaving for school. Then we see her dad he's a realtor tells her to drop off a key at the Myers house because he's going to be showing that house later. And we later hear that like nobody's lived there basically since the murder happened and whenever Michael's parents left. On her way to school she runs into Tommy, a little boy that she's going to be babysitting that night, and then they're walking to school together. They get to the Myers house and she's got to go put the key up there and Tommy's like why you got to do that. Like that place is haunted, that's scary, you know. He's like freaked out about it. And as she's going to drop the key off under the mat, we see from the inside that Michael Myers is in the house Watching her through the window but because it's all like Hmm, shaded, she can't see him, or anything like that. But as they're walking away, we see Michael move out to the hedges and then he's watching them Walk away from the hedges and we know it's him cuz a like you know who Michael Myers is, so you could like see that he has like the white mask on. Even though you Don't fully see the mask yet, you can hear the breathing. That's the same breathing we were getting when he was a kid murdering a sister.
Speaker 1:Now we cut to dr Loomis. He's at the hospital or Facility, wherever he was supposed to pick up Michael from, and he escaped. And he's arguing with the, the owner of the facility, and he's saying like do you have any idea? Like who you let go. And and he's like well, maybe you should have warned us. And Loomis is like I've been warning you, just nobody listens to me, and so obviously he's pretty frustrated and everything Cut back to Laurie in school.
Speaker 1:She's looking out the window and Sees Michael Myers and then does a double take, but then he's gone that time. I think this is the first time we see the like fully see the mask and the. I'm sure Everyone's heard this story but just in case you haven't, the iconic Michael Myers mask is just a William Shatner mask that they painted white. So it's the 70s. It was probably like a Captain Kirk mask. Get it from the store, paint it white and that's that's who Michael Myers is.
Speaker 1:Cut to the Elementary school, getting out for the day, we see Tommy leaving. He's got this pumpkin that I'm sure he's ready to carve a jack-o-lantern into. I don't know why he has it at school with them, but he's trying to carry this giant pumpkin and these three kids are like pretty much bullying him and saying that the boogeyman's gonna get Um and stuff like that. They push him down and His pumpkin breaks and everything. And then, as they're running away, one of the kids gets grabbed by Michael Myers and just kind of like Michael just like looks at him and then lets him go and then, just then, he just kind of Half like follows, slash, watches Tommy as he cuts across the field to go home. Michael goes and gets in the stolen for official use only car that that Loomis and the nurse were in and Starts following Tommy for a little bit, but then that drives off, you know. So guess he changed his mind that he doesn't need to follow him.
Speaker 1:Uh, we See Loomis like out in the middle of nowhere. He's stopped at this Payphone to make a call saying that he's on his way to Haddonfield and we see the sign that says Haddonfield, 73 miles away, or something like that. So he makes this call on the payphone and and after he hangs up we see that there is a truck there with the door open and there's a like White clothes on it and stuff like that. He goes for a closer look and we see that the it's hospital clothes that are strewn about and there's a dead Naked guy. Well, at least doesn't have a shirt on. So this is whoever Michael Killed, swapped clothes and then took off. That's why he's in this like work jumpsuit, coveralls rather than Hospital patient gown.
Speaker 1:Now we see Lori getting out of school. She's walking with her friend Linda. I think she's starting out with Linda, but either way, we see Linda and Annie in this scene. We get to meet them. They're both hella annoying. That's just like, I'm sure, just how the characters were written Basically. There's like very few likeable characters in this movie, but that's also the case with most 70s, 80s, 90s slasher movies from what I've seen Find out that Annie's boyfriend is grounded cause she was gonna have him over when she was babysitting.
Speaker 1:But he's grounded. Lori realizes she forgot one of her textbooks at school. And then Linda rambles on for like five minutes about how books don't matter and she always forgets her books and who needs books anyway? And on and on, and on and on. But then we also find out that basically Linda is gonna use the house where Annie is babysitting to hook up with her boyfriend Bob, and which is an insane concept. It's like maybe one thing, if she was babysitting, to use the house that she was babysitting at, but it's crazy on all ends. I'm not gonna go too far into it. The action boys podcast does a way better bit about that whole scenario that I could never live up to.
Speaker 1:While the girls are walking home, we see Michael watching them from the hedges. Again, I think at some point Lori does notice him. Then Annie goes to check it out and then he's gone and then uses it as an opportunity to make fun of Lori and say that she scares men away and stuff like that. Whatever the opposite of slut shaming is. That's what both of these girls do to Lori. So they get to Annie's house. Annie goes inside and, as Lori's going to leave, she runs into Annie's dad, who happens to be a cop, and that's pertinent just because he's gonna be throughout the movie. Then she finally gets home, gets up to her room looking out the window and then there's Michael again watching her, but he's like standing in the laundry that's hanging out to dry Double take, he's gone again. This is one of 50 times that this is gonna happen throughout the movie. So she's all freaked out about that.
Speaker 1:Gets a phone call from I think I don't know it's either Annie or Linda, but first it's just like silent for a while and then Lori hangs up and then calls back and then, or they call back, she answers and sorry, I was eating. Like well, why are you like making a phone call when your mouth's full? But in the next scene she gets picked up by Annie. Oh yeah, so that's who called it? Was Annie calling to say like, oh hey, I have my mom's car tonight so I'll pick you up? And because the houses that they're both babysitting at are across the street from each other, we then cut to Dr Loomis. He's at the Haddonfield Cemetery. He's there with the groundskeeper or owner or whatever, and they're looking for Judith Meyers Headstone. That's the sister that Michael killed. And basically once they get to it, the headstone is completely missing. So and then Loomis doesn't surprise at all, he's just like oh you know, michael did this, obviously.
Speaker 1:Then we see Annie and Lori driving around. They're smoking a joint in the car but then they have to put it away real quick because Annie's dad is. They see his cop car and they gotta pull over to say hi to him real quick. So they put it out and make sure that it doesn't smell, probably do a terrible job, because there's no way that they got the smell out. Pull up, talk to Annie's dad. He's there at the hardware store which got robbed and he thinks it's just a bunch of kids because all they took was Halloween masks, rope and a knife or something like that. But we know that it's Michael Meyers, obviously. So then they leave. We see that Michael is following them in the stolen government car All the way until Lori gets dropped off and then Annie pulls in across the street to go to her Baby sitting job. She's babysitting a girl named Lindsay, about the same age as Tommy, that Lori's babysitting. We see Michael standing by a tree watching Annie go into the house.
Speaker 1:Cut to Loomis. He's at Michael Myers house with the sheriff, annie's dad, and they're just like looking around in there. Loomis is, you know, just constantly talking about how evil Michael is and all he's like cryptic One-liners about it and everything like that. Cut to Annie being super annoying and complaining about the dog barking, but lucky for her, michael kills the dog right as she's complaining. She spills butter on herself and has to go Wash her clothes now. So she then she locks herself in the laundry room and gets stuck in the window trying to get out.
Speaker 1:Then finally, when Lindsay lets her out, or in everything, annie's like oh hey, like I want to go. I'm gonna go pick up my friend Paul, so you're gonna go over to Tommy's house and hang out with him. So basically she's just like completely Ditching her babysitting, paid babysitting responsibilities to go fuck some guy named Paul. So she goes and drops them off, goes to get in the car, realizes she just forgot the keys, goes back in the house, gets the keys back out to the car, gets in the car, realize like she has a moment where she realizes that the windows are all fogged up from the inside and she's like huh. And then, right at that moment, michael leans out from the back seat and strangles her to death and we cut so across the street. Tommy is going to hide in the curtains by the window to scare Lindsay, but as he's about to do this he turns around and looks across the street and sees Michael Myers carrying Annie's body back into the house. He of course freaks out, thinks like oh, the boogeyman's out there. No one believes him because he's a kid.
Speaker 1:And then we cut over to back to the Myers house where Loomis is kind of Just scoping it out and keeping an eye on things. We see the three bullies from before, the ones that were messing with Tommy, and they're at the Myers house and they're like hey, like a dairy, to go Knock on the door or something like that. And then they make the one of the kids, lonnie that's the one that they make, do it. Loomis is watching from behind the bushes. And Then he like whispers, like hey, lonnie, get Joe ass away from there. And then they all freak out and run away. It's like it's the most out-of-pocket thing for Loomis to, because up until this point you don't see him as having any personality whatsoever, but so that part always makes me smile.
Speaker 1:Then we see Linda and Bob finally arriving at Annie's house that they're not Annie's house but Lindsay's house, where they're gonna use the, I guess, her parents room to have sex, which is totally weird. But you know, whatever I guess you have to do what you got to do in your teenage or in the 70s. But the weird part about well, one of the probably the weirdest part about it is Bob making some joke like he's like Like you rip my clothes off and then I rip your clothes off. Then we both rip Lindsay's clothes off and Lindsay's like under 10 years old. So that's like super creepy and I don't know if that's like on purpose to say, hey, maybe this Bob guy deserves to die in 15 minutes or I don't know what. But it's just that that line always rubs me the wrong way and then I know I'm not alone on that. But yeah, they.
Speaker 1:They go in the house, they realize that no one's there, I start making out on the couch, but then they call the house where Lori's babysitting and Lori's like, yeah, like Annie should be there. Like Lindsay's here with me for the night. Annie just went to go pick up Paul, so she should be back. And Then, like Linda gets off the phone and tells Bob like, oh, like Lindsay's gone for the night, like we have the house to ourselves, and then they go upstairs, have sex in the bed, in the sheets, which is that. That's like the craziest part about all of this. It's like you're in someone, you're like a what fourth Degree separation from whose house this is, and you're gonna get in their sheets to have sex like not even just like, I Don't know. It's just insane to me. But yeah, that's what they're doing, and they even got a jack-o'-lantern on the side table that's watching them the whole time. So that makes it fun, I guess.
Speaker 1:But the key thing during this scene is that we see Michael Myers shadow go across them when they're in the throes of passion while they're cooking this jack-o'-lantern that's on the table watching. And when they're done and Linda sighs for like five minutes, bob goes to get beer downstairs, obviously gets killed by Michael Myers, and but the crazy thing is he basically picks him up by the throat, holds his feet like about a foot off the floor and sticks a knife into him. So he's just hanging on the door. So pretty crazy. Cut back to Linda upstairs and she thinks that it's Bob coming back, and but dressed as a ghost, with glasses over. So Super, I love that shot like I have a t-shirt with it too. And Then she'd like, you know, she thinks it's Bob. So she's all flirting with them and trying to like seduce him, like see, like sir, like what you see, that type of thing. But it's Michael Myers, so he's not saying anything, just standing there and she just finally starts getting frustrated and gets out of bed and goes to call Laurie to find out where Annie is. And it's Right. When Laurie picks up the phone, before Linda can say anything, Michael's choking her with the phone cord. Laurie hangs up and calls back because she thinks that either she got dialed on accident or they're just messing with her or whatever. But once she calls back, obviously there's no answer because Linda is now dead Cut to Loomis walking around the neighborhood or, you know, going around the block, he, he sees the car that Michael stole from him and and so he's like, oh my god.
Speaker 1:But he goes and like, make sure that that is the car. Gets back to the Myers house to tell the sheriff like hey, like he's here, like I found the car. Laurie decides to go across the street to make sure everything's okay. She makes sure the kids are asleep and then locks the door and heads across the street, uh, knocks on the front door. No answer, goes around the back, which is unlocked, Heads upstairs and she could see a light coming from the one of the bedrooms, goes inside and here we see Annie's dead body laid out like in a teapos on the bed with the Judith Myers headstone at the top of the bed.
Speaker 1:So it's like it's she's Judith Myers, like it's a complete, like completely posed thing that Michael did. So, of course, just freaking out about that, backs into the closet and here comes Bob's dead body swinging out upside down from the I guess the, the pole where you hang the clothes Then opens Covered or a cabinet and there's Linda's dead body. So all, all three people all dead, like within like 30 seconds she's finding all of them. So then of course, she's like, backs out of the room and she's freaking out, she's, she's crying, and then we see out of the shadows comes Michael Myers and he Slices her with the knife, gets her arm, cuts her shirt and kind of cuts her shoulder a little bit. She falls over the banister, straight down to the bottom of the stairs and rolls the rest of the way down. That's gotta or that's gotta hurt like I can't even imagine that happening and getting up. But hey, if Michael Myers up there, then you got that adrenaline. She Finally gets out of the house.
Speaker 1:She goes to the back door which Michael has Blocked with a rake and she locked the door, like to the kitchen, I guess. But Michael like punched through the door and opened it and then like right, you know, as he's like coming for her, she breaks the glass, moves the rake and gets the door open. So she gets out, she gets away from him. She goes to a neighbor's house and is like pounding on the door. She's like somebody, help, somebody, please help. They literally turn on the porch light, look out the window at her and then close the blinds and then turn the light back off. So no one's helping her. She goes back to Tommy's house, but she lost the keys, probably when she fell down a full story and hit the bottom of the stairs. I'm guessing that's when they fell out of her pocket. But so she's pounding on the door and she throws a flower pod up towards the window to get Tommy's attention, since he's asleep.
Speaker 1:Finally wakes up, looks down and Comes downstairs. He's taking his sweet ass time because he's asleep and or like half asleep. Finally gets the door open and she gets in, locks it real quick, tells Tommy to get upstairs and lock the doors. Goes to the phone, tries to call the police, but the lines been cut by Michael. Then she realizes that One of the windows to the living room is open and she could hear Michael breathing, but she just can't see him. Yet she grabs a knitting needle because she was like knitting while the kids were watching movies. And Right when he goes to stab her and misses, she stabs him in the neck with the knitting needle, goes upstairs, tells the kids that they need to leave because she thinks that, like she thinks Michael's dead. You know. It's like oh, I got him with the needle. He's down. Then Tommy's like, was it the boogeyman? And then like, what about the boogeyman? And she's like, don't worry, like I killed him. And then Tommy says you can't kill the boogeyman. And right as he says that, here comes Michael up the stairs behind Lori. Kids scream, they run into the room and lock the door.
Speaker 1:Lori goes into a different room and hides in the closet. Kind of ties the closet door shut with a tie or something. Michael like breaks through the, like the it's like one of those shutter closets Break out some of those panels and is trying to like reaching for she, grabs one of the wire hangers and gets it to where she can poke him in the eye when he goes to like grab his face. That's when he drops his knife. Lori grabs it and stabs them and, like Michael, falls back to the floor and once again Lori thinks that he's dead. So she gets out of the closet, drops the knife right next to Michael, goes and gets the kids, tells them hey, like go to this neighbor's house, like this specific neighbor's house, I think she does the McKenzie's Tell them to call the police and send the police here to this house.
Speaker 1:As she's saying this, we see in the background Michael just do a complete sit up and go from 180 to 90 degrees with his body. The kids are running out of the house screaming. Loomis, luckily, is nearby, sees this and goes, goes into the house. We see Michael grab Lori and start to choker in the struggle. Lori gets away but also pulls Michael's mask off and this is when we see him without his mask, like. We see adult Michael for the first time without a mask. As this is happening, loomis gets upstairs, shoots Michael Michael, you know, found it more important to put his mask back on then try to not get shot. So Loomis falls into the room, shoots him again and Michael falls backwards out the window of the second story and is like lying on the grass still. And Then Loomis goes to check on Lori make sure she's okay and she's, you know she's crying and she's saying like, like, so, like the boogeyman is real and that Loomis is like, you know, like I actually think you might be right goes back to the window, looks down, michael is gone. So this is when the that famous John Carpenter score kicks back in and we're getting like a short little montage of shots of all the locations set to the score and Michael's breathing in the mask and then that's it. That's it. That's the end of the movie.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that was Halloween, like I said, an iconic and very important milestone for the slasher genre. Definitely the highlight of the series, I would say, is the first one, which you know is usually the case with most things, but there's a few exceptions. I think a couple of the nightmare on Elm Street movies are a little better than the original. And Friday the 13th. I love the very first one, but you don't even get hockey mask, jason, until the third movie. You know, yeah, I do enjoy this.
Speaker 1:Genre definitely is full of its tropes, a lot of which were started with this movie, but I love it a lot. It's a consistently good one. Yeah, just a great one. And then just obviously like with this, these episodes coming out on Tuesdays and Halloween's on a Tuesday, so I figured hell, why not? Who knows when that's going to happen again. So, figure, this was the perfect movie to do for this week. So hope you guys enjoyed it. If you're listening to this in the morning and you're doing something for Halloween later, stay safe out there. Whether you're trick or treating, you're taking kids trick or treating, you're going to a party, whatever it is you're doing, just do it safely. Stay safe, keep listening, like, subscribe, follow the Instagram at movies. They're pretty good and see you next week. Thanks, bye.
