The Shape. Our Shadow. Otherwise known as Michael Myers. Our Shadow never dies, and The Shape returns semi-regularly to remind us. He's partial to anniversaries, and indeed he was back for the 40th anniversary of his small-town massacre, with a new variant on the Halloween timeline ... and this anniversary, in turn, has developed into a trilogy. For all the head-scratching and guffaws its timeline produces, Halloween is probably the creme of the horror sub-genre known as the slasher. Not the highest commendation, sure, and yet here's a series that casts its dark spell .... and does so with an elusive economy.
HALLOWEEN (1978): I feel obliged to mention the masterfully orchestrated 'cat and mouse' tension. It is tremendous. And that Halloween Theme, composed by director John Carpenter himself, jangles the nerves like a fine-tuned instrument. But the original film I remember almost exclusively as a mood piece: all that (Pana)gliding through the familiar, safely manicured streets of Pasadena and West Hollywood (playing the fictional Haddonfield, Illinois)... only for our sights to then settle on a eerie figure in the distance (a device used in the more Gothic environs of 1961's The Innocents). So simple, economical, effective. And - applied to a suburban environment - so surreal. Only the synthesised 'stingers', and a mounting sense of unease, break up the mood. Another thing to register was the sense of overwhelm etched on the face of the escaped madman's psychiatrist, Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasence). You can see why the character captured an audience, and why his tendency for grand proclamations was not only tolerated but deemed eccentrically sincere. At the point we meet Loomis, scientific explanation has become immaterial, all that matters is his warnings are heard. And then there's that wonderfully natural dialogue and byplay between the three stalked girls, with the sensitive girl - Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode - strikingly attuned to danger (and Carpenter's directorial eye is lovingly attuned to her alertness). It's a classic example of horror suspense, but there are many other reasons it has left an imprint.
HALLOWEEN II (1981): what a kick when a sequel picks up seconds after the original ends. Interesting, then, in what has emerged a stupendously retconning series, that the first sequel itself immediately 'splits' from the thesis of the original, with Loomis' fatalistic expression of 'I knew he couldn't be stopped' replaced with a disbelieving 'My God, where is he?' Look, I don't think any of the sequels are scary like the original. But, my word, they are effective. Michael Myers' get-up, for one, is remarkably spare - man in boiler suit with William Shatner-mask painted white - and cut-price costuming to boot...and singly hypnotic. We should probably be slapping Halloween II on the wrist for its multitude of shots of Myers wandering corridors of Haddonfield hospital, except that the imagery casts its spell. Kubrick had his spaceships, Halloween II's director Rick Rosenthal has his wandering psycho! Atmosphere is certainly on Rosenthal's mind, and such proprieties make sense when the fun ride-surprise of the original could not surely be repeated. When The Shape finally renews his chase of Laurie - now revealed as his sister, in what feels an anxious attempt to supply the sequel with legitimacy (would Laurie's survival have been dismissed as too narratively slim a motivation for Michael's ongoing rampaging?) - you realise how Rosenthal's slow, methodical build has ultimately benefited the film: the chases are intense, and amplified, as it were, by a booming rendition of Carpenter's chase theme. (Rosenthal's instalments, we'll see, always have the boomiest of musical scores and offer the most ample - and dynamic - views of The Shape.) The film also departs from the original in significant ways: those with more sway in the film's final cut felt Rosenthal's vision needed some beefing up and decided that 'something' was to ride the gruesome wave of the slasher movement that Halloween itself inadvertently evoked. (Not that the original film's restraint in graphic detail afforded its victims quicker deaths). The crimson, fortunately, is often effectively deployed; but the scalding death, complete with its bare-breasted victim, is emblematic of why the slasher sub-genre is so commonly despised.
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982): suppose you delivered another Halloween-themed horror film, but the audience came out to see the masked stalker. Where's Michael? This third instalment instead positions androids at the corners of the Panavision frame. They're minor compensation, secondary figures within a conspiracy orchestrated by a murderous Willy Wonka. Fortunately, the mad toy maker in question - intent on returning Halloween to its blood-soaked origins via Eighties merchandise (masks) and technology (microchips) - is a superb creation, played by Dan O'Herlihy with a smiling theatricality that belies something very warped and reptilian, indeed. I came away wishing he had had been granted more screen time and the gruesome details - which regularly feel gratuitous - a bit less. The centrality of masks in this sequel forms an interesting link with its predecessors. A slight pity, then, that a fun bit of inter textually - Halloween III's protagonist wearily observing a TV spot for the original Halloween - denies Myers a reality in this universe, thus removing the faint possibility that Michael was one of Col. Cochrane's original child guinea pigs. Or perhaps that TV spot was for a film based on events that took place in the same universe as Halloween III? Ahh, the ruminations of fandom. Anyway, this third instalment is a fun diversion from The Shape, with enough stylistic themes and links to make it an acceptable cousin. But it's nice Michael returned...
HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS (1988): Myers return is heralded in this chilly, blue-hued little horror number. He's back in Haddonfield, out to get his niece, and the lines of homes he stalks this time have a more rustic feel: we feel we're in a wilting country town. The teenagers dialogue is less Debra Hill-infused 'slice of life', and more perfunctory and didactic sexual politics. That's how it struck me. But that's the problem when - as I did with the first two films - you get stuck on a particular style and approach for a Halloween film. Halloween 4 is a fan favourite: it's slickly produced and resists any excesses, but equally it seems a bit undistinguished. There is a scene where Loomis & co. are surrounded by a group of Michael Myers figures, and that moment, suggesting a small-town traumatised to the point of disconcerting pathologies, points to a richer set of ideas than the sequel ultimately explores. (A great many of the locals are certainly boorish and obnoxious, but it feels more script convenience than linked to previous traumas.) There is also a great moment where Loomis, accepting a lift from a man who’s even more an eccentric outcast than he, is a simultaneous picture of bemusement and sheepishness. Otherwise, it's business as usual, with Michael less playful, more Terminator-in-the-shadows. The film's oppressively chilly atmosphere is perhaps its most effective quality, ably supported by composer Alan Howarth's slow, pulsing and eerie synthesised breaths. Memorably, the film throws in a ‘touched by evil’ moment that the next sequel sensibly resisted developing - let's keep Michael the object of doom, folks - although said sequel added a sketchy idea or two of its own...