8 - "Halloween" (1978)

      Yes, there is a slasher film in my top 10. I realize that some people may not agree with this, but remember what I said from the beginning when I started this list. These are my "favorite" films and when you get this high on the list, you start getting to movies that I may look at closer than just a simple story. This movie has been a part of my life for the better part of 30 years and it has relevance other than what is on screen. What is on screen though is simply the scariest movie that I feel has ever been made. I saw Halloween for the first time at a very young age. My parents were not the kind that prevented me from watching a lot of things, they just stressed their teaching to me of what is real and what is make-believe. They almost made a mistake with this movie though as I had nightmares for weeks. But it toughened me up in the long run, and I remember wanting to watch a second time when it was on. After that, I wanted to see it again...and again...and again. I started to love this movie. It was one that my parents loved too, so they didn't mind watching it with me. When my sister became of an age to watch it, she loved it to. It was our family horror film!! To this day, I love horror movies. But I love "scary" movies most, one's that make you jump or wrap up in the blanket so you feel safe. I'm not a fan of gore movies which too many horror films have become. Halloween gets it right. There's very minimal blood, but there are plenty of scares.
     The movie is directed by the great John Carpenter and stars Jamie Lee Curtis, in her first major role, as Laurie Strode, a high school teenager who has plans to babysit a young boy on Halloween night. Laurie is the perfect "girl scout" who is smart, quiet and stays out of trouble. She has two friends, Annie and Lynda, who are just the opposite and seem to only think about sex. Annie also has plans to babysit on Halloween night, just across the road from where Laurie will be. What the girls don't know though, is that a mental patient, Michael Myers, who killed his sister when he was young, has escaped from an institution and has come back to his hometown of Haddonfield to continue his destruction. He is being hunted down by the doctor who worked with him without success for many years, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance). Loomis believes Myers is pure evil and will stop at nothing to do what he needs to. The local cops think Loomis is crazy himself but agree to work with him to track down Myers. As the body count starts to slowly rise, so does the suspense, which comes to a boiling point at the end when Laurie and Michael Myers have a showdown. Halloween is a horror film, a slasher pic in every sense of the word, but the movie has Hitchcockian levels of intensity and build up. What makes the intensity work, almost more than anything else in this movie, is the brilliant music, created by Carpenter himself. The Halloween theme song is so iconic now, and to this day, I still get a bit of a chill when it starts playing. It's just one of the many reasons why this movie will always be one of my favorites. If you want a good bloodbath, look elsewhere. If you want a movie that will just simply scare the heck out of you, look no further than Halloween.