Babysitters Beware! William Shatner's gone psycho & is coming to kill you!

Assault on Precinct 13. Escape From New York. The Thing. They Live. The glory days when director John Carpenter was in his prime. And let's not forget the film that scared the living bejesus out of generations of viewers (especially babysitters): Carpenter's 1978 masterpiece Halloween.

The Shape. The Boogeyman. He's been credited with a couple of nicknames, but there's only one name his viewers & hapless victims have all come to know him by: Michael Myers. Carpenter's merciless madman Michael Myers is, to be blunt, evil incarnate. "No one is ever born evil". Ha, I'm not sure who coined that phrase, but it was a crock.

Evil came full circle circa on Halloween night 1963 for Michael Myers when at the tender age of 6, without provocation, he stabbed his older sister to death with a kitchen knife. After being institutionalized under the care of Dr. Sam Loomis (played aptly by Donald Pleasence), Michael Myers was cut off from the outside world. Or so it seemed.

Funny how history can find a way of repeating itself. En route to transfer his psychotic patient on a rain soaked Halloween's Eve, Loomis is aghast when Michael escapes the psychiatric ward that he's been confined to for fifteen years. Confident that Michael is planning an unwelcome visit to his sleepy hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois on the anniversary of his sister's murder, Dr. Loomis & the town's skeptical sheriff (Charles Cyphers) initiate a manhunt in order to halt Michael's bloody campaign of terror.

Jamie Lee Curtis comes in as the girl next door, teenage Laurie Strode. Stuck babysitting on Halloween night, the cute book smart teenager cures boredom by catching up on gossip over the phone & watching horror flicks with the kiddies. While trick-or-treaters go door-to-do on a seemingly serene Halloween night, the prowling homicidal Michael has his eye on innocent young Laurie & fellow babysitters on the block.

The late Donald Pleasence is a joy to watch as the obsessed Dr. Loomis, as he appears to have been born to play the part the way Connery was born to play Bond. Though Halloween's vapid sequels sadly reduced Pleasence's character down to a hobbling neurotic whose exhaustive babbling of Michael's evilness became very tiresome, Carpenter's original has the intrepid Loomis at his very best. Though Jamie Lee Curtis had not yet honed her skills as an actress (you can't blame her: Halloween was her movie acting debut), the film crowned her the titular "Scream Queen" & still holds the test of time as her most popular role.

Most horror buffs are well aware of the shoestring budget Carpenter was forced to make the best of with the production (e.g. reusing painted leaves since the film was shot in spring, Michael's mask was a de facto white spray painted William Shatner Captain Kirk mask, etc.). Above all, Carpenter's productions could serve as a template for future film makers that sometimes less is more effective.

Rather than dish out blood & guts gore to induce fright, director Carpenter & longtime collaborating producer Debra Hill choose to paint a richly ominous atmosphere throughout the film. Oh sure, there's some splotches of blood here & there--it is after all a slasher film. But the true terror of Halloween is conjured up by the dissonant musical score that often hints at impending doom & downright spooky photography (watch how Michael's mask materializes out of the pitch black of a closet behind Laurie--ugh, makes your skin crawl). We're even treated to 1st person perspectives which let us see the world through Michael's eyes, complete with his raspy breathing.

Executive producer Moustapha Akkad (who gained all legal rights to the Halloween films) kept pumping out clunky sequels which lacked the magical touch of the original & sadly reduced Halloween's legacy down to run-of-the-mill schlocky horror.

But let's look on the bright side: the original is unquestionably the shining star of Carpenter's career & the seminal stepping stone that has made way for classics such as Friday The 13th. And if the very thought of a guy in a jumpsuit wearing a William Shatner mask & wielding a butcher knife at you from out of the darkness doesn't give you the creeps, well then you need someone to check your pulse.