by Damien Gerard
I have a confession; I am a dyed-in-the-wool horror fan. From F W Murnau’s Nosferatu right up to ‘The Cabin in the Woods’, it is a genre that completely captivates me. In this blog I will talk about the film that I think has shaped the slasher horror genre more than any other, Halloween.
You might think I would choose the granddaddy of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock for the seminal work, Psycho, widely acclaimed as being the first modern horror film. I did initially think about that but I think I can convincingly explain why I chose a different film instead.
No director has captured my imagination more than John Carpenter. Not only does he write, direct and produce the most brilliant films but he composes epic, instantly recognisable soundtracks to accompany his bloody roller coaster rides.
John Carpenter cites Psycho as having an influence on him from the moment his parents took him to see it. Interestingly, Carpenter chose Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of Psycho’s star, Janet Leigh to play the terrified teenage babysitter in Halloween. The psychiatrist played so well in Halloween by Donald Pleasance (who went on to star in three Carpenter films) has his name, Sam Loomis, plucked straight from Psycho too.
However, whilst there was one scene in Psycho involving a knife, you know the one; it doesn’t qualify as a slasher film per se. Halloween, written under the name ‘The Babysitter Murders’ was the film that defined the rules for the slasher genre; promiscuous teenage kids, one lone unstoppable killer barely glimpsed, scream-queen heroine, clever camera angles and iconic music. Think of all the films that came after Halloween that have tried to emulate it, some with great success, other not so much. From Friday The Thirteenth and Candyman through Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Child’s Play to Nightmare on Elm Street to the Scream franchise. They all follow most, if not all, of the rules of the genre. In fact, the Scream franchise incorporates those very rules right into the plot itself in the most blatant way when two of the lead characters openly talk about them in various scenes.
‘The Shape’ as Michael Myers became known, truly was the first unstoppable killer. At the end of the film, after Donald Pleasance has emptied a revolver into him and The Shape has fallen off the balcony to lie inert on the front lawn, everyone takes a sigh of relief until they look out the window and see the body gone… cue creepy music again. Classic stuff that sets the film up for the sequel, much like those films mentioned above set their films up for subsequent sequels in a very similar way too. The music is iconic in that it starts to swell and change just before you see The Shape on screen. As the relatively unsophisticated score is so distinctive and creepy, it lends a certain feeling to the movie and showed, if there ever was doubt, that something as simple as incidental music can have a massive impact on how a scene is 
interpreted. You know Michael Myers is somewhere close as soon as you hear the tune; you implore the scared teenagers to turn round and see him, to get out, to run, escape to next door and raise the alarm, but they never do. All that before The Shape even appears on the screen. Epic, epic stuff.
As an aside, you might know that the mask that Michael Myers wore was actually an old mask modelled on the face of William Shatner sprayed white and with the eyeholes enlarged. This was because the film budget was so low that costume and props had to be sourced as cheaply as possible. Even Carpenter elected not to receive a fee for directing. Although the film was made for just over $300k, it grossed over $55m globally, firmly putting Carpenter on the map and cementing his place as the father of the modern slasher movie.
Damien Gerard is an actor, director, writer and producer from Brighton, Sussex. Check out his website and follow him on twitter
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