'Halloween' 1978: The Times finally reviews a classic horror

The precision and timing of the film's chilling pursuit scenes reveal an artist who understands that truly resounding fright can not be stupid. It required skillful craftsmanship and a consistent perspective on fear. The common wisdom of horror asserts that the most frightening evil is unknown, inexplicable and random; Once the monster is revealed in a movie and the mind becomes aware of it, much of the fear that it inspires dissipates. So keeping Michael Myers blank can work around this problem. But it's not the only void here.

Carpenter ends the film with a montage of empty spaces: bare rooms, abandoned streets, a dark house. His propulsive synthesizer music, which may have become his most influential aesthetic contribution to the current vogue of horror, plays as Michael Myers' breathing intensifies. You hear the air enter his mouth and then escape. It is everywhere and nowhere.

Decades before "Scream" marked the beginning of the trend of horror movies that consciously commented, "Halloween" adopted a twisted self-awareness that constantly drew attention to itself. By transforming Janet Leigh's daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, into the role of her heroine, Laurie Strode, Carpenter offers comparisons with "Psycho," in which Leigh plays. Curtis, who was making his film debut, proved natural, offering a persuasive interpretation of operatic panic suggesting a fierce core.

The film places the viewer several times in the perspective of the murderer, but he also often places Michael Myers near the audience, lurking at the corner of the screen, his back turned like the characters of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Michael likes to watch, and he often seems more interested in good fear than killing effectively. In a memorable scene, he stages a grave for one of his victims and when Laurie discovers it, two other corpses appear to him, a trick rigged by a jury. If Michael Myers betrays any personality, it is a revelation of fear, although much ruder than John Carpenter.

In horror, the scaring of the box (think of the head coming out of the boat in "Jaws") is the fastest way to get a shout, but the shocks remain still (the binoculars in "The Shining" ) are the ones who linger with you. "Halloween" has both, but he specializes in the latter.