I’ve finally embarked on a journey I’ve put off for quite a few Halloweens now: watching horror movies and franchises from decades gone during October.
For this go round, I decided to watch the first and second films in each of the Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, and Scream franchises. I’m sure some of these don’t necessarily count as “classic” but I based this first run on movies that even I, generally a non-horror fan, simultaneously had heard of and were interested in. There are plenty of others I discovered in the lead up to this and many of those made the shortlist for future Halloween first time viewings but these are the ones I went for this one. I also had to condense the list because I meant to start October 1st but was, as you can see, delayed.
I’ll be posting my detailed thoughts on each one as I go. Feel free to join in and discuss and/or watch a horror film for the first time and post it here and/or suggest films and franchises. I do plan on watching more next year so I’ll eventually need ideas. Just, no spoilers if you can help it, though I do already know a few things about some of these. I want to be as blind as possible.
To start off, the atmosphere is fantastic! It looks and feels like fall and Halloween; I could almost taste and smell it. The camera work is insane. I love most of the angles and shots and a lot of them help create the aforementioned atmosphere.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence are far and away the best of the cast. Curtis makes Laurie just about likable and Pleasence gives the doctor a gravitas that none of the other characters have, even Michael.
As for the rest of it? Eh. I’m sure I would have reacted differently if I saw it in a theater and/or on 1978 but, as it is, I watched it on my laptop and it didn’t really do it for me. For a malevolent force of pure evil, Mikey boy had quite the proclivity for avoiding situations where he had a numerical disadvantage and direct confrontation. Though, I suppose how he fared when he entered a direct conflict with Laurie goes a ways to explaining why. Either that, or, being a final girl, she had massive plot armor. Either way, he kind of turned into a chump in that final fight.
On the character front, Laurie was the only character that wasn’t completely insufferable. I know it’s a slasher and, by the standards of the time, even looking at a member of the other sex could warrant a brutal death penalty but it’s almost like the movie WANTS the audience to want Michael to mercilessly slaughter everyone EXCEPT Laurie. Special shout-out to the boy Laurie babysits for making me want to drop kick him over a fence and to the doctor for being almost completely useless while also diverting police attention away from several murders.
The kills were fairly creative, especially considering Michael pretty much solely used a knife AND they used essentially no blood or gore. Other than that, there was no sense of time or scale to Haddonfield; Laurie and friends seem to have to drive for miles to get to their charges (and it gets dark in the blink of an eye/snap of the fingers) while the doctor seems to walk to the house Laurie and Michael are fighting in in a matter of minutes.
Anyway, it was alright but, based on what I’ve heard of the franchise, it appears it’s mostly downhill from here, so…
On to Camp Crystal Lake!
PS: I’ll never understand where, when, or how Michael learned how to drive
No one knows how Michael learned to drive, but the general consensus is that he watched other people drive while transporting him around until he got the basics memorized and just went from there.
While Jason is my favorite of the silent masked slashers, Michael is definitely the scariest and most interesting of that bunch.
I’ve actually seen Conjuring 2 and I liked it (but that’s with no comparisons or context available). I have been interested in watching the first one but none of the others have really grabbed my attention.
As for the chainsaw boy, I’m not sure how interested I am. That’s the other really big “classic” name I heard going in and I’ve been back and forth MANY times on whether or not I want to watch it. Right now, it’s on the outside looking in but that could change (and change again and again) in the future.
Ugh, that movie was awful. Big letdown when I finally saw it, so overrated. The only scary part is in the woods at night when Learherface just pops up, and that’s also the only time when he kills someone with a chainsaw, making the title misleading since there’s no actual massacre with the chainsaw. And the entire last half hour of the film was literally non-stop screaming. I guess it may have been pretty shocking at the time, but why this is held up as a horror great is beyond me. I actually prefer the remake and it’s prequel.
I wasn’t disturbed or felt like my head was messed with by any of it. I spent the majority of the movie wanting something to happen and for the damn screaming to stop. Beyond that one nighttime scene, it was like everyone else was trying too hard to make it seem macabre, trying too hard to make the villains seem crazy, but it just came off as annoying.
Yeah, he did a bunch of jabbering and freaking people out, cutting himself and others, but nothing really happening. By the time stuff starts happening, it’s one chainsaw death, a bunch of guys acting twitchy and crazy and unfocused, and non-stop screaming. Basically, it went over the top and took itself too seriously in doing so, but just devolved into an overrated mess. The main villain was beaten by an unnamed cameo character with a wrench for goodness sake. Throwing a bunch of skins and skeletons around a house in the middle of that doesn’t make it scary. The concept of what was happening in this movie worked better and was actually scary when it was released again 43 years later in video game format as Resident Evil 7.
For the Halloween franchise I would recommend watching: Halloween (1978), Halloween 2 (1980), Halloween 4, Halloween 20 years later, and Halloween (2018, this is the reboot film, NOT THE ROB ZOMBIE REMAKE). I don’t know if the second rebooot film is any good as I haven’t watched it, but I would probably give it a shot. The rest of the films in the franchise are not worth your time, also interesting fact: Halloween 3: season of the witch has absolutely nothing to do with Michael Myers as the franchise was originally meant to be an anthology type series surrounding the holiday (thus the name of the franchise).
For Nightmare on Elms Street, I would recommend the first film (again, make sure you aren’t watching the bad remake), the third film (Nightmare on Elms Street 3), and Wes Kraven’s New Nightmare. These three films effectively make up a trilogy of their own and the other films are sub par in comparison
For Friday the thirteenth, watch the first four films (again, with me stating that you should be careful not to accidentally watch remake). Skip the fifth film (as it’s effectively irrelevant, and watch the six film which wraps up the Tommy Jarvis trilogy (the Jarvis trilogy is the fourth, fifth, and sixth film). The seventh film is also a very worthy watch as it is effectively “Jason versus Carrie” and has some really impressive practical effects.
Excellent, generally spoiler free, rundown but I’m probably going to get around to all of the entries in each franchise eventually so I can get an idea for myself of their evolutions both within and compared to the others. Thanks though!
Though I don’t want to repeat movies others have mentioned with Krueger, Myers and Voohrees, my immediate Halloween time movies are The Thing, The Shining , and all of the Evil Dead movies (1, 2, Army of Darkness, and 2013 film).
Part of the reason I’m watching the movies the way I am is already being validated. You can tell Halloween is better in just about every respect; production, music, camera, you name it. BUT there was just something about this movie I enjoyed more.
There was one area I thought this film did better: the killer. I mentioned in my earlier review that I thought Michael was oddly adverse to direct confrontation or being at a numerical disadvantage and that it seemed like it was because he surprisingly inept against Laurie. Well, the killer in this movie was very much the same except with more blood and more variety to the kills. HOWEVER, the twist when the killer is revealed actually goes a long way to explaining that; this killer would NOT do well in direct fights or in handicap matches. And what a twist! I did not know Jason wasn’t the killer (don’t know how necessary the spoiler tag is). Also, I liked that the killer had a motive beyond just “pure evil”. Again, I know these are “mindless” slashers so I shouldn’t expect too much in the way of bona fide story, character development, or explanations but just the simple nature of the killer went a long way.
That said, there were still plenty of areas it fell short. First, the aforementioned “explanation” was probably unintentional, mainly being designed as a nice subversion. Second, was the killer so blinded that they couldn’t see the teens(?), while sinfully sexually active, were also quite productive and all of the ones who weren’t “drowning” sprang into action immediately in that scene? But my biggest gripe has to be how they treated Annie.
Annie is one of the first people we meet but she never even makes it to camp. It still sits weird with me because she is different from all the other counselors we meet both in demeanor and style but she isn’t the final girl. The final girl is Alice who, by contrast, is one of the last people we meet and, though, by no means as promiscuous as the others, is still morally deficient by the standards of the surprisingly Christian conservative horror monsters of the time. She (I think) has a boyfriend and is also in an affair with the head counselor (I’m also confused as to the ages of the six younger counselors; they seem to be young adults but it’s a bit unclear) who is skeevy as hell. I eventually warmed to Alice (likely because the movie eventually spent the most time on her) but she was kind of pretty similar to the victims and Annie didn’t even really get the chance to prove her “moral worth”. Maybe I’m reading too much into the tropes? Maybe the movie gave Annie too much of a character beyond a slavish devotion to sex? Maybe the filmmakers didn’t want to be a pure carbon copy of Halloween and were bigger into subversion than just the killer twist? Who knows? I guess my point is: #JusticeForAnnie.
Anyway, long story short, this was a lot more fun than Halloween. It’s one of those cases where one thing is clearer better but you like something else more. It’s almost like they didn’t take themselves too seriously and ended up somehow striking gold. The characters were mostly forgettable but that’s a far cry from actively rooting for their brutal destruction. The kills were more creative and they handled their killer better imo. However, I don’t know where they go from here but I’m sure they won’t screw anything up!
I think my biggest and most lingering question is: Where was Annie coming from and why was she on a dozens of miles long hike carrying seemingly dozens of pounds of gear without a care in the world?
I have already seen Get Out (and really enjoyed it) but some of your other suggestions are either already on the list or will probably make it there.
Also, fun fact about this film in relation to the rest of the franchise: despite a large amount of films, relatively lax safety regulations in the 80s and 90s, and numerous close calls with the large amount of stunts and practical effects throughout the franchise, the only creature to have directly died in the process of filming these movies is a snake killed in one of the scenes of this film!
Doesn’t sound too surprising at first, but when you see some of the stuff that goes on in later movies, it is nice to know that nobody’s died from this stuff. I’ll probably try to give some little piece of trivia with every film discussed here to add a little behind the scenes flair.
Edit: upon further research of this fact, it actually gets sadder and more cruel, this wasn’t in fact a wild snake. It actually a pet snake and the handler did NOT give consent for it to be killed for the film, and they were absolutely devastated (and on set) when this actively happened.
they’re the biggest ones I know and I think I know which ones you’re referring to
