Halloween: Critic Reviews

Halloween is an absolutely merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that, yes, I would compare it to Psycho.

John Carpenter's 1978 tour de force, perhaps the most widely imitated film of the 70s.

After a promising opening, Halloween becomes just another maniac-on-the-loose suspenser.

Halloween remains untouched -- a modern classic of the most horrific kind.

First Michael Myers slasher fest isn't for kids.

A seminal slasher that gets better with age.

... except for its shamelessly (and irresistibly) zingy music score (by the director), Halloween achieves its considerable power almost entirely through visual means.

To call Halloween merely brilliant isn't giving it enough credit. As a horror film and as a historical milestone that single-handedly shaped and altered the future of an entire genre, it's downright transcendent.

Who could have predicted that the low-budget pic Halloween would have a profound influence on an industry, not to mention on the concept of Halloween itself?

Virtually perfect. It is the one horror film that I would beg each and every lover of movies to watch, if I could pick only one.

John Carpenter and Debra Hill's film is a genuine landmark in the horror-thriller genre.

The movie itself is repressed; Hitchcock would have admired the way Carpenter artfully avoids explicit bloodshed.

The film hits us at a level deeper than most slasher films, and even as we are entertained by it, we are drawn in by its powerful suspense and implications.

A modern horror classic.

Regardless of how silly you think it all is, this will have you scared witless by the time the end credits roll; low budget horror hog heaven.

...the kind of fright flick in which the plodding monster has his victim in his grasp and then inexplicably stabs the couch five feet to the right of her.

Perhaps not quite so resonant as Psycho to which it pays due homage, but it breathes the same air.

If Donald Pleasance tells you something is important, you should listen to him.

One of the best horror films ever made. John Carpenter deserves a medal for his effective build-up of suspense, his knack for casting and his sensationally-scary Michael Myers!

Halloween brilliantly uses its widescreen frame, a lot of hand-held camerawork, and scary foreground and background action.

One of the scariest movies ever made.

One of the first and the flat-out best of that ghetto of the horror film genre, the slasher movie.

It's hard to get behind a main character who's so unexciting. But maybe Michael Myers is the real main character. In which case, mission accomplished: I'm freaked out.

Even after repeated viewings, Carpenter's minor masterpiece holds up as a staunchly effective thriller that will always stand head and shoulders above the cinematic progeny it spawned.