Halloween - The night of horror

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Movie
German title Halloween - The night of horror
Original title Halloween
Halloween 1.jpg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1978
length German cinema
version: 91 minutes TV version: 101 minutes
Age rating FSK 18 (until 1998)
FSK 16 (abbreviated; until 1998 )
FSK 16 (unabridged; since 1998 )
Rod
Director John Carpenter
script John Carpenter
Debra Hill
production Debra Hill
music John Carpenter
camera Dean Cundey
cut Tommy Lee Wallace
Charles Bornstein
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Halloween II - The horror returns

Halloween  - The night of horror [ ˌhæləwiːn ] (Original title: Halloween ) is a 1978 incurred American low budget - horror movie , in the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois , in the Midwest of the United States plays. The film is directed by John Carpenter and starring Donald Pleasence as Dr. SeeSam Loomis, Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode and Nick Castle as Michael Myers. The film tells the story of Michael Myers, who murders his sister at the age of six,breaks outof a psychiatric clinic on the eve of Halloween after 15 years, kills three teenagers and is finally - apparently - killed.

The film introduces many of the later clichés of typical slasher films of the 1980s and 1990s , making it a classic of its genre. On the subject, some critics have claimed that Halloween and its followers of the same genre promote sadism and misogyny . Though Carpenter didn't intend, the relationship between characters' moral strength and their chances of survival became something of a "slasher movie law".

In 2006 she was accepted into the National Film Registry .

action

On Halloween night in 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers killed his 17-year-old sister Judith with a kitchen knife in their home in Haddonfield, Illinois , whereupon he was admitted to Smith's Grove Warren County Sanatorium . There he came into the care of the psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis. Loomis discovers a tremendous amount of anger behind the little boy's stare and subsequently describes him as "bad". In an interview with Sheriff Leigh Brackett, he also says: “I tried to get in touch with him for eight years, then another seven years to prevent him from ever being released. I knew too well what was hiding behind these eyes, that absolutely ... evil. "

At the age of 21, Myers escapes Smith's Grove the day before Halloween and returns to Haddonfield, where he is followed by Loomis. In Haddonfield, Myers begins to watch the young Laurie Strode. Several times Laurie sees a man in a white mask, who watches her through the windows of her classroom and bedroom, and disappears behind a bush as she goes home. While the choice of person in the first film seems purely coincidental, in the second part you learn that Laurie Strode and Michael Myers are siblings.

Laurie later meets her friend Annie Brackett, who is babysitting Lindsey Wallace on Halloween night, while Laurie will babysit little Tommy Doyle in the house across the street. After Annie was able to persuade her boyfriend to spend the evening with her, she sends Lindsey to Laurie at the Doyles' house. She then returns to the Wallace House and gets into her car. Myers, who is in the back seat, strangles her and carries her body into the house. He is observed by Tommy Doyle, who thinks he is the "black man". Laurie ignores his fears and thinks he is trying to scare Lindsey, whereupon she sends the children to bed. Michael Myers later also murders Laurie's other friend Lynda Van Der Klok and her boyfriend Bob Simms, who had retired to the empty Wallace house to sleep together.

Laurie is concerned after receiving a strange call that she thinks was from Annie. However, it is Lynda who tries to scream while Myers strangles her with the phone cord. To find out what happened, Laurie crosses the street and looks around the Wallace family home, discovering the bodies of their three friends and the missing headstone of Michael Myers' sister Judith. She is attacked in Michael Myers 'house, suffers a cut on her left upper arm and is able to escape to the Doyles' house. Michael pursues her, enters the house and attacks her again. Laurie sticks a knitting needle in the neck of Myers, an iron coat hanger in the eye and a knife in the chest. Instead of lying down injured, Michael Myers gets up again and again and continues his hunt for Laurie. At the same time, Loomis, who is walking the streets of Haddonfield looking for Myers, sees the two children running out of the house screaming. He comes to Laurie's aid and shoots six times at Myers, who then falls from the balcony and falls from the first floor. When Loomis tries to look down at Myers' body, it is gone.

production

After film producer Irwin Yablans and financier Moustapha Akkad saw John Carpenter's film Attack at Night at the 1976 Milan Film Festival , they offered the young director to make a film about a mentally ill killer who chases babysitters. In an interview with the film magazine Fangoria , Yablans said, "I was thinking about what would make sense in the horror genre and what I wanted was to make a film with the same shocking effect as The Exorcist ." Carpenter and his then girlfriend Debra Hill started one Writing screenplay originally titled The Babysitter Murders . Since the film was supposed to take place on Halloween, Yablans changed the title to Halloween .

Akkad gave the film crew a budget of $ 325,000, which was very little even at the time. He was concerned about the tight schedule, low budget, and Carpenter's lack of experience as a director. Still, he told Fangoria , “Two things made me feel confident. First, Carpenter told me the story verbally and in an almost engaging manner, almost attitude by attitude. Second, he told me he didn't want a fee, which showed me that he had confidence in the project. ”Carpenter himself actually only got $ 10,000 and 10 percent of the income for directing, scriptwriting, and composing the music.

Because of the tight budget, numerous costumes and props were made by hand or purchased cheaply. Carpenter hired Tommy Lee Wallace as a production designer , art director , location scout and co- editor . Wallace created the iconic mask that Michael Myers wears throughout the film. It was made from a Captain Kirk mask that he bought for $ 1.98. To distinguish it from William Shatner's , who had played Captain Kirk, Wallace widened his eyes and tinted the skin of his face a bluish white. The manuscript stated that Myers' mask had the pale gray features of a human face and looked ghostly.

The budget also dictated the schedule and location. "Halloween" was shot within three weeks in the spring of 1978 in South Pasadena , California . The California film location is why most of the cars seen in Haddonfield have California license plates, despite the Illinois location. An abandoned house that belonged to a church was the Myers house. The crew had a few problems to solve: They had to find pumpkins in the spring and artificial leaves had to be reused in several scenes. To stage an authentic Halloween night for Carpenter, local families dressed their children in Halloween costumes.

script

Yablans and Akkad gave the two screenwriters Carpenter and Hill largely a free hand, but Yablans made some suggestions. According to a Fangoria interview with Debra Hill, Yablans wanted the script to be written like a radio show, with shock moments every ten minutes. She also explained that the writing only took three weeks and that much of the inspiration came from the Celtic tradition of Halloween, such as the festival of Samhain . Though Samhain is not mentioned in the first film, Hill asserts that it was the idea that evil cannot be killed. Halloween is the night when souls are let loose on the living, and that's how the idea of ​​the wickedest child who ever lived was born.

Most of the dialogue between the female characters was written by Hill, while Carpenter dealt with Loomis 'speeches about Michael Myers' malevolence. Many details were marked by Hills and Carpenter's own youth: the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois came from Haddonfield , New Jersey , where Hill grew up, while most of the street names were taken from Carpenter's hometown of Bowling Green , Kentucky . “Laurie Strode” was the name of one of Carpenter's ex-girlfriends and Michael Myers that of an English film producer who, together with Yablans , had attended several performances of the attack at night at European film festivals. Carpenter also paid tribute to Alfred Hitchcock with two names: Tommy Doyle is named after Lt. Det. Thomas J. Doyle from Das Fenster zum Hof and Dr. Loomis named after Sam Loomis, friend of Marion Crane from Psycho .

occupation

The Halloween cast was a mix of seasoned actors like Donald Pleasence and then completely unknown actors like Jamie Lee Curtis . The low budget prevented collaboration with big names, and many of the actors received only a small fee. At $ 20,000, Pleasence was the top earner on the set. Curtis got $ 8,000 a day and Michael Myers actor Nick Castle only got $ 25 a day.

English actor Pleasence was reportedly encouraged by his daughter, who saw Carpenter's attack at night , to join the filming for Halloween . Pleasence was already known to American audiences through his impersonation of the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice from 1967.

About the cast of Jamie Lee Curtis, Carpenter said in an interview: “Jamie Lee was not the first choice for the role of Laurie. I had no idea who she was. She was 19 and was on a TV show at the time, but I wasn't watching TV. ”He had originally intended the role for Anne Lockhart , June Lockhart's daughter . However, Lockhart had obligations to other film and television projects. Eventually, the producers hired Jamie Lee Curtis after learning that her mother was Janet Leigh , known from Psycho , which they hoped would gain some major publicity. Halloween was Curtis' feature film debut and gave her a career as " Scream Queen ", which she expanded through engagements in other horror films such as The Fog .

Another relatively unknown actress, Nancy Kyes, who is credited with Nancy Loomis, got the role from Laurie's celebrity friend Annie Brackett. She had previously worked in The Night Shooting and had started a relationship with art director Tommy Lee Wallace when filming began. The role of Laurie's other friend Lynda Van Der Klok was cast with P. J. Soles, who was already best known for her supporting role in Carrie and a small role in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble with John Travolta .

The role of the masked Michael Myers fell to Carpenter's college friend from the University of Southern California , Nick Castle , who then worked as a director and is responsible for films such as The Last Starfighter and At War Feet with Major Payne .

Director

The film critic Roger Ebert said of John Carpenter's directorial work that while it is easy to show violence on the screen, it is difficult to do it well. Carpenter, for example, is incredibly talented at using foregrounds in his compositions, and anyone who likes thrillers knows how crucial foregrounds are.

In the opening credits, a jack-o-lantern is placed on a black background, which is supposed to set the mood for the entire film. While the Halloween theme can be heard in the background, the camera slowly focuses on one of the eyes of the face carved into the pumpkin. According to film scholar JP Telotte, this scene clearly announces that the main concern of the film is to show how we would see ourselves and others, and also shows the consequences that often accompanied our ordinary perception.

During the conception of the plot, Yablans always attached great importance to the fact that the audience should not be afraid of what they see, but what they think they see. Apparently, Carpenter took Yablans 'advice seriously, resulting in many scenes filmed from Michael Myers' point of view. They give the viewer the impression of taking part in the action. However, Carpenter is not the first director to use this method, because in the first scene of the film Psycho the viewer is given a voyeuristic look at Janet Leigh, who is undressing in a shabby hotel. Telotte argues that this change of perspective from a disembodied, narrative camera to the point of view of a character forces a deeper participation in the following action.

This technique was used in the first scene, in which the audience can follow the action through the eye holes of the six-year-old Michael Myers' clown mask and thus witness the murder of Judith Myers. According to Carpenter, the frequent use of such a first-person perspective represents the killer’s point of view and enables the viewer to hear his breathing and laborious foot-trampling as he pursues his “prey”.

Another technique used by Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho and Tobe Hooper in Blood Court in Texas was to create tension and depict murder without bloodshed. Debra Hill's reason for this was that they didn't want it too bloody and instead relied on moments of shock and surprise.

Carpenter resorted to unconventional methods to achieve the desired effect on fear and horror. So he worked with Jamie Lee Curtis a "fear meter" ("fear meter"), because she was not sure what level of horror to represent in which scenes. In an interview, Curtis recalled this approach and described Carpenter's stage directions as follows: "Here about a 7, here about a 6 and in the scene we're going to shoot tonight, about a 9½."

music

Another reason for the success of Halloween is the film music and especially the main theme. In the absence of symphonic soundtracks composed the soundtrack of a John Carpenter played piano melody in 5/4 timing . The critic James Berardinelli considered the Halloween score to be "relatively simple and undemanding," but admitted that it was "one of the movie's greatest assets."

In this regard, composer Carpenter stated that he could only play the keyboard and could neither read nor write notes. However, Carpenter was far less helpless than circumstances suggest, as he received some help from composer Dan Wyman , who was a music professor at San Jose State University. In the credits Carpenter is named after his hometown as the "Bowling Green Orchestra" for his composing work.

There are a few songs in the film, such as an untitled song recorded by Carpenter and a few friends who formed a band called The Coupe DeVilles. This track can be heard when Laurie gets into Annie's car on the way to babysitting with the Doyles.

reception

Halloween premiered on October 25, 1978 in Kansas City , Missouri, and a few days later in Chicago , Los Angeles, and New York . The film opened in the Federal Republic of Germany on February 2, 1979. Although the film was well received by the public and largely spread by word of mouth due to a lack of advertising , many critics initially either ignored it or viewed it with disdain. The film by Tom Allen of The Village Voice received the first enthusiastic rating by a prominent film critic . Allen noted that the film was sociologically irrelevant, but praised Carpenter's camera work as "a double-faced trick" and "the most honorable way of making a good horror film." All emphasized the stylistic similarity to Psycho and George A. Romero's cult film The Night of the Living Dead from 1968. Following Allen's laudatory essay, other critics took notice of the film's merits. Roger Ebert recognized the film with similar praise in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times . Critics who once reacted negatively were impressed by Carpenter's choice of camera settings and the simple music, and were surprised by the low use of blood and depictions of violence.

The film grossed $ 47 million in the United States. Although most of the box office successes were in the United States, Halloween also premiered in various other countries and achieved moderate results. Most of the film was shown in European countries such as France , Great Britain , Germany , Italy , Sweden , Ireland , the Netherlands , Norway , Portugal , Yugoslavia and Iceland . 750,000 people saw the film in German cinemas. In addition, Halloween was also seen in Canada , Australia , Japan , Singapore , Peru , Argentina and Chile .

In 1979 the film was nominated for the Saturn Award of the "Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA" for best horror film. However, he had to admit defeat to Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man . Voted the sixth best British film of all time by Total Film magazine in 2004, the production features a police officer (played by Edward Woodward ) investigating the disappearance of a young girl in a small British town.

Halloween was later released on VHS , Laserdisc , DVD and UMD . In its first year of distribution, the film grossed $ 18.5 million in the United States. Earlier VHS versions were released by Media Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video. In 1995 “Blockbuster Video” brought out a commemorative edition. "Anchor Bay Entertainment" also released some post-processed versions on VHS and DVD for sale. The latest is the 2-CD Divimax version released in 2003 for the 25th birthday with comments by John Carpenter, Debra Hills and Jamie Lee Curtis and the documentary Halloween: A Cut Above the Rest .

Originally, the film was entitled by the Voluntary Self-Control of the Film Industry (FSK) with an age rating of 18 and over. In addition to numerous VHS releases with the original version, cut versions were also represented on video. In 2003, the FSK re-examined the film and downgraded the release limit to 16 years. Just in time for Halloween in 2003, uncut versions of the film appeared on the market with a release for ages 16 and up.

In September 2019, the US cinema chain CineLife Entertainment will screen the film again in selected cinemas in North America.

criticism

At the time of its release, the film received mostly positive feedback. It is still relatively popular today and received a 91 percent “fresh” rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website .

Influence of Hitchcock and other directors

Nevertheless, the film critic Pauline Kael , who became known through her long-standing work with The New Yorker , wrote a devastating criticism in the same newspaper and made it clear that “Carpenter seems to have had no life outside of the cinema: You can admit almost any idea on screen Tracing directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma and the Val Lewton productions. ”Although TV Guide described the comparisons to Psycho as baseless and silly, many compared Halloween to Alfred Hitchcock's work.

Michael Myers' iconography and the build-up of tension are clearly based on Hitchcock's style, according to Ivo Wittich. The way in which Carpenter staged the whole thing forced the viewer to fear for Laurie and her friends because he knew about the danger that surrounds them while they were still clueless. However, the depiction of violence in Halloween is much more intense than in Hitchcock's work, which certainly has to do with the lower contemporary violence threshold.

construction

There were very different perspectives on Carpenter's structure of the film. After four minutes of exposure , he lets forty minutes pass before Myers commits the next murder. "This change in tempo gives him the space to empathize with Laurie's character and situation," judges Wittich, "and to develop the young person, who appears a little melancholy, into a figure of identification."

Der Spiegel, on the other hand, used the German theatrical release of the film to criticize Carpenter and the film, and also finds clear words with regard to Myers' long pause from murder: “And unfortunately the exposure up to the horror climax is so long and insignificant that you get into the slaughter no longer makes the demonic fascination of evil shudder, but only annoyed the all too transparent speculation, the indulgent savoring of teenage sex and a blood orgy. ”Unsurprisingly, Carpenter's voyeuristic film disappoints.

Misogyny

Moreover, threw the late 1980s and early 1990s, many critics the movie to have a slasher subgenus spawned the rapid to sadism and misogyny pass over.

Many reviews of Halloween and other slasher films come from post - modern academics. Some feminist critics have seen the films as hardcore pornography since Halloween , according to historian Nicholas Rogers , and viewed the woman's situation as deteriorating. Critics such as journalist and writer John Kenneth Muir, whose numerous publications include a book on the films of John Carpenter, note that female characters like Laurie Strode would survive not because of some kind of good planning or ingenuity, but because of that sheer happiness that happens to them. So Laurie Strode is both Halloween and in the continuation of Dr. Loomis saved.

Feminists like Carol J. Clover, on the other hand, professor of film, rhetoric and Scandinavian studies at the University of California, Berkeley, argue that women in slasher films become heroines despite the violence against them. In many productions before Halloween , women were portrayed as helpless victims who would only be safe when they were rescued by a male hero. Although Dr. Loomis saves Laurie Strode, assures Clover that Halloween will introduce the role of " Final Girl " who will eventually triumph. Strode hit back several times in Myers and injured him when she got the opportunity. Had he been a normal person, she would have defeated him.

Depiction of Michael Myers

The portrayal of the killer Michael Myers was also criticized. Rolf-Ruediger Hamacher thinks that Michael, who under his mask looks like the mentally ill person from the “picture book of prejudices”, has more to do with a zombie than with a person. However, he also certifies Carpenter's "perfect handling of stylistic means", so that in his opinion, given his talent, he could have done without such "platitudes" as the unmotivated portrayal of Myers.

Carpenter offers motives and explanations for Myers' unique behavior, only to then take them back. According to Seeßlen and Jung, there are just as many references to a mentally ill person as to “absolutely evil”, but both remain as rudimentary as the “reactionary” morality that exists in the relationship between victims (the sexually active girls) and survivors (the virgin) has seen. On the one hand, Myers is referred to as the “black man”, something even his psychiatrist can be tempted to do. On the other hand, according to Seeßlen and Jung, he is also a child of the suburban world in which he grew up, the only difference being that he takes its myths seriously. The killer’s popular first-person perspective is fundamental and reduced, because it is always a “child” who is looking at his victim and the question of guilt has not yet arisen.

The camera work, especially from Myers' first-person perspective, was widely praised. Almost a decade after the premiere, Mick Martin, who was a film critic in the service of The Sacramento Union for eighteen years , and Marsha Porter criticized it, which had been showered with praise ten years earlier and taken over by later directors of the same genre (for example on Friday the 13th) . ).

Social criticism

Other critics saw a deeper social criticism in Halloween and its imitators. According to Vera Dika, these 1980s films address conservative family values ​​in the United States during the Ronald Reagan reign . Tony Williams says Myers and other “slicers” are “patriarchal avengers” who “slaughtered the juvenile offspring of the 1960s generation, especially when they were involved in illegal sex and drug activities.” Other critics tend to downplay this interpretation. They argue that conservative influence is prevented by portraying Myers as a demonic, superhuman monster.

Carpenter himself rejects the opinion that Halloween is a morality , just viewing it as a horror film. According to Carpenter, the critics totally missed the point. He explains, “The one girl who is the most sincere sexually sticks this guy with a long knife. She is the most sexually frustrated. She's the one who kills him. Not because she is a virgin, but because all of this repressed sexual energy is breaking out of her. She uses all these phallic symbols against him. "

Weaknesses in content

For most critics, however, the possibility of a more in-depth analysis failed because of the weaknesses of the film's content. Ronald M. Hahn and Volker Jansen, for example, note in the Lexicon of Horror Films (1989): “Apart from the question of how a person who has spent practically their entire life in a sanatorium can easily drive a car, we are still moving another. Namely: Where does a man named John Carpenter, who saw the light of day in 1948, get the audacity to present the audience with a story that really has no content? In addition, it is said in the second part that Michael Myers is 31 years old. But since he was born in 1957 and the second part continues the night of 1978, he is 21. But this question probably bothers him a mess anyway: Halloween brought him x million, and billions of flies can't be wrong. ”However, Hahn have and Jansen did not research properly: In the original version, the age is correct - this is a synchronization error. The criticism of the Lexicon of International Film also aims in this direction: “Horror shocker staged entirely for the perfect interplay of camera, music and editing, which conjures up people's fear of intangible dangers, but does not cover up their effective dramaturgy in terms of content weaknesses can. "

influence

Although a 1974 Canadian horror film called Jessy - Directed by Bob Clark anticipates the stylistic techniques that made Halloween famous, Halloween has received all of the critical acclaim for introducing them. First-person camera perspective, choice of locations and female heroines defined the genre of the slasher film. The wave of success unleashed by Halloween also made various films that were still in production at the time of the Halloween premiere , but had related stylistic elements or themes, great audiences. The films in the Friday the 13th series , Nightmare on Elm Street and countless other slasher films don't necessarily owe their inspiration to Halloween , but much of their success.

The supposedly unintended theme of "survival of the virgins" seen in Halloween became a main topos that also appeared in other slasher films. Characters in subsequent horror films who have illicit sex or consume illegal substances usually find a gruesome end in the hands of the killer. On the other hand, characters who appear moderate and chaste escape and conquer. Director Wes Craven's black comedy Scream! 1996 describes exactly the "rules" for surviving in a horror movie, using Halloween as a basic example: no sex, no alcohol or illegal drugs and never say "I'll be right back." Keenen Ivory Wayans ' horror film parody Scary Movie parodies these slasher movie patterns alike.

Despite Halloween's influence on the genre, critics have recently wondered how contemporary the film is. The audience has become less sensitive to blood and violence through later slasher films, and for many viewers the slow pace and low tension of Halloween are no longer frightening and seem tamed, if not boring. Film critic Herb Kane acknowledges the film's historical significance, but also says:

"I agree with [critics who claim the movie is out of date] ... I laughed throughout the film. Let's be honest. We saw all of this in countless copycat slasher films! Some of the scenes are just cheap and funny to me, like the one where Dr. Loomis finds the dead animal in the old Myershaus and points out that Michael was hungry; or the repeating 'totally' over and over again in dialogues. Just looking at Michael's appearance and disappearance in some scenes is hilarious. The scene where he comes into the bedroom disguised as a ghost with a white sheet and glasses left me - totally! - burst into tears."

TV version

The television rights to Halloween were sold to NBC in 1980 for $ 4 million . After some arguments between John Carpenter, Debra Hill and NBC because of the cutting of individual scenes, Halloween was shown on television for the first time. To fill the two-hour window, Carpenter filmed twelve minutes of supplementary material that Dr. Loomis talking to six year old Michael Myers at Smith's Grove and telling him, “You made a fool of her, didn't you? But not me. ”Another extra scene shows Dr. Loomis at Smith's Grove examining Myers' abandoned cell and discovering the word "sister" scratched into the door. Finally, a scene has been added in which Lynda comes over to Laurie's house to borrow a silk blouse, while Annie calls and wants to borrow the same blouse. The new scenes were recorded as part of the filming of Halloween 2 . The television version of the film was released as Halloween: Extended Version on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2001 .

Adaptations

Shortly after the premiere of Halloween , Bantam Books published a paperback version of the material written by Curtis Richards in 1979 , and a new edition in 1982, which is now out of print. The novel elaborates details that were not taken into account in the film, such as the origin of the curse of Samhain and Michael Myers' life in Smith's Grove Sanatorium.

In 1983 “Wizard Video” adapted Halloween for a video game for the Atari 2600 . The fact that none of the characters in it was named was either a result of a lack of research on the part of the developers or an attempt to save the license fees. Players take on the role of a teenage babysitter trying to save as many children as possible from a nameless, knife-wielding killer. The game was not very popular with gamers or parents and also had simple graphics , as was common in the 80s. However, the video game contained more blood than the movie. Once the babysitter was killed, his head disappeared, leaving only a bleeding throat. The closest resemblance to the film was when the killer appeared on the screen, as his arrival was accompanied by the well-known Halloween music.

Sequels

Halloween brought out eight sequels as well as a remake that appeared in 2007 and was continued in 2009. Of these films, only Halloween II was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Halloween 2 begins exactly where Halloween ends and is intended to continue the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. As in the eighth part, the US director Rick Rosenthal took over the direction .

All other films were made without Carpenter's involvement. The plot for Halloween 3 - The Night of Decision has no relation to its predecessor. After Michael Myers was burned at the end of the second film, the makers of Halloween 3 found a return of the killer to be very unrealistic and invented a plot that has to do with the event Halloween, but tells a completely different story without Michael Myers. It was even planned to produce a Halloween film every year from now on , but this was rejected because the third part of the series was not only relatively unsuccessful, but also received poor media coverage. The script was written by Tommy Lee Wallace , who also directed the film.

The sequels explicitly show more violence and blood and are generally viewed with disdain by film critics. They were realized with a much higher budget: the Halloween crew still had a budget of $ 325,000 available, whereas the makers of the second part were already able to work with $ 2.5 million. The production Halloween: Resurrection , released in 2002, could be created on a budget of $ 25 million. Financier Moustapha Akkad continued to work as executive producer of each sequel until his death in a terrorist attack in Amman in 2005.

The followers of Halloween continued to develop the character Michael Myers and the theme of Samhains. Apart from the third part, the films suffer from the multitude of plot changes that have come about through changing scriptwriters. The films Halloween 4 to Halloween 6 follow a different storyline than the following seventh part , which does not tie in with the sixth, but again with the second and does not take up the events of the previous four parts. Director Rob Zombie announced for the ninth film that he wants to develop Michael Myers' character even further. The film was released in 2007 under the title Halloween . In 2009, Halloween II, a sequel to the remake, was produced.

Since June 25, 2010 it has been known that screenwriter and director William Sanders is working on a spin-off . This film is called Last Supper - The Russellville Hacksaw Murders and is based on the scene in which Doctor Loomis visits Judith Myers' tombstone. The cemetery guard tells him a story about Charlie Bowles, who killed a number of people in Russellville. Exactly that Charlie Bowles should be the focus of the film.

In June 2015 it was announced that another film in the series entitled Halloween Returns was being worked on. Marcus Dunstan would direct the film and Patrick Melton would write the screenplay . Filming should start in July 2015. At the end of December 2015, however, the film was canceled because the responsible production company Dimension Films no longer had the rights. In May 2016 a new Halloween film was announced again. In February 2017 it was announced that this would be a sequel to the original from 1978, which ignores the other sequels and their storylines. The screenplay was written by Danny McBride and David Gordon Green , the latter directed. The film was released on October 25, 2018 under the title Halloween .

literature

Primary literature

Secondary literature

  • Noël Carroll: The Nature of Horror. In: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 46.1 (Autumn 1987), pp. 51-59.
  • Frank Schnelle: Suspense, shock, terror. John Carpenter and his films. Verlag Robert Fischer, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-924098-04-2 .
  • Kenneth Johnson: The Point of View of the Wandering Camera. In: Cinema Journal. 32.2 (Winter 1993), pp. 49-56.
  • Peter Haining, Robert Bloch: Ghost movies: famous supernatural films. Severn House, Sutton et al. a. 1995, ISBN 0-7278-4853-4 .
  • Linda Badley: Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic. Greenwood Press, Westport (Ireland) 1995, ISBN 0-313-27523-8 .
  • Tony Williams: Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Rutherford 1996, ISBN 0-8386-3564-4 .
  • Robert Baird: The Startle Effect: Implications for Spectator Cognition and Media Theory. In: Film Quarterly 53.3 (Spring 2000), pp. 12-24.
  • Robert C. Cumbow: Order in the Universe: The Films of John Carpenter. Second edition. Scarcrow Press, Lanham 2000, ISBN 0-8108-3719-6 .
  • Stephen Prince (Ed.): The Horror Film. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 2004, ISBN 0-8135-3363-5 .
  • Steven Jay Schneider (Ed.): Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud's Worst Nightmare. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-521-82521-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Halloween - The night of horror . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2011 (PDF; test number: 50 678 V).
  2. ↑ Halloween - The night of horror. Accessed 7 January 2011 ( Engl. ).
  3. ↑ Irwin Yablans, interview with Fangoria , quoted from HalloweenMovies.com ( memento of the original from September 26, 2006) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.halloweenmovies.com
  4. ↑ a b boxofficemojo.com
  5. ↑ Moustapha Akkad, interview with Fangoria , quoted from HalloweenMovies.com ( memento of the original from September 26, 2006) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.halloweenmovies.com
  6. ↑ a b Debra Hill, interview with Fangoria , quoted from HalloweenMovies.com ( memento of the original from September 26, 2006) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.halloweenmovies.com
  7. ↑ John Carpenter, Entertainment Weekly Interview, quoted from HalloweenMovies.com ( memento of the original from September 26, 2006) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.halloweenmovies.com
  8. ^ A b Roger Ebert, Review of Halloween , Chicago Sun-Times , October 31, 1979, from RogerEbert.com .
  9. ↑ JP Telotte, "Through a Pumpkin's Eye: The Reflexive Nature of Horror," in Gregory Waller, ed., American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p. 116, ISBN 0-252-01448-0 .
  10. ↑ Interview with Jamie Lee Curtis, quoted from HalloweenMovies.com ( memento of the original from September 26, 2006) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.halloweenmovies.com
  11. ↑ a b Review by Berardinelli from 1997 on reelviews.com .
  12. ^ Tom Allen, Review of Halloween , The Village Voice (New York), Nov. 6, 1978, pp. 67, 70.
  13. ↑ Michael Briers: John Carpenter's Halloween Returning To Theaters Later This Month. In: wegotthiscovered.com. September 11, 2019, accessed September 11, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Halloween on Rotten Tomatoes (accessed February 9, 2009).
  15. ^ Pauline Kael, Review of Halloween , The New Yorker , 1978, on TheManWiththeHypnoticEye.com ( January 15, 2003 memento in the Internet Archive ).
  16. ↑ TV Guide review of Halloween on TVGuide.com .
  17. ↑ a b Ivo Wittich: Halloween - The night of horror in: Ursula Vossen (Ed.), Filmgenres: Horrorfilm, Stuttgart 2004, pp. 245-252 (here p. 248)
  18. ↑ Wolf Donner, traces of blood of a new idol , Der Spiegel 27/1979, pp. 134-137
  19. ^ A b Rogers, Halloween , pp. 117-118.
  20. ^ John Kenneth Muir, Wes Craven: The Art of Horror (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1998), p. 104, ISBN 0-7864-1923-7 .
  21. ↑ Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 189, ISBN 0-691-00620-2 .
  22. ^ Rolf-Ruediger Hamacher, FD edition 14/1979
  23. ↑ Seeßlen / Jung, Horror - History and Mythology of Horror Films , p. 760
  24. ↑ Vera Dika. Games of Terror: Halloween , Friday the 13th , and the Films of the Stalker Cycle (Cranbury, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990), 138, ISBN 0-8386-3364-1 .
  25. ↑ Tony Williams, "Trying to Survive on the Darker Side: 1980s Family Horror," in Barry K. Grant, ed., The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), pp. 164-165, ISBN 0-292-72794-1 .
  26. ↑ Rogers, Halloween , p. 121.
  27. ^ John Carpenter, quoted from, Alan Jones, The Rough Guide to Horror Movies (New York: Rough Guides, 2005), p. 102, ISBN 1-84353-521-1 .
  28. ↑ Halloween: A Cut Above the Rest , documentary on Divimax 25th Anniversary Edition DVD of Halloween (1978; Troy, Mich .: Anchor Bay, 2003).
  29. ↑ Ronald M. Hahn, Volker Jansen: The Lexicon of Horror Films. Over 700 films presented in detail . Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1989, ISBN 3-404-13175-4 , p. 212
  30. ↑ Halloween - The night of horror. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  31. ^ Rockoff, Going to Pieces , p. 42.
  32. ↑ Herb Kane, "Is 'Halloween' Still Scary?", October 28, 2003, on CriticDoctor.com ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.criticdoctor.com
  33. ↑ Rob Zombie talks about Michael Myers on moviereporter.de
  34. ↑ variety.com, accessed June 16, 2015
  35. ↑ Halloween Franchise Loses Studio - What's Next? In: moviepilot.de . December 29, 2015 ( moviepilot.de [accessed February 17, 2017]).
  36. ↑ Halloween sequel announced by producer John Carpenter . In: moviepilot.de . May 24, 2016 ( moviepilot.de [accessed February 17, 2017]).
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on September 29, 2006 in this version .