Genesis of a killer

Halloween (1978)

Directed by John Carpenter this film stars Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P. J. Soles and Nancy Loomis. A six year old boy stabs his sister to death then fifteen years later he escapes from a mental home to kill once more on Halloween.

For a film that had such a big effect on it's genre this is a surprisingly average effort in retrospect. The story has little real depth to it, never really goes into how the antagonist became evil and few of the characters have any real personality either. Where you have to give the film credit is in the direction which unlike all the slasher films that followed it this film does not rely on blood and gore but is a bit more subtle in making it's scares.

3/5