I was really excited going into this movie because I absolutely loved Carpenter's remake of The Thing. Halloween is a great horror movie, but I was a bit disappointed because it wasn't as good as The Thing. One genius aspect to Carpenter's direction was his use of music; he used it to build up tension when nothing tense was going on and took it away when something exciting started happening. He achieved a constant tension, in a sense, where you're always on the edge of your seat; the fear doesn't come in bursts like modern slasher flicks. Also, there's a lot of subtle shot composition and good ideas; unfortunately, most of the time they are just self-indulgent filmmaking to the point of hurting the overall movie.It still feels like a late 70's movie because of the dialogue and fashion--it's not timeless, as I was hoping it would be. And it never actually scared me. I just watched it and said, oh, wow, that's cool. The slow pacing sometimes doesn't achieve its goal of building tension and you realize that what you're watching is just really really boring. The murder in the beginning started off as a really great and ballsy idea, but as it went on and on, it ceased to serve its function and actually hindered your appreciation of it. Which is a shame, 'cause it really was an awesome idea.
IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0077651/