The Season of Horror Has Risen From the Grave: Happy Halloweens (1978 and 2018)

I have chosen to celebrate Halloween by finally watching Halloween (1978) and Halloween (2018). I am not a big fan of slasher movies since that horror seems too real and disturbing for me, but I do like John Carpenter so I decided to take a stab at it. 

Michael Myers begins his killing spree at the tender age of six in the first film by slashing his half naked sister after she had a quickie with her boyfriend when she was supposed to be watching him while the folks were out on Halloween. He subsequently spent his formative years in an institution with a doctor who claims he is evil. He eventually escapes to cut up more sex crazed teenage babysitters. Laurie, who can't get a date, manages to survive his attacks after the doctor shows up and fills him with bullets, knocking him over a balcony, but he is apparently indestructible and disappears.

The first film is pretty suspenseful with him creeping around and spying on girls, especially with the tense score provided by Carpenter. Myers demonstrates his creative flair when he drapes himself in a sheet and dons a victim's glasses before finishing off the dude's girlfriend. We don't know why little Mikey suddenly became evil incarnate to begin a life of murderous crime, or how he gained the superhuman ability to be impervious to being shot or stabbed, but the inability to stop him is part of what makes him so scary.

So I guess there were a whole bunch of other Halloween movies to follow the initial entry, none of which I've seen or know anything about, which probably helps somewhat when viewing the 2018 film, which is intended to be a sequel to the 1978 film. 

In the 2018 film, Laurie has become obsessed with wanting to kill Michael Myers, and has spent her life building up an armory and training her daughter to protect herself for the day when Myers would eventually return, leading to her estrangement from her daughter and granddaughter. Myers escapes once again, leaving a string of corpses behind, as he makes his way back to Laurie and her kin. He snaps her son in law's neck but nobody really seems to give too much thought about his loss, and the three generations of women emerge victorious. Or so it would seem. 

It is a fun forty year follow up, with more of the same from the first picture, with somewhat more gruesome and disturbing kills. Myers continues to have fun with sheets in this film, though in a slightly different way. While we are rooting for Laurie to take him out, we know that's probably not going to happen, since it's already been established that he cannot be killed. It was still satisfying to see her appear to be successful. 

Michael Myers' silence and anonymity behind the mask, along with his indestructibility, make him a formidable monster. They were fairly good movies, but I am not inspired to see any of the others, as I feel that would be overkill.