The Pro's:
Halloween is a classic horror movie for a reason. Its iconic theme is at once haunting and heightens the tension, while providing an aural cue for the villain. The first installment of what would become a staple franchise, it introduces an iconic horror figure up there with Freddy Kruger and Jason Vorhees, creepy and seemingly omni-present in the now infamous white mask. Michael Meyers has a way of suddenly appearing that just chills.
The Con's: This movie was made on a shoe-string budget a long time ago, and boy can you tell. One thing I noticed first is the sound quality. The movie just sounds bad. The music and voice tracks are just grainy and not "clean", and that's not a stylistic choice. This movie also suffers from the all-too-common horror movie trope of characters being absolute idiots and making dumb decisions no one would ever make in real life. It's also hard to ignore that for a character who seemingly only walks slowly, he sure seems to catch everyone who is sprinting, and even driving, away from him.
Consensus: Halloween became a hit classic because it delivers a great villain and a great theme song with creepy tension, but it's just barely better than a B-movie when you strip the nostalgia away, and it's minimal budget is apparent in the production value and audio quality. 6 out of 10 stars.
The Con's: This movie was made on a shoe-string budget a long time ago, and boy can you tell. One thing I noticed first is the sound quality. The movie just sounds bad. The music and voice tracks are just grainy and not "clean", and that's not a stylistic choice. This movie also suffers from the all-too-common horror movie trope of characters being absolute idiots and making dumb decisions no one would ever make in real life. It's also hard to ignore that for a character who seemingly only walks slowly, he sure seems to catch everyone who is sprinting, and even driving, away from him.
Consensus: Halloween became a hit classic because it delivers a great villain and a great theme song with creepy tension, but it's just barely better than a B-movie when you strip the nostalgia away, and it's minimal budget is apparent in the production value and audio quality. 6 out of 10 stars.