Halloween (1978 film)

Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with producer Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis. The plot tells about a mental patient who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween night when he was six years old. Fifteen years later, he escapes and returns to his hometown, where he stalks a female babysitter and her friends. A remake was released in 2007, which was followed by a sequel in 2009. A novelization, a video game and comic book series have been based on the film.

About Halloween (1978 film) in brief

Summary Halloween (1978 film)Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with producer Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis. The plot tells about a mental patient who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween night when he was six years old. Fifteen years later, he escapes and returns to his hometown, where he stalks a female babysitter and her friends, while under pursuit by his psychiatrist. Filming took place in Southern California in May 1978, before premiering in October, where it grossed USD 70 million, becoming one of the most profitable independent films of all time. Halloween spawned a film franchise comprising eleven films which helped construct an extensive backstory for its antagonist Michael Myers, sometimes narratively diverging entirely from previous installments. A remake was released in 2007, which was followed by a sequel in 2009. An eleventh installment, which serves as a direct sequel to the original film that retcons all previous sequels, was released in 2018. Two sequels to that installment, titled Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, are scheduled for release on October 15, 2021 and October 14, 2022, respectively. A novelization, a video game and comic book series have been based on the film. In 2006, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \”culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. The film was released on October 31, 1963, in the fictional small town of Haddonfield, Illinois.

Michael Myers inexplicably stabs his older sister Judith to death with a kitchen knife in their home and is incarcerated at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. On October 30, 1978, on Halloween, high school student Laurie Strode drops off a key at the still unoccupied and dilapidated Myers home her father is trying to sell. Michael stalks her throughout the day, and she notices, but her friends Annie Brackett and Lynda Van der Klok dismiss her concerns. Later that night, Laurie babysits Tommy Doyle, while Annie babysits Lindsey Wallace across the street, unaware that Michael has followed them. When Annie’s boyfriend, Paul, calls her to come and pick him up, she takes Lindsey over to the Doyle house to spend the night with Laurie and Tommy. Michael then poses as Bob in a ghost costume and confronts Lynda, who teases him to no effect. Laurie cowers backwards in the hallway, where Michael suddenly appears and attacks her, causing her to fall backwards on the staircase. In the end, Laurie escapes and flees back to the neighbor’s house where she gets Tommy to wake up and let her in then orders him and Lindsey to hide him and call the police. Michael gets in the street to see the kids running down the street and have them call a neighbor to have them run down the road and have the police see the house. Michael escapes by stealing their car and kills a mechanic for his coveralls and stealing a white mask, a rope, and knives from a local hardware store.