10 Great Horror Movies With An Incredibly Simple Premise

A seminal entry in the classic slasher genre, Halloween inspired the wave of bloodthirsty killer flicks that dominated horror in the '80s.

Michael Myers is, as Dr Loomis would say, "simply evil".

We, as viewers, are given no real insight into how his murderous mind operates, or why he's strangely invulnerable to damage. According to director John Carpenter, the scare factor in Michael Myers lies more in the absence of any defining character than any obvious traits or complicated origin.

After escaping from a sanitarium, Myers returns to his old stomping grounds of Haddonfield, Illinois. There, he brutally murders several teenagers before setting his sights on Laurie Strode. It's a straightforward narrative of a silent monster coming to town and wreaking havoc.

The beauty of the film lies in its simplicity. Made on a shoestring budget, it succeeds in holding suspense via clever pacing, an iconic score, and the air of unsettling mystery that surrounds the film's antagonist. The increasingly ridiculous explanations for Michael Myers' brand of evil in later films only further exemplified the magic of the classic original. Sometimes, less really is more.