From the very first shot, we're riveted. Director John Carpenter brings us into the world of his horror classic, Halloween, by putting us inside the head of the movie's psychopathic killer. Indeed, Halloween starts with an extended take rendered in POV; as a murderer stalks the outside of a suburban house, we see what he sees - a teenage couple, flirting inside. Eventually, he enters, follows them upstairs, and moves into the bedroom, where the killer goes on to stabbing the young girl under she's dead. Then the big reveal comes: the killer is just a kid. This scene brilliantly sets up Michael Myers, the immortal, anti-social antagonist who grows up to pursue his own family - among others - in a series that should have ended with this original installment. In retrospect, many of Halloween's plottings - babysitters, masked killers wielding knives, the fact that the movie is set on Halloween night - seem like cliches, but it's important to remember that Carpenter was the one who brought out these horror staples to begin with. As Myers stalks suburbia, eyeing up Jamie Lee Curtis, it's impossible not to feel terror-stricken.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
