Every Halloween Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

There's just no topping the original. As stated, John Carpenter's Halloween didn't necessarily invent the slasher subgenre, but it did perfect it to the extent that waves of imitators followed. Above and beyond this, though, Carpenter's third movie as director remains a masterclass in atmosphere, pacing and succinct storytelling.

While there's never anything explicitly supernatural about the masked killer Michael Myers, the script and direction present him in such a way as to create the sense that he is not just an escaped mental patient, but a bona fide phantom or ghoul: 'the bogey man,' as they so often describe him.

It's notable that Nick Castle, the first actor to don the white-painted William Shatner mask, is listed in the cast not as Michael Myers, but simply 'The Shape.' We're not meant to think of him as a human being, and by extension we're not meant to take this as a realistic representation of a serial killer, but rather a campfire ghost story writ large.

As primary provider of exposition, Donald Pleasance does wonders conveying this ghost story feel, and while a then-unknown Jamie Lee Curtis may have been largely cast due to being Janet Leigh's daughter (acknowledging the film's debt to Psycho), her Laurie Strode is every inch the quintessential final girl. Likewise, PJ Soles and Nancy Loomis inspired countless victims-in-waiting as Laurie's endearing but clearly marked-for-death best friends.