Why Halloween (2018) Is Scarier Than You Think

4. Halloween's (1978) Most Terrifying Moments Happen During The Day

Many point towards Carpenter and Debra Hill's Halloween as the birthplace of the slasher genre, and they'd be correct. The film pioneered so many of the genre's tropes, but it's also a slasher unlike any other. For starters, it's nowhere near as violent as its later relatives would become, and most of the suspense is actually derived during the day, building tension to an almost unbearable level as night descends on Haddonfield, and the inevitable follows.

In a great many ways, it's Halloween's earliest moments that are its most terrifying. From the moment Michael emerges into view from behind the door of the Myers house and begins breathing heavily, to the moment where Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) looks out of the classroom window and sees The Shape fixated on her, Halloween revels in making the audience feel both helpless and uncomfortable, as daylight itself falls victim to Myers' campaign of terror.

How does this relate to the new Halloween? Well, Michael spends no time at all stalking, biding his time, or toying with his victims. Once he arrives in Haddonfield, he starts killing instantly. It's almost second nature, and though it could be argued that the film loses a key component of Michael's horror in not having him observe his victims the way he used to, the shift in approach actually begets a terrifying revelation - one that lies directly in Myers' institutionalisation, and in previous depictions of the character onscreen.