Why Halloween (2018) Is Scarier Than You Think

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

Compass International Pictures

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.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.