Good morning 🐣

Before we dive into this week’s main event, be sure to check out this insanely creative claymation short film by Lee Hardcastle about a father defending his baby from aliens. It’s less than three minutes long, but it’s funny, violent, and over-the-top. Filled with beautiful DayGlo colors and a hefty helping of green alien blood, it’s perfect icing on the cake for a Cinescape Halloween.

Now watch this 👀

Though “Halloween” (1978 • Shudder, fuboTV, AMC+, and on demand • watch the trailer) may not have invented the slasher genre, it sure as Hell threw a big coming-out party.

Written and directed by John Carpenter, who later made the 1982 remake of “The Thing,” which I wrote about back in June (footage from the 1951 original is featured throughout this movie), it’s one of the most successful independent films of all time and served as inspiration for countless subsequent films in the genre.

As in “Dr. No,” one of the first films I wrote about, the opening credits immediately kick in with one of those theme songs that’s instantly iconic. I suppose the villain, Michael Myers, actually kind of is the horror equivalent to James Bond: multiple resetting timelines throughout the series, sometimes the same actors/characters appearing in a few of those timelines, starring a misogynist with an utter disregard for human life. Michael has a license to kill — only we, the audience, have granted it.

I’m pretty sure the first time I saw “Halloween” was in a high school film class, which… feels illegal, but it’s the perfect setting. The movie is actually fairly restrained compared to most horror, but it’s such a well crafted portrait of horrible things happening right under everyone’s noses.

A healthy chunk of this movie takes place in broad daylight. Michael stalks his victims while they walk home from school. He drives past the hardware store he previously broke into as the cops stand around, hands on hips. One of his victims, the Phelps Garage auto mechanic, is dumped behind some bushes on the side of the road; you’d drive right by and never know it. People are repeatedly unaware of what’s going on around them.

At night, when our heroine, Laurie Strode (“Introducing Jamie Lee Curtis”), runs desperately through the neighborhood, her cries for help are rebuffed by her neighbors and their porch lights go dark. I genuinely felt horrified. The town’s prior ignorance now becomes willful.

It’s this passage of time from broad daylight to dusk to night that’s so beautiful and haunting. The stark, bone-white sky during the day hides what’s in plain sight, while kids go trick-or-treating in the evening like the Bogeyman isn’t waiting patiently to snatch them away. It shows that no one is safe from the so-called Shape. He — “it” as Dr. Sam Loomis (played by Donald Pleasence, another James Bond connection) would correct you — is relentless and can be anywhere at anytime.

Two of the more interesting deaths in this film:

1. An unnamed dog found off screen: “He got hungry.” Just three simple words. Yeesh!

2. Lynda: Michael comes in wearing a sheet like a ghost along with her (unknowingly dead) boyfriend’s glasses. He just stands there breathing in the doorway. Thinking it’s her boyfriend, Lynda increasingly doesn’t know how to react, so she keeps saying things, like a nervous tic.

On a side note, my first thought in most horror movies is: Does no one know how to turn on the lights? Am I the only one who’d rather not fumble around in the dark? Not just when something nefarious is going down. I mean even when walking into a friend’s house or grabbing a glass of water in the middle of the night. In this case I’m willing to blame the ’70s energy crisis, but future horror movie victims have no excuse in my opinion. Turn on those lights!

Anyways… Happy (Almost) Halloween!

Until next time! 🎃