Halloween - A Film Analysis

Halloween - A Film Analysis

Halloween is a 1978 Slasher horror film, directed by John Carpenter. The film was relatively cheap to make, with the combination of a repeated, yet iconic soundtrack, unknown actors and no special effects or CGI, it made the film immensely profitable. This film is credited to signal the start of the Slasher genre, with famous films such as Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Prom Night all loosely based on Halloween’s narrative structure. However, most slasher films based their styles off the Friday the 13^th franchise for it’s barbaric and graphic murder scenes. Eventually, the whole idea of the Slasher died down significantly until the emergence

of the Scream series, diverging from Slasher, to a Torture Porn subgenre. Nevertheless, Halloween maintains to be a fundamental starting point of this Slasher subgenre as well as providing a basic narrative structure for other horror films to follow.

The film is set in the remote suburban town of Haddonfield, Illinois, the remoteness of the town rereinforces the idea of isolation, loneliness and the concept of ‘no escape’. It’s set at the time of Halloween night in 1963, where a young, 6-year old Michael Myers (Will Sandin) brutally murders his older teenage sister, Judith Myers (Sandy Johnson), after she partakes in sexual activity with her boyfriend. It’s this type of promiscuous activity that results in her death, which reflects the dominant ideology at the time, that middle class girls who work hard are rewarded, compared those who are involved with sex, alcohol and drug use – a strong link with death. After the murder, Michael is seen walking in a child Halloween costume of a clown. This reflects a potential innocence of the child, that what he did was perhaps an accident. The fact that he is only 6 years old also signifies an innocence to the character. The film then advances fifteen years, into 1978, creating a modern discourse for the audience. Michael escapes from the mental hospital he has spent the previous 15 years. The prominence of the date of Halloween Michael, as the anniversary of his sister’s murder looms close. This, is essentially the disruption of the equilibrium, as the escape leads Michael into the real world, causing havoc and manipulating minds at every corner. At this point we meet Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), a college student, is being stalked by Michael. After strange sightings of this masked man, Laurie spots Michael in her backyard, peering into her bedroom window. By this point, it’s Halloween night, the night Michael seemingly, has some unfinished business, his motivations and intentions to do so, are kept a secret from the audience, to maintain a sense of mystery, and to keep things “behind a mask”. As Laurie babysits, her college friend Annie also babysits. Annie receives a caul off her boyfriend to pick him up, and in doing so, drops the child she’s babysitting to Laurie’s house. Lurking in the neighbourhood is Michael, with Annie being Michael first victim of the night by murdering her in her car. The death of Annie is accompanied by the death of Laurie’s other friends Lynda and Bob, who together, are involved in sexual relations and activity. These deaths, weren’t intentional, just make-way, with Laurie being Michael’s primary target. Michael enters the household with the attempt to murder Laurie, through several failed attempts of killing Michael, Dr. Loomis intervenes with a pistol, firing gun shots to the head and chest of Michael, falling of the balcony in the process. As Dr. Loomis takes a second look at Michael’s ‘dead’ body, Michael is gone, with the non-diegetic sound of his breathing in the background and a shared suspicion that Michael could be anywhere.

Halloween has a unique and brilliant narrative structure and it’s possible it can be related to the Bulgarian theorist Tzvetan Todorov and his idea of the Classic Hollywood Narrative (CHN). The Classic Hollywood Narrative compromises of 5 different stages of a how a narrative progresses. Firstly, is the equilibrium, a state of normality, where everything is as it should be. Secondly, an event, someone or something disrupts this equilibrium, this sense of stability. The disruption, also known as disequilibrium, cause a series or chain of events, prompting a path to resolution. The path being to restore the equilibrium, changing things back to how they once were. This disequilibrium is eventually sold towards the end of the tale creating a new equilibrium. Although the beginning and new equilibrium may not be the same, they are both significantly better than the disequilibrium, making the narrative end on a more positive note.

Whether Halloween applies to the CHN is fairly difficult to discuss as there is no clear definition of what the disruption to the equilibrium is. If it goes by the order of the film, it would be Mike Myers murdering his sister back in 1963, which is the event that makes Michael Myers the barbaric character he is. Or, the disruption could be Michael escaping the hospital/asylum, which in turn, creates the rest of the film, without Michael escaping, these events or majority of the film wouldn’t of happened. However, if it wasn’t for the initial event of Michael murdering his sister, he may not have gone to the asylum in the first place, meaning he may not have targeted Laurie several years later. Going by the latter option, of the escape being the disruption, Halloween abides by the Classic Hollywood Narrative. The equilibrium being the night before Halloween, Laurie is studying hard and there’s an ongoing discussion and hype around the college’s ball. There seems to be a significant peace within the town, with people looking forward to Halloween night. The disruption to the equilibrium is Michael Myers escaping the hospital in Smith’s Grove, by stealing the car, when he was meant to be taken to a court hearing. Upon his escape, Dr Loofis warns several people about the escapee and the possible dangers he can bring to Haddonfield, especially on the personally historic occasion of Halloween for Myers. After multiple stalking occurrences, Laurie realizes that this figure is a potential threat to her and her fellow friends. The series events that followed are the murders of her friends, prompting the path to resolution, to kill or escape Mike Myers. Eventually, Mike Myers is killed… well, supposedly. This new equilibrium as such can be seen a sequel bait, with the mystery of where Michael can be, it leaves the audience on a cliff-hanger, maintaining this horror aspect of unknowing and mystery.

Another theorist that looked into narrative structure is Vladimir Propp. Propp believed that every character had a purpose, and as such, devise 8 different character roles that are seen in most narratives. He conducted his studies upon old Russian folk tales, and the same principle can be applied to film narratives, in particular, Halloween.

The villain in this film is clearly defined, Michael Myers. He’s the one who needs to be stopped, creates a sense of fear not only to other character, but to the audience too. Several murders, secretive nature and urge to kill all anchor the term villain to Michael Myers name. The hero in this case is Laurie. She successfully protects the children she’s babysitting as well as miraculously surviving the wrath of Michael Myers. Laurie is an androgynous character, fairly masculine, she’s a hard working student and not seen partaking in any adult activities (with spoking a joint being an exception, yet reflective of teenagers in the 1970’s), Laurie clearly reflects the dominant ideology of the time and is a strong symbol of the ‘ideal Americans’, to work hard and you will succeed. The donor and helper in this case can be considered as Dr. Loofis, essentially, if it wasn’t for his intervention, Laurie could have easily been murdered. He knows the story of Mike Myers, and perhaps is aware of some of his intentions. The helping aspect is the shooting of Myers, aiding the hero her life.

Claude Levi Strauss looked at narrative structure in a different way, in terms of binary oppositions. The opposite values reveals the structure of media texts. In the case of, Halloween, there is a clear opposition of Good v Evil. The evil nature is obvious with Michael Myers, with him being credited as ‘pure evil’ and a tendency to kill. The good, indicates Laurie, in one sense, she is good as she survives and protects the vulnerable children, and in the other sense, she is good in terms of her actions and attitudes. With her being and androgynous, virginal, work-orientated character, she correctly reflects the dominant ideology at the time of the film. It also relates to the Structural Consensus Theory, in that a person of middle class value education more than those of a lower class, of whom alcohol, drugs and sex seems to be the priority. 

Halloween uses flashbacks as part of a narrative technical technique to manipulate our awareness of time and place. This idea of narrative was brought to fruition by Bordwell and Thompson, although they didn’t fully come up with a narrative idea or structure, they came up with several important ideas. The effect of the flashback to 1963 in the Judith Myers murder scene is used to establish the character of Michael Myers, signifying that he has tendencies to kill and despite his young age, is pure evil. The text of “15 year later” anchors the fast forward in time, that we have moved 15 years from 1963 to 1978. B&T also explored the notion of cause and effect, that the audience links a problem or a cause and make a connection to the effect. Even if there is no obvious connection, we still try to establish one.

There are 3 distinctions of time within a film. The screen duration, plot duration and the story duration. For Halloween, the screen duration is 91 minutes, the plot duration is about 2 days (Oct. 30/31) and the story duration is over 15 years. Although the murder scene from 1963, the remaining 15 years are not shown, indicating that Michael has been in the psychiatric hospital for this duration. The actual main plot duration of the film is from October 30 1978 – October 31 1978, and the 1963 is a flashback notifying the audience of the story of Michael Myers.

Halloween successfully abides by the two theories of the Male Gaze and The Final Girl.

 The Male Gaze, a theory by Laura Mulvey, is the notion of woman being portrayed in a sexual or provocative manner, which is tailored for the male audience’s pleasure. In this case, Laurie’s friends are seen wearing short skirt, crop tops and are seen experimenting in sexual acts. This criteria satisfies a male-dominated audience, and although these ideas may be made intentionally or unintentionally, they still support Mulvey’s theory that woman displayed ion a slightly sexualised manner appeal to men.

The Final girl theory reveals that the most manly, sensible and essentially, the cleverest girl survives a particular event. In this case, Laurie is the final girl as she is the one who survives Michael Myer’s spree. The reason behind Laurie’s survival is that she is a virginal, androgynous character. She is not seen discussing sex and is portrayed in a masculine style. One prime example of this is when Annie suggests Laurie going to the college ball with Ben Tramer, Annie decides to take matters into her own hands and contacts Ben about the date, after hearing the news, Laurie immediately calls the date off, stating she’s not interested. This reflects the ideology that Laurie isn’t focused on promiscuous acts, and instead values her education. This is also evident, when she forgets her Chemistry text book, and is in desperate need of it back. Laurie survives as she doesn’t have sex, young teens in the 1970’’s were experimenting with sex, and this was frowned upon by elders, going against their ideology, that education should be valued before sex. As a result, Halloween reflects a “reactionary sexual agenda”, meaning that those who have sex are killed, maintaining a strong connection between sex and death. Laurie’s friends Annie, bob and Lynda are a killed for their actions. However, they died for being a distraction, Laurie was always Michael’s No.1 target.