Halloween - DVD Review

MOVIE
VIDEO
AUDIO
EXTRAS
OVERALL

Two Discs
2.35:1 Anamorphic widescreen
English Dolby Digital 5.1
Original Theatrical Trailer
Behind the scenes stills
Poster Gallery
Longer Television cut on separate disc
Run Time: 91/101 minutes
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MOVIE
Rated R for violence, language, drug use, sex and brief nudity

There was a time, long ago in my youth, that I was unable to watch horror films for two very different reasons. The first, and perhaps most omnipresent reason was the fact that my mother vehemently opposed horror films in all forms, especially in the gory and nudity filled slasher genre. Being that I wasn't the one doing the renting, I was unable to do anything more than casually wander into the horror section at our local West Coast Video and look at the video boxes, most of which (this was the eighties after all) had horrible horrible things on them. (Look no further than the case for Bloody Birthday that features a bloody hand with some fingers lopped off coming out of a birthday cake.) So, as with most restrictions, and as a boy of perhaps eight, I pressed it as far as I could. My first glimpse of Halloween was actually from the second one. It was late at night, during the week of Halloween, back when that week was still an event and you could find horror movies on every channel, and WGN was playing Halloween II. I just caught a scene towards the end, where Michael Myers stabs the nurse in the neck and lifts her off the ground, but that was sufficient to cause nightmares for the next week. I didn't see Halloween itself until years later, renting it just before a No R Rated Rentals restriction was put on our account, and then it was one of the horrible early stretched copies. In this instance, instead of doing pan and scan or cropping, they grabbed the top and bottom of the beautiful widescreen image and yanked, stretching it to fill the frame. In any case, Halloween was scary and wonderful with great acting from Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance, a good supporting cast, and that brilliant John Carpenter Camera work (which of late seems to have supplanted a good script in his mind, luckily Halloween has both.)
Halloween is the story of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) a bookish girl who, in the annals of slasher movie history will become one of the standout "virginal heroines" of the genre. Laurie and her friend Annie (Nancy Loomis) are babysitters on Halloween. Lynda (P.J. Soles) is the enterprising friend who takes advantage of the "empty" house with her boyfriend. Halloween wouldn't be such a big deal for these three if a man named Michael Myers (Nick Castle) hadn't escaped from the Smiths Grove asylum the night before, ten years to the date after he killed his older sister. He's tracked by psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) hoping the evil can be stopped before the bloodbath begins. And if you don't know the rest, know that it's worth experiencing.
Halloween, like Psycho before it, set a new standard in horror for violence in horror films. Which is exactly what many criticize about the film. It is more than that, however. It's mostly psychological, focusing more on what you don't see than what you do. As with Psycho, you see a lot of stabbing, but little penetration of a blade. John Carpenter's use of the tracking shot in this film in addition to the steady cam was nearly groundbreaking, and while he wasn't the first to have a mask block the camera for a POV shot (the first may be Bob Clark's [yes, the Christmas Story guy] terrifying Black Christmas), he perhaps used it the most effectively at that point. Halloween's score is perhaps along with Jaws and Psycho the most recognizable piece of score in film history and can send chills down the spine at the first notes. Interestingly, the name Sam Loomis is a reference to John Gavin's character from the original Psycho and Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of Janet Leigh.

VIDEO QUALITY
I had the Halloween laserdisc and that disc gave me the first opportunity to see John Carpenter's amazing 2.35:1 pushing the boundaries of the frame widescreen image. That image was stunning compared to the grainy crappy video images I'd been used to from the film, namely a video copy that Blockbuster released around Halloween. However, this DVD copy takes that beautiful print and runs it through a washing machine. Nearly all grain and scratches are nonexistent. The image has been so thoroughly cleaned that you might assume this was made today as a 70s period piece. Incredible. It too is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 Anamorphic widescreen.

AUDIO QUALITY
After the overwhelming quality of the video image, I found myself slightly disappointed with an otherwise high quality audio setup. First of all, one must remember that the film was made in 1978 for $300,000, likely with a mono soundtrack. This new mix was done at the same time as the fully remastered 20th Anniversary soundtrack and new sound effects were incorporated in the film with fully remixed versions of the original audio track. The result is slightly fuller, but still not full surround. The 5.1 track has little difference than the 2.0 track that keeps the front three speakers active while leaving little for the rear two to do. That being said, some of the subtle sound effects, creaks, the snap of a twig, the wind, the breathing, pops up in the rear speakers occasionally and very effectively.

EXTRAS
First off, I would like to express my displeasure with Criterion who, after releasing a wonderful laserdisc with full audio commentary featuring John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis, decided not only that they wouldn't do a DVD release, but that they wouldn't allow Anchor Bay to license their commentary and, after a legal back and forth as the DVD release date got closer and closer, Anchor Bay didn't have time to commission their own. What we do get, though, is a nice documentary on the making of Halloween that was created earlier for a VHS release but benefits this time from John Carpenter's participation.
Also we have, for the first time ever, all the scenes John Carpenter shot during the production of Halloween II to pad the running time on the TV version, all in full 2.35:1 widescreen, reedited into the film. So we get the longer TV cut with all the good stuff still in (blood, nudity, drugs, etc.) There's also a still gallery with some cool photos from the production, some trailers and TV spots that are generally bad as the background music shifts along with the cuts. You also get a collectable postcard. I have the famous image of the shape looking over the staircase.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
This disc would be a must have if it were still available. Fortunately for those who don't have it, unless you're an extreme collector and specifically need this limited edition set, you can buy both the first and second disc separately, relatively cheep too. Anyway, Halloween is truly great, terrifying and well made, unfortunately sallied in many people's minds as just the start of a bad line of sequels (parts 5 and 6, I'm looking at you! Thorn! What the hell were you thinking?!) but it is the best of the best and worth rediscovering in such a pristine format.

This limited edition two disc set had only 30,000 copies pressed and has become quite rare.