Countdown to Halloween, Day 31

And, of course, the countdown to Halloween has to end with Halloween (1978, dir. John Carpenter)!

It’s Halloween; everyone’s entitled to one good scare.

This is a classic for a reason. From the opening scene and its first person perspective, ending with the very creepy shot of little Michael Myers in his clown costume, the film is iconic. Jamie Lee Curtis’s Final Girl. The score, which plays so neatly against our desire for balance and rhythm. The effective uncovering of the horror of the suburbs, done here well before it was an old trope. When I first saw this as an adult, I thought it would be boring, but it sucked me in and I found myself in love with it. This is the second John Carpenter film on the list (and would’ve been the third, but I made the very difficult decision to remove They Live at the last second) – he’s called The Master of Horror for a very good reason.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Watch a great horror movie – find the good scare you deserve. 

Earlier countdown entries:

1. Night of the Living Dead, dir. George Romero (1968)
2. Dawn of the Dead, dir. George Romero (1978)
3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, dir. Philip Kaufman (1978)
4. Get Out, dir. Jordan Peele (2017)
5. Hellraiser, dir. Clive Barker (1987)
6. Psycho, dir. Alfred Hitchcock (1960)
7. The Birds, dir. Alfred Hitchcock (1963)
8. Jaws, dir. Steven Spielberg (1975)
9. Teeth, dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein (2007)
10. Candyman, dir. Bernard Rose (1992)
11. Creep, dir. Patrick Brice (2014)
12. The Wicker Man, dir. Robin Hardy (1973)
13. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, dir. Tobe Hooper (1974)
14. Cabin in the Woods, dir. Drew Goddard (2012)
15. Suspiria, dir. Dario Argento (1977)
16. The Witch, dir. Robert Eggers (2015)
17. Rosemary’s Baby, dir. Roman Polanski (1968)
18. The Babadook, dir. Jennifer Kent (2014)
19. It Follows, dir. David Robert Mitchell (2014)
20. Carrie, dir. Brian de Palma (1976)
21. Ginger Snaps, dir. John Fawcett (2000)
22. American Werewolf in London, dir. John Landis (1981)
23. The Thing, dir. John Carpenter (1982)
24. The Fly, dir. David Cronenberg (1986)
25. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, dir. Ana Lily Amirpour (2014)
26. It Comes at Night, dir. Trey Edward Shults (2017)
27. Shaun of the Dead, dir. Edgar Wright (2004)
28. 28 Days Later, dir. Danny Boyle (2002)
29. Train to Busan, dir. Sang-ho Yeon (2016)
30. Thirst, dir. Chan-wook Park (2009)