Halloween (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  1978
Genre:  Horror
Director:  John Carpenter
Starring:  Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers, Nick Castle
Rifftrax Year:  2006
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

And with that iconic theme we turn down the lights...

Trick or Treat!

Halloween is the ionic slasher movie that set most of those "rules" that Jamie Kennedy was going on about in Scream.  There were movies before it that contained some jerk waving something sharp around as the bad guy before, Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre being the notable entries in the genre, but Halloween was the film where something clicked so solidly that the imitators started springing up immediately creating a new subgenre, which eventually included decades late sequels to Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Given how many films built on and detracted from its simple formula it's easy to forget just what a beautifully tight creation the original Halloween is.

The plot is simple:  A madman has escaped from a mental asylum and has returned home to kill strangers at random.  His chosen targets are a group of babysitters on Halloween night.  Meanwhile his psychiatrist chases him down and seeks to put a bullet in his head.

Those looking for gore and sex are best left at putting in a Friday the 13th film instead.  Halloween has almost none of the former (just mostly acts of violence without visible skin penetration) and just a little bit of the latter (and a few innuendos thrown in for good measure).  John Carpenter wasn't interested in setting up tropes for other films to follow in this film but rather create as efficient a thriller as he possibly could.  And he succeeded.  Halloween is a fantastic little mood setter, one that has earned a place in everyone's scary movie marathon on All Hallow's Eve.  It wasn't enough that the movie called itself "Halloween" to be the ultimate movie to watch on Halloween, it bloody well earned it.

Though my rotation still favors Night of the Living Dead and the Evil Dead trilogy, personally.

MSTies will definitely remember Donald Pleasence from his roles in Warrior of the Lost World and The Pumaman.  Those with a fondness for him may want to check out one of his most iconic roles of Dr. Sam Loomis, the masked killer Michael Myer's psychiatrist who tends to act a bit like Captain Ahab and Myers is his white whale.  Pleasence is excellent here and commands every scene he is in.  He would reprise the role four times down the road, and while in each installment he brought his A-game his best material is all in this film.  The film also stars Jamie Lee Curtis, who started out as the original "Scream Queen" but bloomed into a bit of a star down the road in films such as A Fish Called Wanda and True Lies.  Curtis is pretty solid as "the virgin" and helps define the "final girl survivor" cliche most horror films work in.

With the subgenre that sprung from it Halloween became a franchise with Michael Myers being one of those unkillable killers that graces the screen.  None of the sequels were ever able to recreate the magic of this original entry, though many of which managed to mangle it up while attempting to do so.  As of this writing, 2018, the latest of which, simply titled "Halloween," is the latest to completely fail it.  Halloween is best viewed in a vacuum, wishing away the excess baggage of poor sequels, remakes, and reboots and whatever nonsense they came up with to add to "lore."  It works best just being a simplistic and spooky little film that graced cinemas in the 70's.

The Trax

To an extent I have a bit of a resentment toward the Halloween Rifftrax for various reasons.  First it's always confounded that they would choose to riff the most artistically crafted example of the slasher genre as opposed to its various imitators.  Even if you have your issues with Halloween there is little doubt that a film like Friday the 13th could offer more to the format than John Carpenter's film.  And the fact that they never did riff Friday the 13th just makes the Halloween riff a bit more of a shame.

Also the Halloween Rifftrax marked an early annoyance I was having with Rifftrax in general, in which their go-to safe joke is about how bored the riffers are.  I've never liked these jokes even in movies that genuinely are boring.  They've never been funny and they lack creativity.  When you get to a film like Halloween, which has a deliberate casual pace, I find themselves projecting a boredom onto me and making me bored in turn.  Since I've seen the movie many times and have never been bored once, yet I feel boredom during the Rifftrax then I can only conclude that it's the riff that's boring me and not the movie.  I suppose part of the joke is them playacting the role of an impatient mainstream viewer that wants more action, but the repetitious nature of the joke kills it.

For these reasons Halloween is a riff I initially didn't care for, though over a decade later I find myself warm to it.  While these aspects still annoy me to an extent I've opened up to certain things the riff actually does well.  There are some creative jabs at the film, including a rather cute sketch during the opening murder in which Mike and returning contributor Kevin portray as a grumpy director John Carpenter returning home to his nagging wife "Debbie."  They also play a bit with the silence of the movie, interjecting dialogue during ominous moments where the lack of dialogue adds to the tension, being throwing a voice into a telephone with no answer or just giving silent stalker Michael Myers his own batch of humorous lines.

"Come out with your pants up!"

The riff also plays off of the debauchery tropes Halloween tees up.  While it's true that a film that embellishes these aspects more would be a richer target, the fact remains that Halloween does have them and they are ripe for mocking.  Halloween is also a low budget independent film that was shot through artistic determination, but as such continuity errors remain and the duo won't deny their listeners of them pointing it out.  Some of these can be fun, such as their pointing out the constantly changing weather, while other points can come off as nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, such as the points of daylight in the afternoon.  All of this and they never once mention the sidewalk palm trees in "Illinois."

I'm of two minds on Halloween, because the riff can be a bit rocky because often they go for an inspired joke while following it up with a dull one.  The fact however is that the Halloween riff is pretty funny and is at the expense of a great movie that never wears out its welcome.  Halloween just might be worth a shot even if my initial response didn't deem it all that worthy.

Good