Halloween
Halloween is a 1978 film from the USA, directed by John Carpenter, running 92 minutes. reelscum files it under slasher.
- Year
- 1978 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 92 min
- Director
- John Carpenter
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (0/100)
- Also known as
- John Carpenter's Halloween · The Babysitter Murders · Halloween : La Nuit des masques
Defined in the glossary: Slasher
$325,000 into $70 million, and every slasher after it is a photocopy.
Carpenter made it for around $325,000 with a synth score he wrote himself in a few days, and it changed the economics of horror for a decade. Almost no blood, a masked figure who is mostly just standing there when you finally notice him, and a widescreen frame Carpenter fills with empty space you keep checking.
The killer has no motive worth the name, which the sequels then spent thirty years ruining by explaining. Ignore them. The original works precisely because Michael Myers is a shape, not a person.
Dean Cundey's photography is the other star. Watch what he does with the suburban dark.
Trailer
The numbers
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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Written about
- The giallo, 1963 to 1976
A line of yellow paperbacks, a killer in black gloves, and Mario Bava building the American slasher a decade before Hollywood cashed the cheque.
On these lists
- Gateway drugs for horror normies
For the friend who liked Hereditary and thinks that is the deep end. Nothing here will make them leave the room.
Filed alongside
Friday the 13th
Cynical, derivative, and it industrialised the whole form. Savini's finest hour.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Almost bloodless, and still the most upsetting film here. The heat is the horror.
Black Christmas
Predates Halloween and is scarier. The phone calls still work.
High Tension
Aja before Hollywood, at maximum brutality, with a twist that still starts fights.
A Bay of Blood
Bava invents the slasher a decade early. Friday the 13th copied two kills outright.
Maniac Cop
A dead cop stalks New York in uniform. Larry Cohen writes, Robert Z'Dar's jaw does the rest.
Prom Night
Jamie Lee Curtis, a masked killer, and a decade-old secret. Halloween cashes in, disco included.
Silent Night, Deadly Night
The killer-Santa movie that got itself run out of cinemas in a week.
The Burning
The raft scene is the best kill in any slasher. The rest is fine.
My Bloody Valentine
Canadian, mine-set, unusually well shot. The censored cut ruined it for decades.
Happy Birthday to Me
A prestige director slumming in the glut, and a poster more famous than the film.
Sleepaway Camp
Ninety minutes of nothing, then an ending nobody who has seen it forgets.