Halloween

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.