John Carpenter’s original Halloween is a sinister slasher that creeps more than it cuts. With an unnerving retro score, a disturbing presence in the masked killer Michael Myers/The Shape (Nick Castle), equally impressive reactions from school kid Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Doctor Loomis (Donald Pleasence), and a solid visual grasp on the terror of stalking, Halloween slices past its and thin under armor to make a boatload of relative thrills. While its many sequels, remakes, and timeline redos (there are three) all end poorly—including the dull Carpenter-written Halloween II released three years after—Halloween has enough grit, stabs, blood, and screams to satisfy.

Halloween night, 1963. The small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, experiences its first murderous grip: a girl stabbed by her own younger brother. Donning a clown’s mask and costume, six-year-old Michael (Will Sandin) stabs his older sister, Judith Myers (Sandy Johnson), to death, before stumbling outside into his parents, who unmask a blank, unexpressive stare into the void. Michael’s institutionalized. Nothing else happens for a while. One night shy of 15 years later, on October 30, 1978, Dr. Loomis, Michael’s doctor since his treachery, drives to the penitentiary only to witness Michael’s violent escape. Loomis presumes he seeks revenge on Haddonfield; seeing Michael as “purely and simply evil,” he warns the Haddonfield police and other authorities about their impending doom.

Meanwhile, 17-year-old Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and some friends live typical high school lives whilst preparing for the upcoming Haddonfield High Halloween homecoming dance. They talk about boys, school, and life; Laurie reveals her Halloween babysitting plans; and everyone anticipates the tricks or treats they’ll receive. But as weird things happen around town—hardware store robbery of a single tool, for example—and Laurie gets warned of a Halloween serial killer referred to as “the Bogeyman,” she notices a real watcher. Whether creeping in his car, staring from behind a bush hundreds of feet away, or breathing heavily enough for Laurie to hear, Michael stalks Laurie and might even want Laurie to know it. She and Loomis must stop at nothing to bring down this unstoppable force of mutilating cruelty before he kills—or meet what might be an immovable fate.

Does anyone really know what it feels like to be watched? To be followed around, stared at incessantly, and constantly lacking privacy? I mean, sure, there are helicopter parents, government surveillance techniques, and the like, but nothing consistent, overwhelming or malicious. Laurie, unfortunately, knows exactly how that feels, at least by Halloween’s end. For much of the film, Michael does nothing but that. From others’ backyards and distant street corners to inside his car or someone’s house, Laurie notices his surreptitious presence everywhere she goes—and it’s terrifying. With every scene of Michael’s rhythmic, slow, near-heaving for air through his mask, the camera creeps over his shoulder as he himself sneakily peers at others, turning viewers into something like accomplices (however unwanted) in Michael’s evil. Castle ensures every one of Loomis’ descriptions of Michael—with his “blank, pale, emotionless face, and… the blackest eyes. The devil’s eyes” that saw “past the wall, looking at this night, and humanly patient… waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off”—came across. For the most part, when he lurks, he does just that: he waits “for some secret, silent alarm to” tell him when to calmly and collectedly mutilate another soul. He already waited 15 years; why not wait in front of his prey to rattle them before death? When he finally chases down his next cuts, he kills them with little more mess than whatever they create in panic for themselves. Smashing windows his victims bolt on him, destroying locked doors, and cutting through clothes are all part of the appeal for him. The Halloween crew effectively demonstrates the scariness of stalking through such an antagonist, who only grows scarier as more about him is revealed.

Halloween also has a few vague themes to spice things up beyond its high school-level narrative. Characters’ fates and their faith in the face of great evil get tested—a tougher feat than even the most challenging AP chem exam. In Laurie’s class, this fate-and-faith illustration is established through a discussion of two philosophers’ views on fate. While one believes “fate is somehow related only to religion,” the other believes that fate “was like a natural element like earth, air, fire, and water.” In the latter view, “fate is immovable, like a mountain. It stands where man passes away.” Both potential fate explanations come into play for Laurie, as her belief in the bogeyman’s existence dictates her initial reactions to his potential arrival in town. She initially believes Michael’s sightings are made-up. She beats herself up when he pops up—”Just calm down. This is ridiculous”—and reassures the kid she babysits, Tommy (Brian Andrews), that “there’s no bogeyman,” even as her friends go missing one by one and sightings become more incessant and worrisome. In short, she subscribes to the belief that a killer wouldn’t come to their town, or that one isn’t meant to show up in Haddonfield. Unfortunately, like truly religious (not irrationally so) people in the face of facts that contradict their faith-based teaching, she finds her belief irrelevant. Haddonfield, Laurie, and Loomis’ fates are all tied to Michael’s “purely evil” actions. While her fate is more positive than many others’ on this dreadful Halloween night, it is in fact as “immovable” as Michael’s “mountain” of treacherous willpower.

Unfortunately, Halloween could’ve spent more time thickening its main protagonists, done more than just hint at Michael’s motivation, and built more angst into Michael’s killer confrontations with Loomis and the past. Laurie, Loomis, and the rest feel generic. Laurie doesn’t have any problems squeezed harder by Michael’s presence, and Loomis’s existence seems to revolve around Michael. Neither one develops nor changes. Michael probably has the most scintillating backstory, but that’s only hinted at. The sequels all dot their own explanations (however stupidly), but none of these answers gets revealed here, which is frustrating. Plus, with a few campy kill sequences and atrocious sound mixing making dialogue near-silent and the score almost deafening, it’s hard to stay consistently engaged. Thankfully, with enough kinetic star power, atmospherically charged stalker scares, some meta appeal in the film’s horror-movie-in-a-horror-movie toying, and a fateful undertone, Halloween slashes and stings more than it sours and stinks. For fans of ’70s slashers, Carpenter horror, Jamie Lee Curtis’s screams, Donald Pleasence, and old-fashioned jumpscares, Halloween is the ideal popcorn flick to watch in the dark, with the lights off and doors bolted.

Screens Friday, 10/31, 11:59 p.m. @ Coolidge Corner Theatre
Part of the ongoing repertory series: Slashics
Preceded by Mike Williamson’s short film The Static