What Made Halloween Work? - Part 2 of a History of Horror...kind of

Was Carpenter building the perfect house, or laying it upon the perfect foundation?  

...what took place is a rarity for anybody who loves film, a movie that defies expectations so much that it becomes a religious experience.  While some people feel they see Jesus in a piece of toast and have their lives changed forever, I saw perfected horror in a television and followed the same belief.  I was shocked with Halloween's ability to elicit such strong physical responses – a pounding heart, sweaty hands and numerous jumps in my seat.  Carpenter had come to revolutionize the horror film through meticulous compositing of the frame, a technique that has remained to work for the past 30 years.

The technique can best be understood by first looking towards a few examples.  When Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett are in the Meyer’s house walking cautiously up to Michael’s old bedroom Loomis approaches a window and is positioned frame right, leaving about 2/3 of the frame filled with the window.  Suddenly an object hits the glass.  The empty space caused the viewer to believe it was a simple medium profile shot (something they have seen time and again within television and other movies), yet it was all just a trick.  Another great example is the picture above, in which the the frame yet again leaves just enough enough breathing room to have Michael jumping out the back seat be unexpected and yet terrifying.  

            This shot is no different than a practical joke in which a person is lead into a dark basement and comes to be startled by a friend who pops out of the shadows.  The person who is startled is done so because of the preconceived notion that no one is downstairs, and thus the person should have nothing to worry about.  But since a dark basement is commonly a fear experienced during childhood transitioning into adulthood the “what if?” that our consciousness develops never stops.  Thus, to apply the analogy to Halloween, the basement represents the horror film, that is, the basement represents the potential fear of the horror film.  The composition represents the unexpected within the basement, that is, the unexpected in the horror film being viewed - the gore, pop-outs and antagonist.  Finally, the person who jumps out of the darkness would then represent the object of horror, that is, Michael jumping out of the shadows or the object hitting the window.  Thus combining all three of these elements, a potential fear for what is about to be seen with the unexpected occurrence of horrific objects within the film.  Carpenter developed this formula into an exact science.  Though it can be argued that films such as Black Christmas or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were the first true slasher films - a point that will be discussed soon.  

            My bewilderment over the fact that this film, having been released over twenty-five years ago when I initially saw it, was still able to make this formula work lead me to understand that it cannot simply be just those three elements, nor any other technical formulas – such as music or editing.  The reason for this fact is proven by looking towards how other slasher films such as Valentines Day, Black Christmas, Prom Night and so on adopted and adhered to the same principles and were not nearly as frightening.  It was not just the technique at all, but the story that came to revolutionize the genre. The idea of having the film take place during Halloween added a further eerie reality to the overall plot.  Halloween continues to be a creepy day in the life of any child, a day in which a strange brooding emotion permeates through the air.  Combining a marvelously constructed horror story, both in form and content, with an equally marvelously constructed eerie holiday combined into greatness.  New Years Evil, Valentines Day, Prom Night, and Black Christmas are films whose content is associated with more joyful holidays and thus are not nearly as effective regardless of the adoption of the particular techniques.  The idea of a murder spree on taking place on Valentines Day almost seems farcical in how much the two plot elements contradict each other - a day of love and a day of terror.  Another great example of this fact is evident through the success of Friday the 13th, an equally brooding day, and a movie that continued on for what will soon be nine sequels.  Personally I believe the films are completely lacking in substance, but it makes my point all the stronger in that regardless it still has been a successful series.

            The reason for this can be again observed through the basement analogy.  The dark basement is the day – either Halloween or Friday the 13th – and thus contains an underlying fear within it.  What these films provide is prevention for the imagination from developing its own individual, subconscious images associated with these days and rather provides them for the audience.  Michael and Jason are now direct and horrific manifestations of their fears.  They have come to replace the individually created images that most people commonly had to take. 

            Now in my opinion, Halloween has lost the eerie effect it once maintained as can be indicated by the fifteen or less trick-or-treaters coming to my door every year.  Its just no longer the holiday it once was.  Friday the 13th has also lost is eeriness and what was once a day of horror film marathons on the USA network has perpetuated itself into a day like any other.  It is my theory that it is because people had finally obtained sufficient images to associate with these days in the likes of humanistic characters like Michael or Jason and hence the imagination can no longer cause peoples’ subconscious to develop their own, unique fears - our individually manifested fears have become ubiquitous.  Literature or stories passed-on, while being effective in eliciting an overall terror, still maintained an individualistic perspective on what the subject matter could look like in a physical form, and nothing except pure visuals can provide a unanimous understanding of what particular horrifying objects can be - even novels who go deep into description provide ambiguity.  For instance, if I write a horror film script and it gets passed on between readers, they will each develop their own visual sense of what the content could become, but when the film is produced all of that individuality has now gone away in favor of one, particular image. Even if people try to recall their previously conceived notions, the new image cannot be overlooked. What I mean to get at is previously, before Halloween and Friday the 13th based films came out the fear we gained on these days was based upon the fact that no amount of description could totally get our fears across - whether emotional, physical or mental.  Hence, everyone was alone in their fears, unable to connect with anyone else.  These films created a sense of unity which has lead to a dilapidation of these holidays once strong sense of fear.

A Personal History of Horror - Part 1

Where is that horror?

Having just finished our freshmen year of college my future roommate Kevin and I decided to pay a trip to the haven of distracted boredom – Orland Square Mall. It hadn’t taken but a day to understand how use we had become to living on our own rather than under the watchful eye of our parents – back in a town filled with old beds, old friends and an atmosphere scattered with old memories. The stores were mostly the same with a few having been replaced with what only seemed to be a different name, yet containing the same crap. It seemed that everyone else home from school went through the same understanding and thus the mall became an early, unwelcoming high school reunion. There were the people who had stayed the same, people who had changed for the better, people who had changed for the worse, all asking the same questions and leaving us to give the same responses. There was the girl you always had a crush on who you hoped you’d see again, the friend of your friend who was only saying hello because it was too awkward to ignore, there was the person you hoped you’d never see again and understood why when the conversation surpassed two minutes worth of time. Suddenly the stores had become no longer places of commerce, but of refuge. The chances of seeing old friends dwindled when hiding amongst the clearance racks ranked with snow globes and old pajamas

Specifically there was a store called Suncoast that had come to be a viable source of music and movie purchases due to their going out of business sale. I had never been a fan of Suncoast, or any other mall-based media outlet. I was consistently baffled as to how these outrageously priced stores could stay in business with Best Buy and Circuit City only minutes away. Suncoast was the first to exhibit the effects of a person's common sense. Regardless, unlike a college town or living in the city, the mall was the only place to go, and Suncoast, having 50% markdowns off of their merchandise, was the only place to shop. Every week they would raise the percent off and thus what turned into a few purchases would quickly expand into spending the rest our years savings before the beginning of summer employment. At least three times a week we would go to the store under the false impression that maybe, just maybe we had overlooked a particular movie – and naturally we would purchase something we thought we didn't want the day prior. It was near the beginning of this crazed addiction that I came across a movie that had been part of an overlooked genre through my growing film interest - the horror film - and the movie was Halloween 5. It wasn't just the fact that I had avoided this area of film, but how it triggered a forgotten memory from my adolescence.

Like most young teenagers, my sister would commonly have sleepovers in which she would have my dad rent three or four horror films she picked from the local video store. I would frequently join her in this outing, but my fright over the horror films was amplified by an inability to even look at the movie cases. Occasionally I would flip over a VHS box, observing the horrific images scattered amongst the film’s synopsis – though this could only be done on a rare, non-subsiding compulsive basis. Thus, after all of the presents, birthday cake and gossip circles, long after the parents had retired into slumber (usually around 9pm regardless of rather or not a sleepover was taking place) my sister would begin the scary movies.

Being the younger brother, I adopted the persona of a spoiled brat who refused to let my sister have this sleepover and mini-film fest without my presence. There was one condition though. The way in which our family room was situated allowed for no outside light to come in. I am still baffled by this architectural overlook, but it did allow for an extra darkness that only a movie theater seemed capable of providing. The couch we had folded out into a bed and it would then be loaded with blankets and pillows, making the four or five girls on top of the it extra comfy and safe. I on the other hand could not join them on top of the bed, and was forced to sit underneath it with a few dilapidated pillows and one green blanket I received as a Christmas present a few years prior.

And so the macabre would be begin. Though I can only recall a few specific films that s– Friday the 13^th pt. 3, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Child's Play 2 - I now understand this was because they were the most frightening compared to others. Something about the opening scene in Friday the 13^th filled me such an immense amount of exciting fright that I felt as if I had what I refer to as the "nervous poopies" during a game of hide and seek. During the movie I was never scared, it was a rarity that I would have to close my eyes or buried myself in a blanket. It was after the film ended, when my sister would tell me I had to go to bed and I was forced to take the long, dark walk up to my bedroom. The rule was simple, I could watch one movie, maybe two, but after that I needed to exit the room. Maybe it was only because I understood my solitude away from a group of thirteen-year-old girls, but I feel that my room completely exasperated the terror I was feeling. Specifically, I had a lamp that upon being touched would turn on/off. It had three levels of brightness, but even the highest one could not provide enough light to illuminate the dangers I felt were lurking outside the door, inside my closet and underneath my bed. Naturally, I could not sleep…ever. My mom would be brought into the room for the subsequent few nights for any horror film I watched – Scream; 4 days, A Nightmare on Elm Street; 3 days, A New Nightmare; 4 days, Child’s Play 2; 3 days. It was as if I could rate how good the movie was by how many nights I needed my mom.

Off the top of my head I only joined my sister for two or three years of this. I never understood how even though sleep would be lost and my imagination would develop the most horrific of images manifesting into tears that I would continue to want to see the films. Perhaps each year I thought I would be better equipped, perhaps each year I enjoyed taking my imagination to the utter brink of emotion. I’m not sure, not even to this day.

And so these memories flashed before my eyes as I stared at the Halloween 5 DVD. Somehow it was the one horror film series from which I had never seen a single movie. I saw most of the A Nightmare on Elm Streets, most of the Friday the 13ths, all of Child's Play, I even saw the dreaded Candyman – but never Halloween. I immediately had the idea of having one of our summer projects be to watch all of the classic 80s horror series. Later that day I told my friend and fellow film aficionado Tim of the idea and he was pumped, Halloween was the scary movie he remembered from youth. Thus I went to my queue on Netflix and put Halloween on the very top – it arrived in about three days.

check back for Part 2