Halloween.

- Halloween. (1978. Dir. John Carpenter). Dr. Sam Loomis is desperately searching for an escaped patient. Meanwhile, ordinary Laurie Strode is getting ready for a quiet Halloween, babysitting as usual. Both will soon cross paths with an evil figure --Michael Myers, determined to leave a path of death and destruction behind him...

Seminal Horror movie, a touchstone of Slasher movies (some argue that this IS the birth of that particular sub-genre. Others argue it has predecessors --like Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Black Christmas, Peeping Tom, the entire Ghiallo sub-genre, itself preceded by Krimi movies... well, you get the point), and of the careers of both director Carpenter and screenwriter Debra Hill. There are thousands and thousands of essays about this movie, ranging all the way to entire books written about it. 

So influential is this movie that there have been at least four separate attempts to jumpstart it again. Be it "Halloween II" and all subsequent sequels, be it "Halloween: 20 years later", be it the 2007 remake, the 2018 reboot-sequel...

...thousands and thousands of imitators...

And nearly all are interesting for essentially missing the point. 

Right, say so many critics, bloggers, fans, horror buffs. Because it's all about Michael. Because it's all about Laurie. Because it's about the evisceration of 70's Americana. Because it's about suspense. Because it's all about subtle violence. Because it's all about setting the holy rules of the slasher movie. Because... because....

No, not really. It's none of these things. It's simply an effective scary movie. 

A scary movie that was a pioneer in so many ways, yes. That brought a lot of specific themes to the mainstream consciousness, yes. All of that and more. 

But fundamentally, this movie's real virtue, and the reason not a single of its sequels, remakes, imitators, etcetera, etcetera has ever come close to capturing the original's lasting power, is just that: Because it is not attempting to do anything except being an effective scary movie. It means to scare, period. 

Does that mean one shouldn't make analyses of this movie? Oh, not at all. Critique, after all, isn't really about understanding a movie (or book, or comic, or really any work of art), it's about exploring our own interests and obsessions using said work of art as a totem. Some are more upfront about it and some are less so. 

What it does mean is that the best way to appreciate this movie is to watch it, to see if it retains its power for us --or if it's your first time, to see if it lives up to its own reputation for you.