Film analysis: Halloween

Film analysis: Halloween

Halloween​ is about a man called Mike Myers who brutally murdered his sister on Halloween night. 15 years later he escapes Smith Grove which is mental institution and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where he looks for his next victims. The film was directed by John Carpenter and was released in 1978.

Propp's character theory Horror films have very clear conventions and stereotypes that are followed through many films that we see today. In ​ Halloween ​ the main protagonist is Laurie who is also the victim in the film and the final girl ( the only person to survive). The final girl is usually someone that is androgynous and virginal which is how Laurie is portrayed in the film as she does not wear make and doesn’t have any form of romantic connection with someone, but also she stands up to the villain unlike the other victims in the film.

This breaks Propp's character theory as he believed the male should be the hero and the female should be the damsel in distress who needs saving. We kind of see this at the end when the Doctor comes into the house and shots Mike off her, but throughout the rest of the film she has defended herself.

The other victims are the stupid/immoral teens that get killed. The teenagers kills are the opposite of Laurie as they act more girly and have boyfriends. All of the people in the film has a reactionary sexual agenda which means they are punished for having sex. John Carpenter countered this by saying that they died because they were being a distraction, a sideshow but Laurie was always the target. This also links in with structural consensus theory as if you come from a middle class family like Laurie you will get a good education. If you come from a working class family like the other victims you are less likely to get a good education which shows that the less educated die in horror films. This can be linked with​ Evil Dead 2 ​ when Bobbie Jo gets killed.

Mike Myers is the villain in the film which follows the horror genre conventions as he as deep psychological problems, this has stemmed from the event of killing is his sister when he was 6. The doctor says “ He has no sense of right and wrong” so Mike does not understand what he is doing wrong which means he will just continue doing his acts or murder and stalking. He also wears a mask to keep his identity hidden and to keep the audience in suspense, the mask is also used to create fear within the audience as they do not know what he looks like under the mask, so by him wearing the mask it keeps his face emotionless so the audience don’t make an emotional connection to him.

The audience only see his face briefly at the end of the film when laurie pulls it off, he

looks like a regular human being but he quickly puts the mask back on showing that he has fully given himself over to his killing nature and living behind the mask.

Todorov­ Narrative theory Halloween​ has a brief equilibrium at the start of the film to allow the audience to see that it was Halloween night when everything began. At the start of the film, in the almost flashback, there are plenty of point of view shots from the eyes of Mike as the audience follows him around the house they slowly begin to see his motives and what he is planning. But the narrative is restricted as the character and the audience is unaware what is about to happen at the start of the sequence but also the audience is unaware of who the girl is or who is actually doing the killing until the very end of the sequence when the camera goes into a crane shot of what has happened. Parallel music is also used in the opening shot to match the actions of the stabbing, by adding the music on top of the actions it makes it seem scarier to the audience has every time the knife goes down the music builds in tension.

The disruption starts when the doctor and nurse show up at Smith Groves mental institution which leads to Mike escaping and going back home. Before the audience know for sure that he has headed home they meet new characters to help push the narrative along and helps the audience know who to watch for the rest of the film. They also get introduced to the setting where everything will take place, this sticks to horror genre conventions as it's an isolated small village. But also we see small children going to school and also Laurie which shows the innocence of the whole town that have had to live with the terrible event that happened 15 years ago on that night.

Once Laurie and the doctor realize that something is going on they spend the rest of the film trying to find a resolution for the problem. By the end of the film usually their should be a reinstatement of the equilibrium but this does not happen in Halloween as even though the characters and the audience believe Mike is dead, they quickly found out that he's not which starts the cycle all over again as they do not know where he has gone.

Halloween was on of the first Slasher horrors to be created, after this was released films such as​ Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Bloody Valentine ​ because they were cheap to make and were very popular. But after awhile audiences began to know how the narrative would be as they all followed 4 simple rules:

1. A traumatic event in the past creates a psychopathic killer 2. The killer returns to the site of the event, usually on a specific date, allows for a calendar motif in the title

3. Killer stalks and graphically kills a group a group of obnoxious and stupid teenagers 4. A final girl survives and is usually boyish Due to the amount of copycat films, they came to predictable. But ​ Scream​ was then released which went against this plot slightly by killing off the famous actress at the start of the film and by also having a killer that killed for the one of it instead of going through an event.

Levi­Strauss: Binary opposites The binary opposites that are shown in ​ Halloween​ is mainly good vs evil. They good being Laurie and the doctor, the bad being Mike as throughout the film Laurie is shown as everything that is right in the world and Mike is shown as everything that is bad.

Another one would be normal vs abnormal as the audience can see the clear differences between how Mike and Laurie behave as Laurie is staying in looking after children and worrying about what her friend said to the boy she likes. Whereas when we first see Mike as an adult he is escaping from a mental institution and is hiding in his abandoned house, also he stalks Laurie from very early on which people as something that goes against society because it's not a decent thing to do.

Bordwell and Thompson At the start of Halloween the audience see a flashback to when Mike commits his first murder of killing his sister, this allows them to see how the plot starts and by including dates on when the sequence transitions also makes it easier for them to see how time has passed. They also make the time of the day speed up, making the film spend longer in the night time than the day to add more fear for the audience.