"Carpenter's 1978 slasher classic has inspired a million imitations as well as sequels, but few that demonstrate so clearly that a disreputable genre movie can also be a pure, rigorous work of art." - The Age
Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, Halloween set the standard for modern horror films.
"In horror, the jack-in-the-box scare... is the quickest way to get a scream, but the still shocks... are the ones that linger with you. "Halloween" has them both, but it specializes in the second." - New York Times
"Teenage girls in jeopardy is usually a good ingredient for horror, and director John Carpenter makes the most of the situation in Halloween, a tense and frightening film.... he builds a properly terrifying atmosphere through his well-paced direction.
"The screenplay by Carpenter and producer Debra Hill concerns a boy who kills his babysitter on Halloween night and who, 15 years later, escapes from a mental institution to return to the scene of the crime to seek additional victims. The script offers little in terms of motivation or development, but it works strictly in terms of horror as several teenage babysitters are stalked by the masked psychomaniac."
"Carpenter creates excellent tension throughout and he avoids excessive blood and gore in the murder sequences. The violent actions are mostly implied more than graphically depicted, which serves to heighten the effect." - The Hollywood Reporter