Analysis Of: Halloween

Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise. With a run time of 91 minutes, the film was shot in the United States with English being the only spoken language. The budget was a small $320,000 yet went on to gross over $150 Million in revenue.

The film Halloween begins with a black screen interlaced with the opening red logos and a fast paced piano score. A live image of a pumpkin then appears with a candle burning inside it and, as the music becomes more and more sinister, the pumpkin moves ever closer to the screen, until everything is engulfed in darkness.

Keeping with the Halloween theme that has already bee established through the use of writing that fades in and out in an orange hue and the pumpkin, the audience is shown the location of the seen, and the date. Halloween 1963. In contrast, children can be heard singing on a voice over, indicating innocence and youth.

A white house is then shown to the viewer, and it is soon established that this is a point of view shot of the house. The unknown figure moves around the side of the house to get a closer look inside and to allow the viewer to see who is inside the house. This point of view reveals that the only people inside are two teenagers, proved by the fact they they are turning lights on and off as they move around the house.

The POV character enters the house via a back door, and it is then revealed to the viewer that they have got a knife out of the kitchen drawer. As the POV person knows immediately which drawer to attain the knife it becomes clear that they have either been in the house before or live there.

POV then moves to the stairs, where the male of the teenagers can be seen putting his shirt back on and exiting the house, it is clear that himself and the female have engaged sexually and that it is only the girl left in the house by this stage.

The POV character then proceeds to climb the stars in darkness and, after reaching the top, puts on a clown mask. Editing now shows the viewer that the POV characters vision has now been limited by the mask. Mise-en-scene shows clothing props on the floor, confirming to the viewer that the couple have indeed engaged sexually.

The female can be seen on a chair, naked in a bedroom, the POV approaches her and, as she screams ''Michael'', he stabs her. The music is very sinister and diegetic sound can be heard of the knife as it slashes into her.

POV then, without hesitation proceeds to walk back down the stairs as slowly as he walked up, showing the viewer that this is clearly a cold and calculated murderer.

Diegetic sound of ''Michael'' breathing can be heard.

Exiting the house, POV sees a car pulling up, with a middle aged man and woman getting out, they approach POV with the man saying ''Michael?!''. As the mask is removed from POV an immediate medium shot of the character is shown, revealing it to be a small boy in a clown costume with a bloody knife in his hand. The viewer is shocked that a child could do such a thing, and this reaction is aided by the non diegetic music which builds to a crescendo. The medium shot then zooms out to a crane shot of the house which essentially serves as an establishing shot for the coming events of the film.