I'm extremely happy to have Aaron Neuwirth of Out Now With Aaron & Abe fame, Why So Blu? fame, The Code Is Zeek fame and The IchaPod CraneCast fame entertain us on this Saturday before Halloween. Aaron is one of the best young (to me young, that is) minds of cinema around and someone who's truly helped me big time with a break or two in the criticism field. Before we move on to his reimagining, let's take one last look at what made Michael tick and work in the original. I hope you enjoy his first guest appearance here on Naptown Nerd.
Dr.
Loomis: I watched him for fifteen years,
sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the
wall - looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret,
silent alarm to trigger him off.
John Carpenter’s 1978 landmark
horror film Halloween is one of my
favorite horror films and a film that I watch annually (let alone most times it
appears on TV throughout the year). It
is a good thing, as Brandon has tasked me with writing an essay for his site,
which has been providing an ungodly amount of Halloween-related content this month (though it is all really good
stuff). In an attempt to head in my own
direction, I have decided to try and describe why I admire the horror that
Michael Myers brings to the first film in the franchise, simply by standing in
stationary positions. While horrible
acts are committed by this escaped mental patient, as the film continues on, I
am always most freaked out by the Michael Myers death stare.
When staring at a potential
victim, it is obvious that Michael must move around in an effort to reach his
desired location. Halloween begins by setting up the craftiness of Michael, as
Carpenter’s choice to open the film with an extended POV sequence shows that
Michael is very much a voyeur, with no reason as to why his voyeuristic
pleasures end with the death of innocents.
This opening sequence ends with a mask being taken from Michael’s young
head, revealing a boy staring off into the distance. What is he looking at? What is on his mind? I am not sure, but the future finds him
staring at a pure and simple goal in the form of evil doings to be committed
against even more innocent people.
Fast-forward 15 years to the
film’s present, 1978. The audience is
returned to Haddonfield, IL, after just witnessing Michael’s escape from the
mental hospital, with one likely destination on his mind. Before reaching its non-stop 3rd
act chase sequence, Halloween
functions as a film that builds and builds its threat, with Dr. Loomis
describing the evil that is Michael Myers, while Myers creeps around the
streets of Haddonfield, stalking Laurie Strode and her friends. Take away the retconning that occurred in the
sequel, establishing Laurie as Michael’s sister, and his focus is seemingly
triggered by Laurie arriving at the Myers house to drop off the keys. Michael, in masked form, first rears his head
here and proceeds to continue appearing throughout the day, always from a distance,
with only Laurie acknowledging his unnerving presence.
The appearances get creepier as
the film moves along. One of the most
notable is during the day, while Laurie is in class. While in something of an impossible location
for a person to single out, Laurie is rightfully put off by the appearance of a
man staring at her from outside of a window.
Never mind that this person is wearing a creepy mask and is able to
disappear in less than 30 seconds, based on Laurie turning her head for a brief
moment, the fact that someone is putting themselves right out in the open and
allowing their potential victim to see them early on, in the daylight, is the
kind of scary thing that builds the tension, atmosphere, and mystique of the
film.
Other appearances of Michael
simply standing and staring during the day are present through much of the rest
of the second act as well. Michael
emerging from behind the bushes is wonderfully scary in the simplest way
possible. A shape appearing between the
white sheets, on the clothesline outside of Laurie’s bedroom is another classic
image. These are all creepy scenes,
aided by the camera placement, the subtle reactions by Jamie Lee Curtis, the
music created by John Carpenter, and the simple fact that nothing is actually
happening, but it is hard not to feel weirded out this person’s presence. It is a foreboding image and the night
delivers on the many alerts seen during the day.
These creepy shots of Michael
standing continue into the night, as the focus shifts to Laurie’s friends. Annie receives a good amount of focus, as
Carpenter teases the audience with danger throughout her various babysitting
activities, which includes making popcorn, visits to the laundry room, and the
eventual fateful attempt to drive to her boyfriend’s place. During all of these scenes Michael is
watching every step of the way, constantly appearing in doorframes, only to
disappear after a minor camera shift, suggesting he could be anywhere at any
time.
One of the ultimate segments of
the film’s nighttime Michael Myers death stares takes place during the murders
of Bob and Lynda. The first is Bob, who
Michael surprises, lifts up, and then impales onto a door with a large
knife. This leads to one of the most
intriguing stares in the film, as Michael curiously looks at what he had just
done. He stares at Bob’s body, tilts his
head, tilts it again, and then the film moves on. What is Michael doing here? Is he admiring his work? Is he figuring out his next move? The movie has no desire to answer this
question.
Lynda’s death is preceded by
another quality staring moment and certainly Michael’s most ambitious attempt
to stare at a distance, while the onlooker quietly becomes unnerved. This is the scene that involves Michael
covering himself with a sheet in an effort to get closer to Lynda, without her
realizing that Bob is no longer with us.
The scene is not only creepy because of Bob’s giant glasses completing
Michael’s clever disguise, but because it has us watch in terror as Lynda
taunts evil, before turning her back on it.
Again, all Michael does is walk through a doorway and stare for moments
at a time, before the scene takes a drastic turn, but it is scary nonetheless.
I am going to skip ahead again,
this time to the end of the film, which features not only what I consider to be
the ultimate Michael Myers death stare, but one of the scariest shots of the
film, and one of my favorites. We have
just watched Laurie strode fight against Michael, stabbing him in the neck,
eye, and chest. This has not stopped
Michael though, as he once again gets up with his sights set on killing
Laurie. Luckily Dr. Loomis has finally
arrived and fires an initial shot to stop Michael. In what I can only describe as my thought on
what a picture of the word “chilling” could look like, the next scene, where
Loomis goes to see the effect of what his first gunshot accomplished, he is met
with Michael standing upright and staring back at him, pure and simple. Everything that Loomis has described about
Michael, leading up to this point, has been completely accurate. There is no stopping this person; no
reasoning with him; no way to understand him.
Michael Myers is a force of evil through and through and his one goal
was to always be a malevolent force that happened to catch Laurie and her
friends in his crosshairs.
Dr. Loomis stares back at this
looming presence and proceeds to fire five more shots into it. Michael winds up falling from the second
floor of little Tommy Doyle’s house, seemingly killed, but of course we know
that is not true. Skipping past the
boogeyman talk, the final images of this film are of various locations Michael
has been stalking around, finally ending on his childhood home, where we hear
his breathing. Where has Michael
gone? Will he strike again? Again, these are questions that do not
matter. The film has accomplished its
task of showing you what unstoppable evil can look like. Even when evil stands still and stares, one
most certainly does not want to gaze at it, let alone become its focus.
Dr.
Loomis: I met this six-year-old child,
with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes... the devil's
eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to
keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's
eyes was purely and simply... evil.
Aaron
is a writer/reviewer for WhySoBlu.com.
Follow him on Twitter @AaronsPS3.
He also co-hosts a podcast, Out Now with Aaron and Abe, available via iTunes or at HHWLOD.com.
He also co-hosts a podcast, Out Now with Aaron and Abe, available via iTunes or at HHWLOD.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment