eShop USA > DVD > Halloween
Halloween
List Price: $19.98Price: $9.35 You Save: $10.63 (53%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
DVD Layers: 2
DVD Sides: 1
EAN: 9786305546788
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, THX, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 6305546789
Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Languages: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Manufacturer: Starz / Anchor Bay
MPN: D10896D
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Starz / Anchor Bay
Release Date: September 28, 1999
Running Time: 92 minutes
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Theatrical Release Date: October 25, 1978
Related Items: Featured Listmania!
Editorial Review:
Halloween is as pure and undiluted as its title. In the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, a teenage baby sitter tries to survive a Halloween night of relentless terror, during which a knife-wielding maniac goes after the town's hormonally charged youths. Director John Carpenter takes this simple situation and orchestrates a superbly mounted symphony of horrors. It's a movie much scarier for its dark spaces and ominous camera movements than for its explicit bloodletting (which is actually minimal). Composed by Carpenter himself, the movie's freaky music sets the tone; and his script (cowritten with Debra Hill) is laced with references to other horror pictures, especially Psycho. The baby sitter is played by Jamie Lee Curtis, the real-life daughter of Psycho victim Janet Leigh; and the obsessed policeman played by Donald Pleasence is named Sam Loomis, after John Gavin's character in Psycho. In the end, though, Halloween stands on its own as an uncannily frightening experience--it's one of those movies that had audiences literally jumping out of their seats and shouting at the screen. ("No! Don't drop that knife!") Produced on a low budget, the picture turned a monster profit, and spawned many sequels, none of which approached the 1978 original. Curtis returned for two more installments: 1981's dismal Halloween II, which picked up the story the day after the unfortunate events, and 1998's occasionally gripping Halloween H20, which proved the former baby sitter was still haunted after 20 years. --Robert Horton
Halloween is as pure and undiluted as its title. In the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, a teenage baby sitter tries to survive a Halloween night of relentless terror, during which a knife-wielding maniac goes after the town's hormonally charged youths. Director John Carpenter takes this simple situation and orchestrates a superbly mounted symphony of horrors. It's a movie much scarier for its dark spaces and ominous camera movements than for its explicit bloodletting (which is actually minimal). Composed by Carpenter himself, the movie's freaky music sets the tone; and his script (cowritten with Debra Hill) is laced with references to other horror pictures, especially Psycho. The baby sitter is played by Jamie Lee Curtis, the real-life daughter of Psycho victim Janet Leigh; and the obsessed policeman played by Donald Pleasence is named Sam Loomis, after John Gavin's character in Psycho. In the end, though, Halloween stands on its own as an uncannily frightening experience--it's one of those movies that had audiences literally jumping out of their seats and shouting at the screen. ("No! Don't drop that knife!") Produced on a low budget, the picture turned a monster profit, and spawned many sequels, none of which approached the 1978 original. Curtis returned for two more installments: 1981's dismal Halloween II, which picked up the story the day after the unfortunate events, and 1998's occasionally gripping Halloween H20, which proved the former baby sitter was still haunted after 20 years. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The best of the best, bar none!!!
The shape, the scream queen, the atmosphere.....it's all here.
The single greatest horror movie of all time, period.
The big three slasher movies?
Halloween
Friday the 13th part 2.
And the original Nightmare on Elm Street.
These three are the masterpieces of the genre.
Halloween?
My favorite holiday and my favorite horror movie.
This movie has inspired and horrified sooooooo many people, and still does after all these years.
A masterpiece ... Read More
Rating: - Pure Evil
This by far is the single most important film of it's kind ! Everything works.This is by far the best movie of it's kind ! The movie is a complete masterpiece with it's music and camerawork. Nothing will ever compare to this film nor will John Carpenters work to follow . The Rob Zombie film should be passed on as the rest of the halloween films. H20 showed some promise however. The 1978 Original Halloween is a classic and a great lesson how horror films should be made start to finish.
Rating:  - Purdy Good
This movie was a purdy good one, suspenseful, check. Cool, check. Scary, ehhhm, hmm, uhh... check! Not a great movie, but the best, I'd say, as far as slashers go. If you liked Psycho, you're gonna LOVE this!
Rating: - Blu-Ray transfer looks great to me.
Just my opinion here, but the night scenes still have plenty of blue in them -- and I do not think that this edition warrants a 1 1/2 out of 5 stars for video quality as some sites would have you believe. I am familiar with the Criterion laserdisc of this film (one of the best sets in its day) and there are certainly some differences...but honestly, like a lot of other people I always kind of felt like the night scenes had a tendency to look too "gelled" and either Cundey overdid the atmospherics a ... Read More
Rating:  - Purely based on picture quality
Ya know, they splash across the screen right away about "Presenting them in 1080 high definition!!!". Well, not a few minutes into the film and i have to face what we once called in 3D gaming "THE JAGGIES".
Yeah, it is an "OK" transfer - BUT if you did not notice that ALL the cars in the drive ways had jagged edges running up and down them especially on the chrome, then you are totally blind.
I do not know much about older movies with their ability to transfer well to ... Read More
Related Categories:
|
