Halloween (Dir: John Carpenter, USA, 1978)

I’ve never been to Italy but I think if I were to go I’d be disappointed by the pizza. That and many other metaphors sum up my feelings towards Halloween. As what I presume to be the father of tropes so well-worn and tired to the point of derision, the film deserves some sympathy for the garbáge which has followed it, but it’s also bereft of any tension until the final 20 minutes and even then it’s nominal – though admittedly this is partly through no fault of its own, the ending was spoiled for me just as the tempo began to increase. The dialogue is laughably wooden and the acting just laughable – I’m yet to see any evidence to the contrary of my intentionally-contrarian-fourth-pint statement that there was not a good actor until roughly 1992, when Harvey Keitel invented acting – and genuine scares are almost non-existent. My favourite thing about Halloween is the running time. At 91 minutes, it’s only 14 minutes shy of optimum movie length and, as always, I’ll applaud such a feat of succinctness. I’m a sucker for succinctness.