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Halloween (1978)

Started by Chedney Honks, October 10, 2021, 01:46:27 PM

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monkfromhavana

Quote from: Glebe on October 16, 2021, 07:06:54 PM
Have to admit I find the first Halloween a little slow in patches. I think John Carpenter himself has suggested as much.

Maybe it seems slow in retrospect, again maybe that's due to later films increasing the pace.

I think a lot of older films are slower, for the better, I feel, it's aout building an atmosphere. Whenever I watch an older film with someone a generation or so younger than me they seem to just switch off for the atmospheric parts that they find "boring" or "nothing's happening".

Chedney Honks

Young people are absolutely useless.

That's not what you were saying in that Thai brothel.
"at least they're good for something" you were saying ... "milking my cock!"

Ah yeah, there's something so palette cleansing about watching an old, especially black and white film where they keep the camera still and they're not cutting every 5 seconds, and they take their time and let things simmer. No tricks. Sometimes it's even like a play and they all line up in a long row in front of the one camera, fantastic!

Can you remember the first time you watched like an american tv show, I mean a reality show or something and you were like "what the fuck?!" as it was cutting every 2 seconds and the camera was flying about and zooming all in and out and it made you dizzy?

There's so much competition over there, they have to fight for your attention and grab it straight away before you flick to the next channel and there are adverts every 5 minutes so they've got to be all singing and dancing and constantly dangling off cliffs to draw you back.

Do you think that might have spilled over into films? People grew up with that so they get restless when there's anything other than high octane, firing on all cylinders shite, it would certainly explain people like michael bay.

You watch a film to relax, you hand over the reins to the filmmakers and you let them set the tone and the pace, point your eyes to certain things and lead your brain down certain alleys of thought.
All these young punks full of sherbet and fizzy drinks, rubbing speed paste into their ass cracks, they must be wandering out of the cinema demanding a refund if a film catches it's breath for five minutes and lets some sort of mood set in.

Chedney Honks

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on October 17, 2021, 01:05:36 PM
Ah yeah, there's something so palette cleansing about watching an old, especially black and white film where they keep the camera still and they're not cutting every 5 seconds, and they take their time and let things simmer. No tricks. Sometimes it's even like a play and they all line up in a long row in front of the one camera, fantastic!

Can you remember the first time you watched like an american tv show, I mean a reality show or something and you were like "what the fuck?!" as it was cutting every 2 seconds and the camera was flying about and zooming all in and out and it made you dizzy?

Yeah, hundred percent agree on both points. One of my favourite things to do these days is soak into some old slow film and let it tune me in. Good for my brain to actually concentrate on something and give it my full attention.

And yeah, I do find even now if I watch like Below Deck or something (total shite but my wife watches it as something mindless), the constant flash forwards and recaps and snippets and cut cut cut cut cut is relentless and there's basically nothing happening. They serve the guests a sandwich and a drink and do some ironing. Maybe they get the inflatables out for a bit. It seems like total carnage.

Haha, yeah, carnage is the word, they film everything like it's the D-day landings!

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I watched Halloween 3 for the first time last night. Probably the last time, too. Dan O'Herlihy was decent and I liked the tension ratcheting countdown throughout, with the Silver Shamrock adverts, but it was mostly plops. People keep mentioning the anthology idea like it's some brave or interesting thing, but it just seems like they took some turkey of a film and cynically slapped a popular name on it. And yeah, the lead character is a total creep.

Coincidentally, my housemate just got Escape From New York, so we watched that the other day. For some reason I always seem to remember it being better than it is. Not to parrot Red Letter Media, but it really is pretty rotten  as an action movie. I'd put it down to budget, but it cost roughly the same as The Terminator and a fair chunk more than Mad Max 2 and The Warriors, all of which are so much better on that front. The cast are great and manage to elevate the whole thing, but it's a shame to have wasted such a great concept.

Prince of Darkness is another one that I wish was better than it is, although it's the cast that mostly scupper that.

Replies From View

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on October 10, 2021, 02:23:01 PM
The original is good but I'd forgotten until watching it recently about him being locked up at 6 but somehow able to drive a car perfectly when he escapes as an adult.

Yes that's the most far-fetched bit

phantom_power

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on October 17, 2021, 02:06:59 PM
I watched Halloween 3 for the first time last night. Probably the last time, too. Dan O'Herlihy was decent and I liked the tension ratcheting countdown throughout, with the Silver Shamrock adverts, but it was mostly plops. People keep mentioning the anthology idea like it's some brave or interesting thing, but it just seems like they took some turkey of a film and cynically slapped a popular name on it.


It was always envisioned to be a Halloween film rather than it being retro-active. The main problem with it is studio interference as they took Nigel Kneale's original script and put it through a load of different re-writes, some from Carpenter himself and the eventual director Tommy Lee Wallace. You can see the bones of a good film in there but it has been covered in so much shit and glitter that it fails  in the end

phantom_power

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on October 10, 2021, 02:23:01 PM
The 2018 one was OK.

The original is good but I'd forgotten until watching it recently about him being locked up at 6 but somehow able to drive a car perfectly when he escapes as an adult.

Automatics, and playing Out Run on the Atari

mjwilson

Quote from: Catalogue Trousers on October 16, 2021, 02:18:40 PM
The one good thing about it is that it lets Loomis be a badass hero

He comes across as a wildly unstable psychopath

druss

Quote from: mjwilson on October 17, 2021, 04:08:36 PM
He comes across as a wildly unstable psychopath
Always found it funny how bad a psychiatrist he is. Myers is probably mental due to Loomis deciding he was pure evil as a 6 year old child and treating him as such.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: beanheadmcginty on October 10, 2021, 03:28:57 PM
I always wonder what Donald Pleasance was like in real life. In every single film performance I've ever seen of his he comes across as a terrifyingly creepy weirdo. I know that could be down to typecasting, but even in the Great Escape I was delighted that he was too blind to join the others.

Back in the eighties, Donald once carried my nan's heavy shopping home for her. They were neighbours in Blackheath. A good'un in my book.

Harry Badger

Wonder how it would have worked with the original choice of Loomis, Peter Cushing. He was only six years older than Pleasance but a bit doddery by then. On the other hand, it would have been a pretty sweet thing to have one of the icons of old school horror starring in the film that ushered in the new wave.

Magnum Valentino

He was in Star Wars the year before for a quick visual reference for how doddery he was (not very, in my opinion).

Harry Badger

Quote from: Magnum Valentino on October 20, 2021, 08:23:09 AM
He was in Star Wars the year before for a quick visual reference for how doddery he was (not very, in my opinion).

That was a much less physical role than Loomis though and his scenes would have been filmed close to home at Elstree whereas Loomis would have required all-night shoots in California. I would still have loved to see him deliver the very creepy speech about the 'devil's eyes'.

Apparently Cushing's fee was too high but I wonder if he just couldn't be arsed - his wife's death in 1971 hit him very hard and he was never the same again. He appeared in very few films after Star Wars.

Just remembered that Christopher Lee turned it down as well and regretted it ever since. Not sure that would have worked as well - Lee is a dominant figure and not a good match for the harried and scared Loomis.

H-O-W-L

I think Pleasence was perfectly cast.

Bad Ambassador

The other alternative was Vincent Price. Interesting to see him in a straighter, more realistic horror role. Might have worked nicely as a counterpoint to Boris Karloff's Targets - the juxtaposition of a grand old gent of gothic horror with the irrational, nameless horrors of New Hollywood.

Magnum Valentino

Price is superb in The Last Man On Earth in which he plays torment, without the camp on top of his Roderick Usher.