HALLOWEEN

Abstract

John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) enjoys a status as October’s equivalent to It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), and is most often thought about as the originator and paradigmatic example of the slasher film. But Halloween can only be discussed as a slasher film in hindsight, and few slasher films are quite as restrained, stylish or atmospheric. Murray Leeder’s Devil’s Advocate does not focus primarily on Halloween’s relationship to the slasher film, nor on its sequels and remakes. Rather, it treats the film as an entity unto itself, considering Halloween on its own terms as a monumentally effective horror film, a reclamation for a film that has so often been treated as a wellspring, but much less as great in itself.