MJB SCRIPT REVIEW | JOHN CARPENTER'S HALLOWEEN
- michaelbrand01
- Dec 12, 2023
- 2 min read
YAY!! It’s October and time for some classic horror scripts! (Though theoretically I started with PSYCHO on my last blog, but hey, whose counting?) So my first October horror classic is the legendary John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN…
Plot in a nutshell; Escaped psychiatric patient Michael Myers heads to Haddonville, with the sole purpose of bringing slaughter to the townsfolk on Halloween night. Dr. Loomis pursues, desperate to stop him.
HALLOWEEN has to be treated as an analysis of a script that (before or since) has fully formed the slasher script. Yes, PSYCHO got there first, but this is an unabashed exercise in mounting terror, tension and how it should be done in the simplest form. Where PSYCHO got into psychobabble and plot, this turns the vice, shaping every shadow as a potential threat and every victim as being in complete shock as to their sudden death. By the time anybody knows what’s going on, Michael's slaughter is well on its way to approaching double digits. John Carpenter and Debra Hill keep the characters realistic and the ADs brief, but to the point. It’s about sharing just enough to see and hear what’s going on and the dialogue let’s you know what people are thinking. That’s it. Job done. Home for tea. Brilliantly efficient.
So what did I learn from HALLOWEEN?
How to write a scene shot entirely from first persons perspective or POV (point of view). The opening scene is a masterclass in tracking a young Michael, from spying on his older sister having sex with her boyfriend, the boyfriend leaving, Michael making his way to her bedroom (via the kitchen to get a huge knife and a rubber mask), heading back to his sisters room, killing her and then heading up the street to where his bewildered parents are. Not a beat is wasted in the scene, retaining its flow, but all from first person perspective. Cannot recommend this script enough, if that’s a style you wish to adopt.
A very tight script and a solid recommend as an example of how to build efficient and effective mounting tension over 90 pages.
Link to the script;
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