(Editor’s Note: This latest release is the exact same as the last Anchor Bay release, just didn’t cover. Same print, same sound, same extras! So, don’t throw away that old copy because this says it’s an all new print. That’s just the exact same text from the back of the box of the last release! Still, if you didn’t pick up that one before it went out of print, this is the one to get folks! In further celebration of yet another re-release, we now re-release the same review!)

It only seems like yesterday that I went into the dark recesses of The Beacon Theatre and watched it on re-release. See, way back in the day there were no VCR or DVD players. You wanted to watch something more than once? You went to the theatre. I can remember when JAWS was playing at The Plaza 2 for over a year in my hometown of Kalamazoo. So, there I am, completely unprepared for the nerve jolting experience of HALLOWEEN. I made the unfortunate mistake of going alone, which compounded the problem. What can I say? HALLOWEEN scared me to death just like millions of other unsuspecting moviegoers of the time. And now, twenty-five years later, Anchor Bay has given us the definitive two-disc edition of the horror classic. Before we run down the list of cinematic goodies, let’s go through the plot for those unfortunates who may be embracing the mythos of Michael Myers for the first time.

It seems that many years ago a young Michael Myers, home from trick or treating, catches his sister doing the horizontal bop with one of the local boys. For reasons unexplained this sends him into a mechanical killing mode where he stabs his sister to death. He is placed in the psychiatric care of one Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance). Dr. Loomis spends years trying to reach the now catatonic Michael. After a time, he realizes that the boy is nothing but pure evil so he has him committed to a high security asylum. Flash-forward to years later and it seems that the security wasn't high enough. A power blackout releases all the inmates, including Michael. It isn't long before he commandeers a vehicle and makes his way back to Haddonfield, Illinois. He has business to finish with a group of baby-sitters and it can only be done on Halloween.

Now the plot seems very simplistic, but that's what makes it work so well. This is the yardstick where all other slasher films are measured by. Every cliché in the slasher genre comes from this movie. Unstoppable killer? Yup. Using a holiday as the basis for mayhem? Check the title. Have sex and die? That's covered. John Carpenter thought he was making a low budget slasher flick. What he was creating was a blueprint for decades of psycho killers carving a bloody path through decades of film history. Without Michael Myers there would be no Jason Voorhees. No Freddy Krueger. Life would have been pretty dull. HALLOWEEN started out as a germ of an idea with Irwin Yablans. Originally conceived as THE BABY SITTER MURDERS, Yablans thought this would strike a major chord with horror fans. Everyone had been a baby sitter before. But the title left a lot to be desired. That's when the idea of using the infamous holiday came to him. He checked and amazingly enough, no one had ever made a movie with the word Halloween in the title. Taking this with a grain of salt, I decided to do a little checking myself. Yablans was right. All the decades of horror films preceding the seventies and no one had made use of this obvious night of trick or treat.

It was ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, Carpenter's homage to John Ford that had caught Yablan's attention. While the film had done little business in the states, Europe was a different matter. They had embraced it wholeheartedly. It was this that sold Yablans on using Carpenter to direct. Carpenter, being pretty savvy for a director in his twenties, made three demands that sealed his directorial fate forever. First, his name had to appear above the title. Second, he had complete directorial control. And finally, he would do the music for the film, now, a Carpenter trademark. Yablans wanted a feature done for a specific amount of money and Carpenter proved he could do this, so the deal was done. Moustapha Akkad, who wasn’t thrilled with the project, but agreed to invest, secured the budget of three hundred thousand dollars. It's interesting to note that Moustapha is now the driving force behind all the sequels that have followed the original. Also of interest is how many major Hollywood players came from this little production. While Donald Pleasance was already considered to be an actor of note, HALLOWEEN secured his place in immortality. Almost anyone seeing his face immediately identifies it as the slightly mad Dr. Loomis. John Carpenter went on to direct many popular features. Debra Hill, John Carpenter's love interest at the time, has gone on to produce multiple features. Jamie Lee Curtis has become a major Hollywood star, which is interesting because she was actually hired for her lineage, not her abilities. Having the daughter of Janet Leigh, the famed murder victim in Hitchcock's PSYCHO in a horror film was considered good publicity. Even The Shape, Nick Castle, went on to directorial fame with features like THE LAST STARFIGHTER and DENNIS THE MENACE. But this was in the years to come. For now this group of young people concerned themselves with making one of the scariest movies in history. Interestingly enough it was done with little blood or nudity. There were only two scenes of obligatory nudity and just the smallest smattering of red. HALLOWEEN works on a suspense factor. We are given a killer that is described as the living embodiment of evil. Add to that the natural horror of the holiday where most of the action takes place and you have the perfect formula for scares. It doesn't hurt that Carpenter's soundtrack is riddled with musical stingers designed to do nothing more than make you jump.

The extras in this two-disc set are nothing short of amazing. First there is a huge documentary that has interviews with many members of the cast, along with Carpenter and Hill adding their two cents. At 87-minutes, this is probably the most comprehensive behind the scenes study ever done on this project. It gives the entire process of getting the film to the screen and shows how word of mouth can sometimes be the best advertising any movie could have. It's interesting to watch these people discuss how this may have been the best working experience of their lives. We also get a lot of trivia information that, while common to us genre fans, might be fresh to the less informed viewing public. Things like the mask of The Shape actually being William Shatner's face. Or if you freeze frame and look carefully, you can see the wrench taped The Shape’s wrist to make the glass break when he tries to break into the car to drive away in the beginning. I actually spotted this for the first time after reading about it in John McCarty's definitive book Splatter Movies and was glad to see it mentioned here. One piece of trivia that was excluded was that many people portrayed The Shape. I dug up an old issue of Fangoria where they explained that they used different stuntmen for specific stunts that they did better than others. Kind of a smart and economical move. If you've got a guy who can do the stunt right the first time, slap the mask on him and let him do it. In addition to the documentary, we get a ten-minute short called On Location-25 Years Later with producer Debra Hill and actress P.J. Soles, where they revisit the old location used as the Dyers house. Along with these two things, we get the original theatrical trailer, television and radio spots, talent bios, plus a poster and still gallery. The gallery is huge and includes my favorite picture where Michael Myers is trying to hide behind a little branch. Obviously done as a goof, it is quite hilarious. It makes you wish there was an outtake or blooper reel in all the extras, but alas, it's not there (maybe for the 30th anniversary edition).

Finally, there's the reason for all this hoopla and that's the film itself. It boasts that it's been re-mastered in a process by the supervision of Lucasfilm’s Digital Mastering Services which is a High Definition process. I would have to say that the picture looks better than when I saw it in the theaters. It's in widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16 x 9 television sets. The commentary is slightly irritating in that we have John Carpenter, Debra Hill and Jamie Lee Curtis doing the commentary, but recorded separately. And there's this annoying voice that keeps identifying who is speaking even though each of the people have such distinctive voices that makes this unnecessary. But the movie still works. I still get excited watching it, find myself yelling at the screen and those damned music stingers. Damn you, John Carpenter! It still works very well. And to add my vote to the controversy involving the 25th Anniversary Edition and the Extended Version that is also out on DVD, let me add that while it's true that the actual picture is significantly better on the Extended version, the Anniversary edition has better features in a more comprehensive package. Also, the three scenes that were added for the Extended version are superfluous at best. The extra ten minutes does nothing for the movie but make it longer. For the HALLOWEEN completists that are out there, buy both, the Extended for the quality of the picture and the Anniversary for the extras.