Through the Years: Halloween

Picture a young boy exploring the wonder of his local movie rental store. He comes across the horror section and is fascinated by the darkness and imagination displayed on the VHS covers he discovers. Scanning his options, he comes across the image of a creepy hand wielding a large kitchen knife as it forms a Jack-o’-lantern. He knows he must rent it. Countless adults these days would describe Star Wars as a magical experience from their childhood that they will never forget. But for me, it was Halloween. The movie scared the living hell out of me, and I loved it.

My name is Chris Zeid. I’m a local Austinite who lives and breathes movies. Specifically, the genres of horror and sci-fi call me home. In this series of articles, I’ll discuss how horror and sci-fi film rewatches have affected me at different ages in my life.

Halloween

I was somewhere around six or seven years old when I discovered what true fear was. It was the first time I was ever genuinely scared. I can still remember hearing Halloween’s chilling theme song, watching Michael slowly stalk Laurie—the dread slowly building—and him killing his victims. I could feel goosebumps popping all over along with a slight sweat breaking against my skin as I watched the movie on the edge of my seat. I had already found an affinity toward horror years earlier after being introduced to the Goosebump book series, but R.L. Stine kept those stories tame. He made sure that most everyone would survive. Not the case for Halloween. The scenes I watched would stay with me far after the movie had concluded. I’d lay awake in bed thinking about this thing in a white mask creeping in the shadows of my bedroom, or I’d be playing outside in the evening and envision Michael waiting for me at the end of the street hidden behind the safety of those brightly lit street lamps. My active imagination tended to conjure up all types of scary scenarios that crept under my skin, but I just couldn’t get enough.

When I entered my teens, I’d see Halloween as more than just scares. During this time, I started to notice aspects of the characters that I hadn’t focused on before. I understood the responsibility Dr. Loomis took with Michael’s escape. Instead of allowing washing his hands of the situation, he grabbed his gun and chased after his demented patient. Loomis was dead set on seeing through his responsibility to stopping Michael. It was admirable. I thought about the strength Laurie had. She was terrified of this man obsessed with killing her, but she didn’t just sit in a corner and cry. She rescued the kids, fought back, and even wounded him with a weapon she made from a wire hanger. She was a badass.

At some point in my twenties during a rewatch of Halloween, a thought struck me about Michael Myers. This classic slasher villain was only a twenty-one-year-old kid. He was younger than me! Thinking about him in this way frightened me in a very different unsettling way. Reality smacked me in the face. This was a kid killing kids. An evil person that could and even has existed in our world today. There is nothing scarier than reality, a fact that becomes clearer the older we get.

Now in my 30s, the scares of Halloween have mostly melted away. My wife and I will watch it together, and we have a blast enjoying the movie. We laugh at how cringe Laurie’s friends are. We quote iconic lines together with a smile on our face, especially the silly but fun ones. And we bask in that wonderful fall feeling this movie always gifts. I’m now at a period of my life where the thought of kids is on the horizon. It makes me wonder how different my experience with Halloween will be in the next decade. After all, Michael Myers was someone’s son, and his first kill was their daughter.

It’s now been nearly thirty years of watching Halloween, and each decade of my life this movie has affected me in different ways. The power a movie has to last through the decades is one of the beauties of not just storytelling, but art itself. It can impact us, and sometimes it can even change us. Next time you watch one of your old favorite movies, think about how you see it differently today.