Halloween Opening Analysis

Halloween is a 1978 American Independent horror film set in the fictional suburban town of Haddonfield, Illinois, USA on Halloween.

A psychotic murderer institutionalised since childhood escapes on a mindless rampage while his doctor chases him through the streets.

Halloween was produced in a budget of $320,000 and grossed $47 million at the box office in the United States, equivalent to over $150 million as of 2008, becoming one of the most profitable independent films of all time.

Many critics credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher films inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). The movie originated many clichés found in low – budget horror films of the 1980s and 1990s. However, the film contains little graphic violence and gore.

The films opening titles has a theme tune of a very icon thriller sound; which was John Carpenters own creation. John Carpenter was director of the film and also created the Screen play.



The titles are going from yellow to red to represent fire, which is also the connotation of danger. The black back screen used on the title sequence shows the audience that it is a horror or thriller because black represents the murderer and the unknowingness. In the title sequence there is also a picture of a pumpkin with a candle inside, which is constantly zoomed in on whilst the sequence is played out. The ideology of a pumpkin is that it scares people away.  The face of the pumpkin is suggestive to the genre of the film as the shape of the nose on the pumpkin is the shape of a knife, and the right eye of the pumpkin is in the shape of a head. The following frame is a connotation screen which sets the location of the film, "Haddonfield, Illinois." Whilst the connotation screen is played out there is a sound bridge of children reciting a poem about Halloween. The poem is about what is scary about haloween "You may think they're scary, you're probably right, black cats and gargoyles on halloween night, trick or treat." The poem is a reflection of what the middle class part of the world presumed was scary about halloween, but now a new fear would be upon them as they would fear Michael Myers would be out to get them. The sound of the poem slowly fades out. A new caption screen appears which reads "Halloween night 1963." 

The first scene begins with a pan to a white house of an urban middle class estate; this establishing shot gives the image to the audience that it is set in the average persons estate. There is a handheld submissive point of view shot walking towards the house. The pumpkin that is on the porch gives evidence to the audience that it is Halloween, and could also represent that they are trying to ward of evil from the house. When the submissve point of view shot is filmed the camera man doesn’t give the sense that it’s a young boy as the camera is raised to a level that could be seen as adult height. The shot used gives the audience a sense that they are walking towards the window and are witnessing the start of a sexual act between two teenagers. This shows there is a deviation from the classic horror film as it is not a white virgin girl that has been killed, but instead a non virgin teenager.  There  is a sound of the clock when walking up the stairs which builds the tension of the scene. The sister is singing whilst naked which shows that she is happy and that she has possibly just commited a sexual act. The ruffled bed sheets also give evidence that the two teenagers have been up to sexual acts in the bedroom. When the killer gets to the bedroom he kills the girl with a knife as a punishment to not being a virgin anymore. The knife represents the one being seen on the cover picture of the film. The end of the opening scene is a zoom out by a crane shot of the young Michael Myers. Working class area and parents are working class, as they have a car and are wearing formal clothes.