Halloween is one of my favorite slasher films, and it has by far my one of my favorite ends to a horror movie ever. I really like the reading that Halloween’s scare factor comes from its invasion on suburban life. The idea of living in a neighborhood, especially around the time Halloween came out was seen as the safest place to live. It’s away from the crime of the city, but its also more civilized than living in the middle of nowhere. It’s this middle ground haven. Michael Myers challenges this idea by not only being a horror that attacks a suburban neighborhood. He’s a horror from the neighborhood. He’s story is entirely linked to the neighborhood. We see this represented by the Myer’s house, now decades and turned into a local urban legend. This is why I like the ending so much. Michel Myers has often built us as this scary urban legend that turns out to be true. We see this in the way people talk about him. Referring to him as the shape and the boogieman. We then end the movie with Myers' body disappearing as the iconic theme plays as we see an empty shot of the house. Reinforcing this idea that the evil could be anywhere, even your own house.
I really like Michael Myers Design. I think it's really effective in being scary. A big part of this is because it consoles all of Michael's emotions. It makes it hard to tell how aware he is of his killings. By this I mean it is vague if Michael is a mindless killer who slaughters anyone without reason, or is he planning and targeting certain people for a certain reason.
Halloween (2018), is a great squeal to the original in my opinion. I liked it so much because it let us explore the impact the events of the first movie had on Laurie. I really like when slasher films allow the final girl trope to continue into the squeal, and we get to see how the effect of the movie has changed them. I like how Laurie recreates a lot of the Myer shots from the original showing how intertwined the two have become. I also like that they dropped the element of Laurie and Myers being related that appeared in the earlier Halloween squeals. I think this kind of hurts Myers as a character. I think it gives Myer too much motivation and takes away from the fear that the victims could have been anyone. This movie avoids this from happening by having Laurie be the one to hunt down Myers instead of the other way around.
Sleepaway camp is a wild ride. This is really weird and nonsensical at times, but I think that is what make It sure an enjoyable movie. I think what really sells it is the fact all the campers are played by actors around the same age. This makes the dialog feel more candid. I think it's also an interesting slasher to talk about because it flips the roles a bit. By this I mean that I feel we're supposed to be on the slashers side more than we are supposed to be on the campers. The only campers that get killed are the campers that are mean or abusive toward Ricky or Angela. The ending is also so crazy, and I don’t even think it's due to the twist of Angela being a boy originally . It’s just that the head mold looks so uncanny, and the scream and facial expression are so strange. It’s just a whole trip watching the ending unfold. I can see how the movie can be seen as problematic under a modern lens, but it is probably one of my favorite horror movies we’ve seen in the class.