Halloween (15)

John Carpenter’s seminal slasher classic.

If there's one John Carpenter film which is a must-see, it's Halloween. Made on a tiny budget of $300,000, and shot in only 20 days, it set the gold standard of the slasher genre while single-handedly shaping the future of horror filmmaking.

The plot: on Halloween night 1963, six year old Michael Myers brutally murders his 17-year-old sister, Judith. Sentenced and locked away for 15 years, he escapes on Halloween night 1978. Hunted by his psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), he heads home to the quiet town of Haddonfield, Illinois, looking for his next victims, including unwitting high-school student Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, it’s iconic from one end to the other in every way. From its masterful opening shot to the terrifying use of voyeurism in the daytime, to it’s instantly recognisable score, to Curtis’ natural breakthrough performance that brings to life one of the best final girls ever, to Pleasence masterfully playing a doctor who will stop at nothing to capture his most dangerous patient.

One of the most influential, imitated, and commercially successful independent films in history, it’s still the quintessential popcorn chiller with very few equals