Halloween (1978) Opening Sequence

Title: Halloween

Director: John Carpenter

Year: 1978

Running Time: 101 minutes 

I recently watched Halloween (1978) and thoroughly enjoyed the opening sequence to this film as it was so simple but very effective. The opening sequence consists of only two shots, a long point-of-view shot lasting about four minutes, and then a shot after that showing the person who's point-of-view we were seeing from.

The first shot starts outside a house and then goes over the a window, to show teenage boy and girl together in the living room and the teenage boy plays with a clown mask before they before head upstairs to the bedroom together and the living room light is turned off. Then we go back to the front of the house and look up at the bedroom window as the light is turned off. Before this happens, all of the sound used in the clip is just sound that you would expect to hear in this area, but once the bedroom light is turned off, some eerie musics starts to play all the way until the end of the sequence, getting more intense towards the end. 

Then we go to the back of the house and we go inside, picking up a knife from the kitchen, walking into the living room and seeing the teenage boy putting his t-shirt on as he comes downstairs and leaves the house. The camera hides in the living room, showing that the person who's point-of-view we are seeing them doesn't want to be seen. Once the teenage boy has left, we begin to head upstairs and we see the clown mask on the floor, and we pick it up and put it on. 

We then head into the bedroom and see the teenage girl sat brushing her hair and as we approach her, she turns around and says 'Michael!', telling us that the person's point-of-view we are seeing from is Michael. Michael then stabs the teenage girl several times and then heads downstairs and out of the front door, to be confronted by who appears to be his parents. 

The mask is taken off and we cut to the shot of Michael, slowly zooming out to reveal his parents at either side of him in shock as he is stood their holding a knife with blood all over it. 

I really like how simple this scene is, only having one cut in it, used to reveal who Michael is, and also the use of the eerie music helps to build the tension of the scene, getting more intense at the parts where there is going to be some action.