Halloween

Recently, Yahoo published an article asking young people if they found the 1978 film Halloween scary.

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/halloween-still-scary-35-years-later-172850535.html

First of all, you shouldn't ask people their opinion, because they'll often give it to you, and you probably won't like the answer you get. It'll be ill-informed and probably misspelled, even if it's verbal. Second, you shouldn't ask young people things. They text when they drive and listen to the music fabricated for pop sensation Miley Cyrus, so their judgment can't really be trusted.

Young people are dumb, and you really need some age and wisdom in order to be taken seriously.

Third, you're going to be hard pressed to find something that's scary in a horror film after any length of time. Everything in Halloween has been done since, to greater or lesser degrees. It's become so familiar it's almost passe.

Sure, the dialogue in Halloween hasn't aged well. The 30-year old actors-playing-teenagers' forced, wooden dialogue didn't even ring true when it was released. However, Halloween is well-paced and effectively shot in near darkness. Michael Myers spends the majority of the movie hiding ominously in the shadows or lurking semi-obscured by hedges, ramping up the tension. John Carpenter has created a suburban Halloween where the night is ruled by the young, filled with the promise of sex, drugs and rock & roll. It's a night where adults are foolish, absent or ineffective. His urgent, ominous score is still nightmare fuel. While naive compared to some modern horror films, Halloween generates a few thrills.