Two more days… I remember when the original 1978 Halloween came out, I was living in Essex, MD and there was (and still is today, huzzah!) Bengie’s Drive-In Theater. We would pass the giant marquee advertising in bold letters: “HALLOWEEN.” Now, I don’t recall seeing the t.v. ads since I was only 8 eight years old, only that I figured it must have been a battle royale of classic monsters on Halloween night. Thus, I hocked the crap out my mom and stepdad to take me. True story!

They never caved, of course, and I laugh now at their faces I didn’t read for what they were until I became a parent myself and found myself in similar situations. I held the line with my kid to a certain timeframe, using my own path in horror exploration to what I felt was age appropriate. He dogs me all the time joking about it.

By the time I saw Carpenter’s original masterpiece, Halloween was coming on t.v. for the first time. Real deep fans of Michael Myers thus know there is a t.v. broadcast edit out there where some scenes were cut and 12 extra minutes were shot, including Jamie Lee Curtis wearing a towel over her head to hide her new crop. Best of all those t.v. only edits contained a deep probe into the sanitarium where little Michael was being held.

Let me tell you something, that scene creeped me out harder than the rest of the movie and I was on edge the entire way. To see a kid in my age bracket look utterly satanic like that! I happen to have a copy of the t.v. edit thanks to my dear friends, Jodi and Stan, two OG horror fiends like myself. By the time I saw the uncut version of Halloween, I was giddy at what I missed (P.J. Soles, looking at you, sister), but I also felt the sanitarium scenes could’ve been made part of an “Ultimate Cut” version.

Still my absolute favorite horror film EVER, Halloween 1978 has its flaws, and I tend to get surrounded with cynics eager to point them out, lol, but it’s the raw, primal fear factor John Carpenter shoved at us. He transformed a Hollywood neighborhood into a fictitious Midwestern terror zone and there is still nothing scarier than the initial WTF moments Mikey is stalking Jamie Lee before Carpenter takes his finger off the trigger long enough to leave you ripe for a Myers-style picking. You can’t kill The Boogeyman!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.