SOURCE: Cumbow, Robert C. “It Was the Bogey Man: Halloween.” In Order in the Universe: The Films of John Carpenter, pp. 47–63. London: Scarecrow, 2000.

In the following essay, Cumbow examines Carpenter's innovative cinematography in Halloween and discusses the film's significance to the horror film genre.

Yablans … came to us and said, “Would you make us a movie about babysitters?”

—Debra Hill¹

The opening of Halloween reprises the metaphor of Eyes of Laura Mars: the camera as peeping Tom … and as killer. The motif is sustained throughout the film, as the subjective camera makes killers—albeit shocked, unwilling ones—of us all, the heavy breathing of Michael becoming our own as we wonder what he/we will do next. As in the opening shot of Assault on Precinct 13, the moving camera presence creates a sense of disorder, an unsettling feeling that grips the viewer throughout the film: fear of sudden...