Random Creepy Scene #6089: Halloween Special!
Throughout his seminal masterpiece Halloween, John Carpenter manages to create moments of nail-biting tension, suggestive chills and an unnervingly creepy atmosphere punctuated with shrill jump-moments. The director has laced his groundbreaking slasher with creepy images and moments of spine-tingling dread. Most of the creepiness comes of course from the frequent glimpses of The Shape…
The presence of The Shape, indeed even the mere threat of his presence is enough to render any previously cosy domestic space or autumnal leafy suburb, a now creepy, dangerous place, saturated with menace. Carpenter’s expert use of widescreen and his placing of The Shape just on the periphery of many shots - lurking in the shadows and corners - is more than enough to generate chills and the threat of violence and set hearts pounding… Indeed even when he appears to Laurie in broad daylight, his presence obviously doesn't belong in cosy suburbia - his eerie menace juxtaposed with familiar settings, and in broad daylight, is positively haunting. It isn’t what The Shape does in these shots that makes proceedings so creepy, but what he doesn’t do. Anything. He just stands there.
There is something unbelievably chilling about that blank white face slowly emerging, phantom-like from the darkness, and hovering just out of the sightline of the oblivious characters. The stuff of nightmares… Enjoy.
The presence of The Shape, indeed even the mere threat of his presence is enough to render any previously cosy domestic space or autumnal leafy suburb, a now creepy, dangerous place, saturated with menace. Carpenter’s expert use of widescreen and his placing of The Shape just on the periphery of many shots - lurking in the shadows and corners - is more than enough to generate chills and the threat of violence and set hearts pounding… Indeed even when he appears to Laurie in broad daylight, his presence obviously doesn't belong in cosy suburbia - his eerie menace juxtaposed with familiar settings, and in broad daylight, is positively haunting. It isn’t what The Shape does in these shots that makes proceedings so creepy, but what he doesn’t do. Anything. He just stands there.
There is something unbelievably chilling about that blank white face slowly emerging, phantom-like from the darkness, and hovering just out of the sightline of the oblivious characters. The stuff of nightmares… Enjoy.
