Is ‘Halloween’ the worst-acted horror movie of all time?
Halloween is widely regarded as one of the best and most influential horror films ever made. The 1978 John Carpenter-directed classic starred Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut as Laurie Strode, the subject of stalking by the demented serial killer Michael Myers.
The film opens with a classic Steadicam-shot scene in which a 15-year-old Myers stabs his older sister to death. The rest of the movie then takes place 15 years later, when Myers escapes from a mental institution and proceeds to make Laurie’s life a living hell.
Whilst the movie received several plaudits, most notably for John Carpenter’s innovative direction and excellent film score, several parts of Halloween’s whole have not aged well. One aspect that is particularly jarring upon watching the film over 40 years later is, unfortunately, the quality of the acting. Admittedly, this was Jamie Lee Curtis’ first role in a feature-length film, although perhaps the very greenness of the cast is what gives the acting and dialogue delivery of the film the sense that it did not have the biggest budget of all time.
The horror genre, in sum, is known to have some particularly awful dialogue, but Halloween just seems to take the cake. It’s welcoming in any genre for conversation to be snappy and intelligent, but the characters of Halloween are ultimately shown to be lacking a little intelligence.
This is particularly evident in the likes of Laurie and her friend Annie, who regularly mocks her throughout the film. The necessarily convincing reality ultimately falls flat when the conversations between the two friends feel wooden and forced and are punctuated by every other line being met with the word “totally”.
Perhaps one thing that makes the bad acting and dialogue stand out though is the excellent performance of Donald Pleasance (arguably the only member of the film’s cast with any semblance of a history of acting). Whilst Pleasance’s feature in Halloween is welcome, it only serves to showcase the poor acting abilities of Curtis and the rest of the cast.
Several other aspects ought to be pointed out about Halloween’s outdatedness too. First is the seemingly exploitative female nudity in the film, which contributes absolutely nothing to the atmosphere nor the plot of the film. So too, the on-screen deaths have not aged well, which also leads to doubt in the acting ability present on the set of the film.
So whilst Halloween will long be remembered as a genuinely influential part of the horror and slasher genres, in retrospect, the poor acting and outdated themes and tropes have not aged well. Perhaps the reason that Halloween has since become an established franchise within horror is so that some of those initial mistakes made in the first movie could be rectified.
