You can hear it. You can see it. The black screen is accompanied by a simple, haunting melody that combines penetrating and repetitive piano key strokes sitting atop dark, sustained synthesizer chords. While this music sets the hairs on your neck to attention, a single jack-o-lantern slowly comes into view. Its smile is at odds with the music, hinting at the feeling that will be ubiquitous throughout the film. You’re unsettled but drawn in by the mystery, by the threat. Cue the title card, its letters familiar but unsettling: HALLOW… The season of scares is upon us, and doing the honors of creating the quintessential setting is John Carpenter’s Halloween.

1978’s Halloween is one of my favorite scary movies. While I’ve watched it enough to neutralize any of the “scare”, it’s a film to be appreciated for its legacy. The look, movements, and invincibility of Michael Myers is synonymous with Halloween. The day and the “monster” are inseparable. When you think of plodding, bullet-sponge serial killers with a hint of the supernatural around them, you have to think of the OG kid who killed his sister on Halloween night and then escaped a mental hospital as an adult before returning to his hometown of Haddonfield, NJ to go on a murderous spree and become infatuated with Laurie Strode. The fact Michael does this while wearing today what is one of the most identifiable masks of all time (and what was then Captain Kirk) cements Halloween’s legendary status in the annals of horror cinema.

The story perpetuates the trope of the relentless hunter whose motivations are unknown but associated with the essence of evil. It also solidifies the role of the “final girl” in slasher films: the single pure female character who survives the killer’s attacks and ultimately leads to their demise. Movies like Friday the 13th, Black Christmas, and Halloween follow the quintessential slasher playbook, and we love them for it. It creates a timeless viewing experience that encapsulates everything a viewer could want when a chill hits that October air.

There have been numerous iterations of Halloween, coming as sequels and remakes. While later sequels may lose their grounding and the remakes lose their quality, they all pay homage to the characters and world created by the original. It was not polished and perfect. There’s no shortage of low-budget campiness and cheese, but that only enhances the grittiness and makes every peek into the shadows a harrowing experience. This is a film that needed to be barebones and made by a hungry creative. That general aesthetic and energy is bonded with every aspect of Halloween and keeps it viable and aging well almost 50 years later.

So as the season of ghouls and ghosts comes upon us, it feels right to pay tribute to one of the classics that remains an enjoyable watch year after year. Here’s to you, Halloween, and the work you did making the strong, silent type terrifying, to keeping the shadows scary, and to giving us Jamie Lee Curtis, scream queen edition.