What’s Aged the Worst?
Myers killing his older sister at six; the Jamie Lee Curtis stunt casting; Myers's unrefined killing; most of the sequels
In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:28Read transcript
- A six-year-old killing his older sister still bothers the speaker, who thinks his own daughter could fend one off even sitting down.
- Casting Jamie Lee as the daughter of a Psycho star was a big deal in 1978, when Psycho had only been out 15 years, but no longer matters.
- Myers still struggles with the killing, with the raw tools there but not yet formed, compared to a young basketball player.
- The sexual-subtext reading, as a host lays it out: the virgin survives while flirting with the killer, sings "I wish I had you all alone," and keeps leaving phallic objects (knitting needle, knife, wire hanger) near Myers; the host quotes Carpenter on her repressed energy.
- The reading is doubted as more thought than the filmmakers put in; Carpenter is said to have "whistled a couple of different tunes," earlier saying she lived because she was least distracted.
- The disturbing, effective trigger is that his sister is having sex, with Laurie as her proxy.
- Halloween 2 and H2O make Laurie his sister, which muddles the subtext; franchises of that era were retrofitted with "spit and dental floss."
- Horror conditioned audiences to expect couples who walk off to have sex to die, through the nineties and maybe the 2000s; with 20 days and three babysitters, the filmmakers likely did not overthink it.
- Most sequels: keep Halloween 1, a flawed Halloween 2 with some of Loomis's best stuff, H2O and the 2018 film; Halloween 4 is enjoyed, and Season of the Witch has defenders the host resists.
- The other host has no further aged-worst picks; everything else is nitpicks.