Halloween — film screening at Roxy Cinema New York

John Carpenter's 1978 slasher masterwork takes cues from Hitchcock to build tension and mood rather than relying on gore. Set in an innocuous American suburb where no middle-class home offers safety, the film features Jamie Lee Curtis in her scream queen debut as a babysitter stalked by an escaped mental patient. Donald Pleasence plays the patient's maniacally driven doctor, while Carpenter himself provides the tinkling, off-meter piano score that haunts long after the final frame.