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Halloween
Halloween, released in 1978 on a production budget of roughly $325,000, became one of the most profitable independent films ever made relative to its cost, and director John Carpenter's minimalist synthesizer score, which he composed himself, became one of the most instantly recognizable pieces of horror film music ever written. The film's masked, largely silent killer, Michael Myers, established the template for the "slasher" subgenre that would dominate horror filmmaking throughout the 1980s, including the specific narrative formula of a masked killer stalking a group of teenagers that countless subsequent films directly imitated. Carpenter's use of extended point-of-view camera shots from the killer's perspective, combined with sustained wide shots that let audiences search the frame for Myers's presence, created a persistent, anxious tension that became one of the film's most technically influential stylistic choices for the horror genre broadly. Halloween's commercial success directly launched the slasher film boom of the 1980s, spawning numerous imitators along with its own long-running franchise of sequels and reboots, and Jamie Lee Curtis's performance as protagonist Laurie Strode established the "final girl" trope that became a defining structural convention across decades of subsequent horror filmmaking.
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The Exorcist
The Exorcist, released in 1973 and based on William Peter Blatty's novel, became the first horror film ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, a recognition that reflected the film's unusually serious critical reception relative to the genre's typically lower prestige standing at the time. The film's depiction of a young girl's demonic possession, including graphic special effects for its era depicting her physical transformation and violent behavior, reportedly caused audience members to faint or vomit in theaters upon its original release, generating significant media coverage of its visceral impact. Its practical special effects, including the character's head appearing to rotate and the famous "spider walk" sequence, were achieved through then-groundbreaking mechanical effects work that set new technical standards for depicting supernatural physical horror on screen. The film's steps in Georgetown, where a pivotal scene takes place, became a genuine tourist attraction known as "the Exorcist steps," and the film's blend of serious religious and psychological themes with visceral horror imagery established a template for prestige horror filmmaking that later films have continued to draw on.
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