Halloween
4K Ultra HD
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by John Carpenter, Debra Hill
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Donald Pleasence, Nancy Kyes, P.J. Soles
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Release date: September 25, 2018

John Carpenter‘s Halloween is one of the greatest horror films ever made, and turned the filmmaker from an up and coming director to a horror legend. If Psycho is the mother of all horror movies, then Halloween may be its spiritual son.

Forty years after its 1978 theatrical release, Halloween spawned not only sequels and remakes, but an entire sub-genre: the slasher film. This Friday, October 19th the 11th movie to enter the long-running franchise opens worldwide. This new film, also called Halloween, was directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) and written by Green, Danny McBride, and Jeff Fradley and is a direct sequel to Carpenter’s seminal classic. With that in mind, it’s a perfect time to revisit the original in the best way possible, with the new 4K Ultra Blu-ay Combo Pack.

Halloween – 1978
Available now on DVD, Blu-ray, and Amazon Video
Written by John Carpenter & Debra Hill
Directed by John Carpenter
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, P.J. Soles, Kyle Richards, Nancy Loomis, Nick Castle
Original release date: October 25, 1978
FEARnyc screening: October 27, 2016

There is almost nothing left that can be said about John Carpenter’s Halloween. It is widely recognized as a classic of horror, one of the scariest movies ever made, and the film that inspired and jump-started the slasher sub genre. What I can offer is perhaps a fresh perspective. You see, on Thursday night, at the final night of the weeklong FEARnyc horror film festival, I took my 12-year-old son Brandon to see Halloween on the big screen for the first time.

Introduced by FEARnyc director John Capo, Halloween starts with a long uninterrupted take tracking the killer arming himself, heading upstairs, putting on a clown mask, and stabbing a girl to death. We find out this was 6-year-old Michael Myers, and the victim was his older sister Judith. “That’s him?,” Brandon whispered. A few seconds later, when a 21-year-old Michael leaps on top of Loomis’s station wagon to escape, “That was him?” Sitting next to him, you could feel his body tense up when Carpenter used one of his taut musical cues. Having seen Halloween countless times, I was enjoying my son’s experience more.

Carrie
Blu-ray (40th Anniversary Collector’s Edition)
Director: Brian De Palma
Screenwriter: Lawrence D. Cohen
Cast: Sissy Spacek, John Travolta, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, Nancy Allen, P.J. Soles
Distributor: Scream Factory
Rated R | 98 Minutes
Release Date: October 11, 2016

Directed by Brian DePalma (Dressed to Kill, Blow Out) and based on the novel by Stephen King, Carrie celebrates its 40th anniversary with a 2-disc Collector’s Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory, which includes a brand new 4K scan of the film and nearly three hours of bonus material.

The first motion picture adaptation of a Stephen King book, Carrie stars Sissy Spacek (Coal Miner’s Daughter) as Carrie White, a high school girl with no friends, no self-esteem, and no idea about the power she possesses. In the film’s opening scene, Carrie experiences her first period in the showers after gym class. Unsure of what the blood means, she panics and pleads for help, leading her classmates to pelt her with tampons and chant “plug it up!”