Obviously tectonic for commercial horror, but aside from its lasting influence on slasher movies Halloween is surprising dull. It's a profoundly conservative movie in both its approach to violence (nearly bloodless, quick kills), and themes (a bloodthirsty criminal infiltrating the white middle class sanctuary of the suburbs). Definitely not the origin of murdering teenagers for having sex trope, but Myers' backstory as transforming into an inhuman, sociopathic killer (at age six!) from having seen his sister having sex definitely adds an extra layer of post-sexual revolution reactionary.
I'll give Carpenter points for this being extremely watchable. So much of the style and iconography here has been absorbed into pop culture that finally watching the original feels like a movie I've always known. The daytime scenes are the most fun, setting a great fall atmosphere before the kills begin. The night scenes all look like shit, but you can only do so much when the main focus is spying on teen girls getting undressed. Also, I'm sorry to be a hater, but I was so sick of the "we have Danny Elfman at home" main theme by the end.
Maybe they wouldn't have died if instead of getting naked they'd ate some Activia and gone to sleep.
Content warnings: dog murder, stalking, death by stabbing/suffocation