Halloween

John Carpenter's second film was largely responsible for kicking off the whole slice and dice genre of slasher films that plagued the late '70s and early '80s (Friday the 13th ad infinitum, etc.) None of the copies came remotely close to this low-budget horror original. Jamie Lee Curtis came to screen fame as the teenage babysitter who is stalked by a killer who murdered his sister one Halloween night fifteen years before the film's main action. Halloween has some corny lines and a few moth holes in the plot; but the minor problems are quite forgotten while you're gripping the edge of your armchair (which is most of the film). And regardless of the chilling poster and word-of-mouth, this is not a gorefest; it's just a minor masterpiece of modern suspense.