Halloween (1978)

Halloween is the film that codified the modern slasher and it did so with a level of craft the genre spent decades trying to replicate without ever fully succeeding. Carpenter's use of negative space, letting Michael appear and disappear at the edges of the frame long before anyone else notices him, remains one of the most technically disciplined tricks horror has ever produced. Jamie Lee Curtis established the final girl archetype with a performance built on genuine vulnerability rather than pure survival instinct, and Donald Pleasence's Loomis gives the film its sense of dread about what Michael actually is. The score alone, composed by Carpenter himself, does as much work as any visual choice in the film. A foundational, perfect piece of horror filmmaking.