Halloween

John Carpenter's Halloween invented the slasher genre and, in doing so, changed the economics of Hollywood forever. Made for $325,000, it grossed $70 million and proved that horror was the highest-ROI genre in cinema. But Halloween endures not because of its business model — it endures because of Carpenter's absolute mastery of suspense. Michael Myers is terrifying because he is a void: no motive, no backstory, no humanity. He is the Shape, standing in the background of wide shots, watching. Carpenter's score — which he composed himself in three days — is the most recognizable theme in horror history. Donald Pleasence's Dr. Loomis and Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode defined the archetypes that every slasher film would copy for the next forty years.