John Carpenter’s 1978 film Halloween, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence, tells the story of a Halloween night in which psychotic murderer Michael Myers returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, to kill again. Halloween, which helped define the “slasher” genre, shares many similarities with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  Halloween and Psycho have similar opening sequences. 

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They both begin with opening credits and music that sets the mood for a horror movie. A date and location are displayed on the screen, followed by voyeuristic shots that zoom into windows. The first murders we see are of young, unclothed women who are repeatedly stabbed. In both of those murder scenes, we only see the knives and blood and hear screams and stabbing rather than actually seeing the knives cut the bodies.

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We don’t see the faces of the killers until the end of each film, and in both films a female character is narrowly rescued from death when she searches a house to investigate the disappearances of her friends. Halloween also features a few references to Psycho in its characters.  Dr. Sam Loomis, a psychiatrist, and a woman named Marion go to the insane asylum on the night that Michael Myers escapes.

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Both characters’ names are references to Psycho.  Additionally, Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays protagonist Laurie in Halloween, is the daughter of Psycho star Janet Leigh.  Additionally, both films were made inexpensively, but their music and other stylistic elements keep them from appearing to be low-budget.