re: Halloween -- yes, it works more as a reaction to ICB's characterization (you want to humanize these killers, Truman? Fuck that.) But all those perfect lawns and white houses and picket fences (and of course there's a direct line to Sunnydale as well, I'm sure, as Twin Peaks) call on the American myth that violence in a small town is somehow more terrible. Though to give John Carpenter his due, Halloween doesn't exactly idealize the community -- Michael's a home-grown horror, and the most awful thing in the movie is when Laurie's running across all those perfect lawns, screaming her head off, and people not only don't call for help, but turn their porch lights off when she gets close. I don't know what it says that when I showed this scene to a class of college freshmen -- I'm sure it had context, I forget what now -- it got a laugh.