So a movie review! And non-gangster movie related. Feels like ages since I’ve done one of these.
And I’m sure a lot of people might find it weird that I’m reviewing the new Halloween movie, but
you might be surprised to learn that I’m a huge fan of the Halloween series
(even though there’s pretty much one classic movie followed by an ocean of mediocrity). I even did a
half an hour video looking at all of the films in the franchise, which I’ve linked in the corner,
and I’ve also reviewed the 2018 soft reboot, which I was a big fan of. I thought the movie
did really well, it felt like a true spiritual successor to Carpenter’s original, there were
so many positives with the film, HOWEVER, one key attribute of the film was that it
played it VERY safe, in regards to so many controversial aspects of the Halloween movies.
For example, the whole thing with Michael being someone with no apparent motive,
who does not have specific targets in the original film and just happened to come across
Laurie Strode in the original movie. Halloween II obviously infamously made Laurie Michael’s sister,
something I thought was really poo, but it gave Jamie Lee Curtis a reason to remain integral to
the story and have Michael come after her. So how did the 2018 one keep Laurie important to the plot
when the film ignores the sister thing? Well, there’s some random mad doctor who kidnaps Michael
Myers and delivers him to Laurie’s doorstep to see what happens, and instead of him being
obsessed with him, she’s obsessed with him. But it’s never established whether Michael actually
went for Laurie or she was just one of many potential prey. Like I said, playing it safe.
With this new one, I predicted that it would not be as good as the 2018 predecessor in
terms of the plot because rather than play it safe, like say, Star Wars The Force Awakens,
it would have to commit to a certain narrative, bring something new to the table, like The Last
Jedi, and as such, it was gonna piss people off. So I figured the film-makers would overcompensate
this by doubling down on the gore and kill count. And that’s pretty much what happened.
Halloween Kills is a gory follow up to Halloween 2018 that ups the violence but is a huge downgrade
over the film it follows. I watched it knowing full well what critics and fans thought of it,
so I went in with really low expectations, and as a result, I thought it was alright.
In the grand scheme of things, taking into account the entire Halloween franchise, it
isn’t the worst movie in the series, but when you consider it’s the same team from the 2018 film,
you can’t help but feel not as much effort was put into this one, and they felt content to making a
standard, run-of-the-mill slasher flick. Much like the original Halloween II,
the nights events lead Laurie to spend time in the hospital, except in this film
Jamie Lee Curtis is hardly in the film and she spends the ENTIRE DURATION of the film,
aside from her opening scene, in the hospital, making weird philosophical exposition-heavy
speeches. There is literally no point to her character in this movie, he’s a fifth wheel
whose best moments have seemingly been removed or saved for the film’s sequel, Halloween Ends.
But anyway, firefighters arrive at the house that is burning Michael, from the end of the last film,
which is actually a really cool way of bringing back the villain after you think you’ve got him.
You, know, they invertedly end up saving the killer, as was suggested by the teaser of the
film when Laurie is screaming at the firefighters “let it burn!”. But it doesn’t actually work out
that they put out the fire and this saves Michael, he just kind of bulldozes his way through the
enflamed house and engages in a brawl outside the house with the firefighters, this 60 something
guy easily mowing down a fire team full of guys in their prime. And it sets a precedent for the
rest of the film, because this really is a movie where Michael is an unstoppable killing machine
who can teleport wherever he wants. He was always supposed to be the embodiment of evil, there was
always the suggestion that he was something more than a man, something supernatural, and that’s one
of the biggest talking points about the ending of the original film. But this movie throws all
the nuance out the window, and the suggesting is replaced by an affirmation that Michael is indeed
a supernatural entity, and it doesn’t matter how much damage he takes, he’ll get up and walk it
off. And when you consider that the characters in this film are among some of the dumbest
ever to grace horror cinema, you end up actually rooting for Michael Myers instead of his victims,
and you wait patiently for the boring scenes of people taking to be over so we can get to
Michael gouging someone’s eye out or kicking a door against an armed woman, so she comically
shoots herself. Even Michael starred at her for a few seconds after that, like he’s thinking
“whoa, that actually worked”. But there’s a sad realisation when watching the movie, because,
with the things I just mentioned, you realise you’re just watching a Friday the 13th movie,
a brainless schlocky slasher where the unkillable villain takes out a couple of idiots scene after
scene, except in this film Jason Voorhees is wearing a Michael Myers mask. And I think it’s
a bit sad that the movie is content with being another one of the countless 80s slasher flicks,
because there was potential for more. Especially with the main plot of having the town
unite and turn against Michael, but they’re so hilariously inept that it becomes a comedy show.
That scene where they go after a mentally disable bald little dude who looks like a drunk Danny
DeVito and waltzed into the hospital saying “help” was so funny, they spend 10 minutes chasing him
around the hospital while the real Michael Myers is chilling in his home. And I’m not gonna list
out all the stupid decisions made by characters, but it really is a lot, like the mob acknowledging
that there’s strength in numbers, but people constantly going off into smaller groups
and on top of that going off alone, with one mind-boggling scene where a guy says he will face
Michael alone, and unsurprisingly, he ends up a bloody corpse in the attic 2 minutes later.
The pseudo-flashbacks to 1978 were well done. They looked great but they really didn’t serve
a purpose in the film aside to give importance to a random character in the modern time period and,
I suspect, to pad out the runtime. Positives? The kills were good, very
bloody. I liked the way Michael looked, the way he moved – the actor nailed it, although of course
they turned Michael Myers into Jason. It was a good looking film. The music as well, I guess?
Although to be honest Carpenter and his team didn’t do as good of a job as last time round;
there was only one real memorable piece. Halloween Kills starts off OK and slowly
gets progressively worse, and it ends up in a weird place where you’re seeing people lining
up one-by-one to brawl with Michael, one guy who thought, after everything he’s seen, a baseball
bat would do the job, after he himself warns everyone else that Michael is an apex predator.
A baseball bat which wasn’t even his! Some guy told a story about how it ran
in the family and then he just ups and talks it “Yup, I’m gonna need this. Evil dies tonight!”
The dialogue was particularly atrocious. What I hated more than anything else was characters
making philosophical assertions about Michael, like one part where Laurie is like, he was a man,
but he became something more, with each kill he transcends. Like why are you explaining
your concept of Michael Myers? That’s our job, our part as the film-goers to speculate on the
nature of Michael Myers – don’t outright tell us! And so many scenes of characters
saying “look what Michael has done to us! We’ve become monsters!” Let us come to that conclusion,
don’t spell it out. But the dialogue was poor all round. One w***** even looked right at the
camera at one point and said “the boogeyman!” I mean, I get the idea behind this film,
it’s Halloween ascending, it’s Michael growing something into more, it’s no longer one or two
people running after him, it’s the town getting together and uniting against him.
But the execution was poor, the only thing the film really excels at are the kills.
Things were better when Michael was just a man, like in the last one, where there was only an
implication of something more sinister, where he could get hurt, where he used to stalk, hide
in the shadows, but now that he’s an unstoppable terminator, there just isn’t really much tension.
It feels like a filler movie, one that knows it’s the middle chapter in a trilogy.
And perhaps the knowledge that there’s going to another movie affected how good this one could be,
because I heard from someone who saw an earlier screening that THAT film was a lot better,
like the part where Michael is beaten up and then gets up being a huge, dramatic moment,
the confirmation that he is indeed evil incarnate, you can’t stop him. But the
final film treats this moment as just another day in the office for Michael, very strange.
Overall, it was a relatively ordinary Halloween movie, one that I’ll give a 5.5./10.