Halloween (2018)

One of the first things I did for this blog when I started it back in 2013 was write a series of reviews covering the entirety of the Halloween film franchise. Good or bad, it’s an uneven series like most horror franchises, but I still have a soft spot for Michael Myers and his silent stalker ways since the original film was one of the first horror flicks I ever sat through as a kid from beginning to end without wanting to cover my eyes or run out of the room. So when I say that I am a Halloween fanboy you best believe what I say is the genuine article.

After Rob Zombie’s unwatchable and terribly mean spirited cinematic abomination known as Halloween II was released in 2009 I was pretty much done with the franchise. That movie was so bad in my eyes that I didn’t care to ever see another sequel/reboot again. When it was announced that Blumhouse and director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, Your Highness) were to begin working on a new entry into the Michael Myers saga I was less than excited. Especially when I read that this new film was a direct sequel to the original film and would basically erase parts 2-8 as well as Rob Zombie’s versions from existence (not that I’m complaining about Zombie’s films being thrown away). Not cool. Halloween H20 had already done that back in 1998 when it negated parts 3-6 to make it a direct sequel to 1981’s Halloween II, picking up the story 20 years after ”the night HE came home”. I didn’t mind that so much because the direction those films were heading was so convoluted and ridiculous that the series was about to implode onto itself. I actually loved Halloween H20. It treated the original film with respect and didn’t do anything overly ridiculous to muddy the waters. It was a great homage, didn’t stray too far from the path set by those before it and had a sense of finality to it (well, Laurie did decapitate her brother at the end, so, yeah). It ended the series on a high note and I felt it didn’t need to go any further after that.

Then Resurrection happened. And then the Rob Zombie reboots. Ugh.

With this new revisionist sequel (that’s what I’m calling this new entry) H20 was being erased from existence even though it was stealing that film’s gimmick and having it take place 40 years after the original. Jamie Lee Curtis was back playing Laurie Strode once again, John Carpenter was involved in the creation of the story as well as the composing of the score and even Nick Castle was returning to play The Shape once more. The trailers started making the rounds and I was impressed by what I was seeing. It looked like a great homage made by fans of the original film trying to correct the wrongs done to this franchise over the years (The Revenge of Michael Myers… what a dog). The reviews were slowly trickling in and damn if it wasn’t getting some high marks from the usually cynical media when it comes to horror films. I was excited, so on opening weekend I checked out the film with a friend who is a fellow horror fan.

I absolutely hated the new Halloween.

BEWARE! THERE WILL BE MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!

Picking up 40 years after the original film, Michael Myers (Nick Castle) has escaped his captors once again during a prisoner transfer and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield to do what he does best – murder. What he didn’t expect was that the sole survivor of his last rampage, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), has been preparing all these years to face her would-be killer one last time.

I love the set-up for the film. The pre-credit scene where two true crime podcasters visit The Shape at the psychiatric hospital where he’s resided for the past 40 years is pretty friggin’ intense. We see an old and grizzled Michael, scarred from his fight with Laurie back in the day, in a unique outdoor lock-up for the violently insane. When the investigators bring out Michael’s old mask in an attempt to get a reaction out of The Shape the vibe he gives off wigs out every other inmate outside with him. It was really unsettling.

Then we are treated to something very rare in cinema these days – an opening credit sequence. As the names of all those involved in the film flash by we watch a rotten pumpkin reconstitute itself as the camera slowly zooms into its eye. I took this particular variation of the original film’s credit sequence as a sort of “we are injecting new life into something dead” by Green. I was on board at this point. Especially with the updated version of the main theme by none other than John Carpenter himself (along with his son Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies) totally giving me the nostalgia heebie-jeebies.

And then the movie really started. Bit by bit I began to feel like I was watching a fan film made by some entitled rich kids who managed to blackmail Jamie Lee Curtis into starring in it for them.

For starters, all the characters are extremely unlikable. This was a problem I also had with Zombie’s films, and while it doesn’t go to the extremes of the reboots (no one is called a “cunt” here), I was disappointed that the people I was supposed to be rooting for were some of the douchiest characters I’ve seen in one of these films since Resurrection.

While I did like the PTSD angle taken with Laurie and how it has affected her offspring, it is never taken far enough. In H20 Laurie was a full blown alcoholic who was attempting to drink her trauma away. Here she is just a female variation of Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino who randomly screams obscenities and treats people like shit for the entire runtime (there is a callback to the alcoholism, but it’s too brief to be taken seriously). Laurie is supposed to be the hero of this story. We are supposed to like her and root for her to prevail against her attacker. But her character is written as such a hysterically toxic shut-in that I had a hard time getting behind her. Her daughter Karen, played by Judy Greer, is also written as an unlikable ass who does nothing but complain and whine. Karen’s husband Ray, played by Toby Huss, is an overly immature dumbass who I couldn’t wait to see die. Michael’s new psychiatrist, Dr. Sartain, played by Haluk Bilginer, is an entirely annoying imitation of Donald Pleasence’s Loomis who is given one of the worst character developments in recent memory. Even Officer Hawkins, played by the usually reliable Will Patton, is written as a complete dope. I leave Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson, played by Andi Matichak for last because her character is written surprisingly well and is sympathetic and likeable… if only Andi were a good actress her character might have come off as intended (her calling Laurie “Grandmother” all the time really got on my nerves for some reason).

To say the acting is atrocious is an understatement. Sure Jamie Lee Curtis does a great job playing this version of Laurie. She’s a fantastic and accomplished actress. She was also extremely passionate about this project in the same way she was about H20 (more on that later). Everyone else is, how can I put this lightly… shit. I mean bargain basement levels of shit. What’s on display here makes The Curse of Michael Myers look like fucking Shakespeare. Sure Judy Greer looks like she’s really trying to make it work (this is outside of her usual comedic wheelhouse) but it just never comes together.

The script by David Gordon Green, Danny McBride (WTF?!) and Jeff Fradley is essentially a mishmash of every cliché from 4 decades of slasher films all rolled into one. While this might have seemed cool in the early 1980s, this is the late 2010s. It’s all been seen before and done better in lesser movies. Shit, Scream 4 basically called this flick out back in 2011. The screenwriters all claim to be fans of the series but don’t seem to understand what made the original film work in the first place. Michael didn’t go around killing just any person he came across in 1978’s Halloween. The only people he killed were those he needed something from or those he had targeted for death. He needed clothes, so he killed that mechanic in the field to get his jumpsuit. He targeted Laurie and her friends because Annie (Nancy Loomis) screamed at him as he stalkerishly drove past them on the sidewalk while they walked home from school. That was it! He didn’t just go into random people’s homes and slaughter them for no reason like he does in this new film. Shit, in the original Halloween II Michael went into an old couple’s home to retrieve a knife and just walked out without killing anyone. Here that scene is repeated, but Michael violently hammers the homeowner to death because this film needs to have a high body count to please today’s fans.

And the dialogue… what the fuck were these 3 guys thinking when they wrote “Aww, I got peanut butter on my penis”?! Green, McBride and Fradley are known for their comedy films/television shows. I’m sorry, but their type of stoner/toilet humor just doesn’t work in this kind of film. It’s out of place and awkward. 90% of the dialogue these characters vomit out are straight up putrid. Every line that the dopey Oscar character utters is embarrassingly derpy, especially in the backyard where he thinks The Shape is a neighbor and randomly confesses his dating woes before getting killed. Ugh. There were times I wished this were a silent film.

David Gordon Green needs to stay away from anything other than comedies, and even then his movies are a little on the hard to watch side (ever see the absolutely laugh-free Your Highness?). He has no real style, no vision and certainly no talent for directing his actors in a way that they come off as anything but grating on the nerves. Once again, it was like watching a fan film that had a $10m budget.

Another major problem I had were the many miraculous coincidences that occurred over the course of the film to make sure people got exactly what they needed and got to where they needed to go within the (thankfully) short runtime. So the podcasters have just come back from interviewing Laurie Strode at her secluded home (another issue is that if she is supposed to be completely off the grid how did these douche nozzles manage to find her so easily?) and stop at a gas station. Michael just so happens to be at that exact same station at the exact same time, kills a mechanic for his jumpsuit as well as the podcasters because his mask is in their trunk. Seriously? Michael has no idea where Laurie’s home is (which is shocking since the aforementioned podcasters found it so easily), but is given a ride by his wacko psychiatrist to the place he absolutely needs to be for the finale to take place because if Dr. Sartian didn’t have his dumb as fuck random psychotic break the movie might have gone on for another 30 minutes. All this bullshit makes my head hurt.

Another issue I have with this flick is something I mentioned earlier – the fact that this film is supposed to erase all the other sequels/reboots from the franchise, yet can’t seem to stop referencing them constantly. I’ve already stated that this film stole its set-up from H20, but scenes are lifted from the sequels (the aforementioned knife theft from part II), the masks from Halloween III: Season of the Witch are seen on some trick or treaters, lines of dialogue are repeated, character names are repurposed, etc. If you are boldly claiming that your new film is the REAL sequel to a classic film such as Halloween, make it your own. Referencing the movies you don’t want to be a part of official canon anymore is tacky and I viewed it as pandering to the fans. It annoyed the shit out of me.

And stupidity is just all over the place. Characters do some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen - Dr. Sartian’s “I want to be a psycho killer too” crap, everything involving Karen’s dum-dum husband, all of Allyson’s friends/boyfriend drama, that moronic babysitter “whoops, I slipped” garbage, to the way the movie just sort of ends in the middle of a major moment. I couldn’t count the amount of times I rolled my eyes during this movie. To me it felt thrown together in the same way Halloween 5 was in order to make sure it got into theaters a year after the previous film was released. Ideas were half formed, some that should have been left on the cutting room floor were allowed to stay, the finale was rushed and incomplete, characters were introduced and forgotten about completely (Allyson’s fuckwit boyfriend) while others who were worthless were on screen way too much (Oscar and Karen’s husband), there was way too much gore for a sequel to a movie that was relatively bloodless and forced the audience to use their imaginations to create the details, that pacing was way off and I found myself bored to tears on more than one occasion.

Payoffs are another issue, such as the whole “Say something!” motif. Throughout the movie different characters who interact with Michael keep attempting to coerce him to speak. Additionally there are many conversations that take place where it is mentioned repeatedly that Michael has never spoken. Why keep bringing this up if you never planned for Michael to utter a single word? There is zero payoff to constantly hearing this over the course of the film. There’s a couple of hanging threads like this peppered within, like Allyson’s boyfriend never getting his due comeuppance.

Finally… the ending. It leaves what was supposed to be one last Halloween flick wide open for another sequel. We never see Michael burning to death in that house fire at the end. Sure we see him standing there on the steps giving Laurie and her kin his signature death stare, but when we cut away to another angle of the burning basement he is nowhere to be seen. Fucking stupid. And maddening.

So what’s to like about this flick? There is a lot to love on the technical side of things. John Carpenter’s music is pretty rad and it was great to hear his signature themes updated for the modern era by the dude who created them in the first place. The cinematography is great too. Everything is moodily lit with the right amount of brightness to allow the viewer to make out whatever is going on in a scene and still keep it looking creepy. Loved the unbroken shot as Michael stalked the streets and went in and out of houses murderizing peeps. The look of the signature mask was tops, the set designs were good (all about Smith’s Grove and then some) and when there was action it was thrilling and well choreographed. And I absolutely loved Greer’s “Gotcha!” moment followed by the “It’s not a cage… it’s a trap” twist. I just wished all these positives were in a better movie.

Look, I’m not delusional. I realize this is a slasher film and it is not high art. Not even close. But when I am a fan of a particular franchise I tend to analyze it more closely than others might. I do it with everything – Star Trek, Star Wars, A Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. It’s just how I roll. When it came to the hype level of this movie, the glowing reviews I was reading and my own expectations I felt this revisionist sequel was a massive disappointment. I wanted something different. Something that would justify the existence of bringing this franchise back from the dead with the intention of erasing all that had come before it. The filmmakers had to have had a fantastically radical idea to attempt something like that, right? In the end I felt it was just another cookie cutter slasher film that could have had any number of horror franchise titles attached to it. I found nothing surprising, new or fun about it. Nothing in the slightest. It might as well have never been made.

So in closing I want to point out some hypocrisy on the part of Halloween 2018’s star – Jamie Lee Curtis. She stated in recent interviews that she only did Halloween H20 for the money. “It was a paycheck”. I’d also like to point out that at the time she made H20 she was still a very bankable name, appearing in high profile movies like True Lies, My Girl 1 & 2 and Fierce Creatures. It was her clout that got H20 off the ground in the first place. Yet that movie feels more complete and well made than this one. But that apparently was the “paycheck” movie. I’m sorry, but I gotta call bullshit. This is her “paycheck” movie. Apart from a few bit roles over the last few years (at one point she was retired from acting) and a recurring role on the craptastic Scream Queens series she hasn’t done much recently. She even went on record a few years back that she wasn’t going to be doing the horror convention circuit anymore because she was over the whole horror thing. Well, this feels like it was her “my rent’s due, let’s make another unnecessary Halloween movie so I won’t get evicted” type of project. Was it any coincidence that this came out exactly 40 years after the original? This movie, which has become a HUGE hit, will most certainly put her back as the top draw to Flashback Weekends or whatever horror con she can book for the next 20 years until Halloween H60 comes out in 2038 and she admits this was her “paycheck” movie.

1 out of 5

P.S. Why not wait for the 50^th anniversary of the release of the original Halloween? It would have made much more sense. Like I said… rent was due.