Released: October 2021
Director: David Gordon Green
Run Time: 105 Minutes
Rated R
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Genre: Horror
Cast:
Jamie Lee Curtis: Laurie Strode
Judy Greer: Karen
Andi Matichak: Allyson
James Jude Courtney/Nick Castle: The Shape
Airon Armstrong: The Shape(1978)
Will Patton: Officer Hawkins
Thomas Mann: Young Hawkins
Anthony Michael Hall: Tommy Doyle
Defining irony: Me not liking the original 1978 Halloween film because it felt too formulaic despite reinforcing the formula that makes slasher movies what they are. I love slasher movies. I didn’t grow up with the Halloween movies. Nope, I was more of a Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street fan. At the time, I didn’t realize how much that those franchises owed to John Carpenter’s film. While technically not the first slasher movie, the original Halloween cemented the tropes and story beats that would define the slasher film for decades to come. Every slasher movie that you see today owes something to the original Halloween. That’s not opinion. It’s a fact. Without Carpenter’s movie, the slasher film would not be what it is today, if it existed at all. Halloween had enjoyed immense popularity, getting multiple sequels and remakes. My first experience with Halloween was Rob Zombie’s first Halloween. To this day, I still enjoy it. It’s gritty, violent, and intense. But it does make the mistake of explaining why Michael Myers is the way he is. Sometimes you don’t need to explain pure evil. After the disastrous Halloween: Resurrection and Rob Zombie’s second Halloween, the franchise took something of a major break. It wasn’t until 2016 or 2017 when it was announced that a new Halloween film would be made. But this new movie would ignore every sequel and remake. THIS would be a direct sequel to the original film and would once again star Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. In 2018, the movie was released to mostly positive reactions. Myself, I really enjoyed the hell out of it. At the same time, it was announced that two more sequels would be made: Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. That brings me to Halloween Kills.
Picking up right where the previous film left off, Kills sees a badly wounded Laurie Strode with her daughter Karen and granddaughter Allyson as they head to the hospital. They see fire trucks heading in the direction of Laurie’s compound. As it turns out, Michael survives the fire set by Laurie and proceeds to slaughter all the first responders in grisly fashion. A survivor of the 1978 incident, Tommy Doyle, is at a bar when he learns that Michael Myers is still alive and heading towards Haddonfield. Along with a group of like-minded citizens, they decide to take the fight to Michael, but will it be enough? It’s always risky when you make a sequel that takes place immediately after the end of the previous film. It doesn’t allow for characters to deal with what they’ve gone through. Because of the nature of this kind of sequel, certain story avenues are closed, yet others are opened. Because of how the previous film ended, Laurie is sidelined for most of the film, allowing Tommy to take up the cause, which is pretty. Seeing another survivor take the fight to Michael was not a bad idea. I have to admit that I had no idea the direction this story was going and that’s also a good thing. However: Because Hallween Ends was announced in tandem with this movie, we can surmise how this movie was going to end, and THAT almost ruins the movie for me. There’s nothing that I hate more than blatant sequel-baiting. Slasher movies can get away with it a little bit, but the movie has to stand on its own. Halloween Kills pretty much requires that you see the next movie to find out how everything concludes, and that’s not good writing.
In terms of acting, Jamie Lee Curtis is awesome as ever, despite the fact that she’s in a hospital bed for the majority of the film. Judy Greer is fantastic, as is Andi Matichak as Allyson. Anthony Michael Hall almost steals the show as Tommy. He’s a fantastic actor and to see him lead the charge against Myers is pretty awesome. But for the most part, the acting is pretty much what you would expect from a movie like this. Three actors played Michael Myers in this film. The first was Nick Castle, who played the character in the original 1978 movie. But for the stunts and majority of the film, the character was played by James Jude Courtney, while the flashback version was played by stuntman Airon Armstrong. I believe that Nick was the unmasked version of Myers, so you really couldn’t see his face. Characters like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees can be played by pretty much anybody, because the mask hides the performer, which mostly works. For Michael though, it’s far more intimidating, because the guy is huge and he doesn’t make a sound. The character is a force of nature, and the film kind alludes to the idea that there might be some supernatural element as to why Myers constantly survives being stabbed and shot. It’s weird.
With the exception of Rob Zombie’s interpretation of Halloween, the violence in the majority of these movies has been fairly restrained. Not in Halloween Kills. This movie is fucking mean. It’s one of the meanest slasher movies I’ve seen in years, and I LOVE IT! While the kills aren’t super-original, the degree of brutality to which they are executed(pun intended)is off the charts. The opening slaughter of the first responders was jaw-dropping. THAT’S how you open a sequel like this. As with many slasher movies, some characters end up making some really stupid decisions and they pay for it. It’s par for the course with these kinds of movies. But would I really do like is that some of the characters that you think would survive until the end, don’t. I was legitimately surprised at how some characters fell to Michael’s blade. The kills themselves are brutal. I cringed at some of them, and I love a good splatter-fest. The make-up effects are outstanding, as they are all practical. For a mainstream slasher flick, Halloween Kills is gorier than most.
I don’t mind it when a movie has a message, but it usually shouldn’t be so on the nose about it. The message in Halloween Kills is about the dangers of mob mentality, and there’s a scene in a hospital where the mob is chasing down a mental patient that they think is Michael Myers, and it leads to one of the most brutal moments in the movie. I get what they were trying to go for, but the film-makers didn’t trust the audience enough to come to this conclusion on our own, and that’s never a good thing. Audiences aren’t that stupid. You don’t need to spell everything out for us. On top of that, the movie takes itself far too seriously, almost to the point of not being any fun. One of the best things about slasher movies is how self-aware they are and roll with it, but still offering up enough chills to make the experience worth it. Halloween Kills has no such ambitions, and that can be a problem.
Ultimately, this movie is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall, I actually really like it. I think the good stuff in the movie outweighs the bad, but the issues that the film has are significant. That’s a problem when the film is designed to be a second film in a trilogy. That said, I believe it’s worth watching. If you’re more interested in the carnage, and there’s a lot of it, this movie will deliver on that. But if you’re hoping for a really compelling to go along with that carnage, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. The speeches and the way the film ends don’t do the film any favors. I’ll probably be picking this one up on Blu-Ray when it comes out, but it’s going to be another year before we see the conclusion and I don’t know how that’ll go.