Halloween (2018)

This is par for the course for a Halloween sequel and that’s a pretty sad statement.  I was hoping for something smarter and possibly a little different than what we’ve seen in the past.  Instead the filmmakers went straight up the middle and threw in just about every slasher movie trope in existence. 

Plus there’s so much goddamn fan service.  At almost every turn there’s a reference to one of the previous installments and it’s really distracting.  “You’re the new Dr. Loomis”, a model of the Myers house in Laurie’s house, “the shape”, the falling off of a balcony from part I, the taking of a chef’s knife after a woman uses it to make a ham sandwich from part II, the Silver Shamrock masks from part III, transporting Michael from one sanitarium to another and escaping en route from part 4, the two goofy cops from part 5, bathroom stalking from part 6 and H20, Laurie’s borderline alcoholism from H20, someone else putting on Michael’s mask from Rob Zombie’s Halloween II and a zillion others.  (I didn’t pick out any obvious lifts from Resurrection or Zombie’s Halloween I)

The comedy is very silly and some of it is funny but then the movie is also extremely violent.  I don’t think those two elements fit well together here.  These drastic tone shifts are gonna wear you down after a while and they bring into question how seriously you should take the film.

There are two scenes that are very well done however.  The one where Michael is finally decked out in full garb and goes on a killing spree through several neighborhood houses has impressive camera work that’s done in a few long tracking shots.  The other is when a babysitter is trying to close a closet door after searching her kid’s room for the boogie man.  They intercut that with her douchbag boyfriend smoking a joint and revving a motorcycle outside so there’s good subversion of expectations in not knowing who’s gonna get slayed.

The sensor light gag is a good idea but the timing of when the light goes on and off seems to be convenient for whenever Michael needs to do his thang and doesn’t follow any sort of normal pattern.  I know that’s nitpicky but I couldn’t help but notice.

They did get Michael right which is nice.  He looks and moves appropriately, not too stiff and not too agile.  The only moment that’s out of character is when he dumps a fist full of teeth into a bathroom stall to intimidate a lady that’s in there.  Michael kills and moves on.  He doesn’t torture or play with his victims.  He may be slow to pounce due to him being mentally deranged and maybe mulling over how he’s going to dispatch his prey, but he doesn’t do shit to fuck with them on purpose.

So besides a few good scenes, giving us a good Michael performance and the kick ass John & Cody Carpenter soundtrack (you better believe he (they) still got it in the music department) this comes off like bad fan fiction.  The dead giveaway is all the callbacks to the other Halloweens and how that almost seems like the driving force.  It’s disappointing more than anything and all the hype around it about this being a true love letter to the series, especially John Carpenter’s original, certainly doesn’t help.  We don’t need a love letter.  We need a script that doesn’t make you wonder how it passed inspection and filmmaking decisions that don’t make you roll your eyes in frustration.  Look, it’s not the worst movie (actually, it could be the second or third best installment) and I know I’m being harsh but damn, it sure is a whole lot dumber than I was expecting.  Like, all the other Halloween sequels kinda dumb.