‘HALLOWEEN’ (2018) Review

John Carpenter’s Halloween from 1978 is one of my favorite films. Not just one of my favorite horror films, one of my favorite films overall. David Gordon Green takes on the monumental responsibility of being forever tied to Carpenter’s classic by essentially making a sequel to the original film. The stakes were high and for the most part, 2018’s Halloween pays off for fans of the franchise.

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We are brought into Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where Michael Myers escaped 40 years ago and committed mass murder in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois. While it is glossed over in the film, Myers was captured and put back into captivity at Smith’s Grove. A team of journalists/podcasters who are doing a piece (a-la Serial) on Myers come in before he is being transferred into a more secure facility (Smith’s Grove is a Maximum Security Sanitarium) to try and understand what caused him to commit those murders. The physical transfer, which happens at night, doesn’t go according the plan and, well…you know what happens. Stalking. Creeping. Murdering.

The film starts off pretty strong by showing Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her iconic role) who is in full-defense mode. She suffers from agoraphobia (even though there are some scenes peppered throughout the film that make you question that) and has PTSD. Some of these early scenes really show of JLC’s acting prowess. We can see underneath her hardened shell that the old Laurie is there – as evident in the scene with her granddaughter. While Laurie survived that Halloween night in 1978, her life has forever changed and it has quite a substantial effect on her daughter and her daughter’s family. These scenes are where the movie starts to explore something that you wouldn’t see with a “revitalization” of a known and familiar horror franchise. It’s intriguing and, unfortunately, doesn’t dive too deep into it because, well, it’s a mainstream horror film that needs to entertain the audience. This is one of the many things that may frustrate hardcore Halloween fans in general.

Green’s Halloween dips its toes in some great character nuances but then just as you think the story will jump into the water, the parental figure known as the mainstream public yanks the arm and tells it to just what any other mainstream horror film will do. The other thing, which might not come as a surprise to some when you know Danny McBride co-wrote the film, is the decent amount of comedy in the film. There are a couple of scenes that might feel like McBride had to hit some sort of comedy quota but it mostly fits. Once we start following Laurie’s granddaughter, Allyson, it becomes a typical cliched mainstream horror film back from the 90’s beat-wise. We follow Allyson to a high school dance where some teenage drama happens and while this is supposed to get us to show of the younger characters, it feels stale and conflicts with some of the interesting ideas the film presented earlier.

The family dynamic is that while Allyson is supportive of her grandmother, Laurie’s daughter, Karen, is ready to write off her mother because of what Laurie has become. Laurie has gone full Sarah-Conner mode in preparation (which we see in the final act) and has become so focused on the notion that Michael is coming back that when Karen was growing up, Laurie trained her to be ready for Michael’s return. So the damaged family structure is something that interests me, and I think would interest seasoned horror fans but this also needs to be a straight slasher film as well – in case people haven’t seen Carpenter’s original or maybe none of the other Halloween entries. A lot of time is spent in the middle on material that is something horror fans have seen so many times back in 90’s horror that we are just waiting for Laurie to show up. However, I understand that this is, from a marketing angle, what needs to happen. I just wish they found a way to make it gel better as the back and forth feels at odds with each other. This film also features one of the hardest eye-rolls I’ve had with a character that has a turn that lasts all of a few minutes. Therefore, this “twist” feels not only wasted but pointless other than to deliver some unpredictability to the film, along with the location mechanism of how to get Michael closer towards Laurie, who seems to live on the outskirts of Haddonfield.

There are great stalk scenes in Green’s Halloween and Myers is probably the most ruthless he has been where he feels like the force of nature he was intended to be. No one is safe and that is the way it should be. Carpenter’s score (with his son and godson) is pretty great and definitely helps drive some of the viciousness that we see on screen. While there is also a healthy portion of gore, it feels in tone (unlike the previous times in this franchise when gore is on display).

Overall, I dug Halloween and I can’t wait to watch it again but it does struggle to figure out what story it really wants to tell verses being a marketable horror film. As a general horror film, it does its job and puts audiences in the front seat of its roller-coaster ride.