[usr 2.5]
Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.
Let’s just get this out of the way: John Carpenter’s “Halloween” is a classic. He made the film in 1978 for a budget of only $325,000, chump change by Hollywood standards but it spawned numerous sequels, standalone movies, two remakes, and now another “direct” sequel to Carpenter’s original and best. While I enjoyed certain films from the franchise, namely “Halloween II” (1981), the standalone “Halloween III: Season of the Witch,” and “Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later”, the rest of them were rubbish. The best of the sequels was “Halloween II,” which was a direct continuation of the events that transpired in the first movie. This new iteration, however, completely ignores all of the sequels and picks up 40 years after the brutal Haddonfield murders Michael Myers committed in the original.
At the end of “Halloween,” Michael Myers was shot and injured by Dr. Loomis (the late Donald Pleasance) and was eventually captured. He was returned to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where he originally escaped from and has remained there ever since. On the eve of Halloween, he is to be transferred to a maximum security prison. En route, he manages to overpower the guards and driver, killing them in the process, and after the bus crashes into a ditch, he promptly escapes.
In the forty years since Michael terrorized Haddonfield and almost killed Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), she has lived a reclusive life, holed up in a ranch in the middle of nowhere, her cabin stocked with guns, ammunition, crossbows, knives, and a huge assortment of other weapons. Her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) has distanced herself from Laurie over the years, a result of her being taught how to shoot guns, to fight, and to kill, all when she was only eight years old. Laurie’s granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), is closer to her but per her mother, she has to keep a healthy distance for fear of her paranoia rubbing off on her.
After escaping the bus crash, Michael picks up his old habits again and begins a new reign of terror as he slashes his way across town, searching for Laurie and her family. When word of the bus crash and Michael’s escape reaches her, she quickly makes her way to Karen’s house and informs them that they must return to her place where it is safer. Once there, it is only a matter of time before Michael turns up and Laurie can finally unleash hell on the monster that took her life away.
While this new version keeps the storyline grounded in reality (no ancient druid cults here), the movie itself is pretty much just a rehash of Carpenter’s classic. J.J. Abrams was guilty of the same crime when his “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” turned out to be a shot-for-shot reimagining of “Star Wars: A New Hope,” wholly unoriginal and clichéd, and “Halloween” follows suit. When Michael puts on the mask, and we can hear his characteristic heavy “breathing,” it does give you chills, just like hearing the famous “Halloween” theme score which John Carpenter, his son Cody, and Daniel A. Davies composed, but other than these few aspects, the film offers nothing new. It is a slasher flick, plain and simple, and they could have very easily taken Michael Myers and Laurie Strode out of the picture and still had some semblance of a decent horror film left over.
Jamie Lee Curtis returns in top form, exuding a Sarah Connor-type-vibe as she stockpiles her cabin in the woods with all sorts of hardcore weapons for an inevitable future she knows is coming. We even see in a flashback montage, teaching her preteen daughter Karen, how to shoot, fight, stab, and kill, the same way Sarah Connor taught her soon-to-be-savior-of-the-world son, John Connor. In many ways, Michael and the Terminator are almost exactly alike, unstoppable killing machines hellbent on fulfilling their mission of killing their primary target. Once we get to the movie’s suspenseful finale, we are led to believe that Michael has finally been killed off but like most of the previous sequels, it is implied, rather than shown onscreen. I find it interesting that the producers, including John Carpenter, completely ignored all of the sequels that came after the original but here we are, in 2018, with what they now refer to as the “true sequel” to “Halloween,” but its own ending is left wide open for more future entries in the series. This new narrative has a few good moments but overall, it is a big disappointment. If you want to see a decent follow-up to Carpenter’s masterpiece, watch “Halloween II” instead, not the Rob Zombie abomination, but rather, the 1981 movie directed by Rick Rosenthal. I think it is very underrated and deserves more recognition.
In theaters Friday, October 19th
