Since I finally got around to the 1978 Halloween this past week and the 2018 sequel was leaving HBO at the end of the month, I opted to see it as well. This one, made 40 years after the fact and bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis while ignoring every Halloween movie since the 78 original (even the ones that also featured Curtis), got a lot of positive talk from both critics and audiences, and I think the only reason I skipped it when it was new was because I’d never seen the original.
Never let it be said I don’t make efforts to fill in some of my blanks.
What may be so remarkable about this Halloween is not so much the fact that another Halloween movie got made, but who made it. Director David Gordon Green does have some dramatic movies in his filmography, but most of his best known work is in the comedy arena, particularly his work on every one of Danny McBride’s HBO series. That McBride and Green both co-wrote the script (with Jeff Fradley) means there are some comedy moments sprinkled into the mix.
But then, since I actually managed to see both Halloweens the same day, I gotta say this many-years-later sequel actually delivers pretty well on the basic premise that Michael Myers returned to try and kill Laurie Strode (Curtis) and her family 40 years later. And while Laurie may have ended the original sobbing in terror, you won’t be seeing anything like that this time around. This is a Laurie who took what she learned that night and set up something her adult daughter Karen (Judy Greer). Karen and her husband Ray (Toby Huss) wants nothing to do with the paranoid old woman who lost custody to Karen when Karen was 12, but their own daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) is a different story. Allyson is the only member of the family who really wants anything to do with Laurie as the older woman lives in a house on the edge of town that looks more fortified bunker than happy homestead.
As for Michael, he’s been in a state run hospital since he fell of Laurie’s balcony back in 1978. He doesn’t speak, and not because he can’t. He may get something of a new lease on life when a pair of British podcasters show up looking to do an episode on him and his 40 year old rampage. They were even kind enough to bring his old mask with them.
This Halloween works as well as it does because it is both a tribute to John Carpenter’s original–and Carpenter along with Curtis both got an executive producer credit here–while still being a unique movie of its own. It may use Carpenter’s music, recreate some of his scenes, even have something of a similar plot, but then there will be a scene where two sheriff’s deputies talk preferred pastries while on stakeout or a father and son will talk about going hunting versus going to dance class, and that’s unique to itself. The body count this time around is definitely higher, but then we get creepy scenes like Michael, intimidating the female podcaster, dropping a collection of recently harvested human teeth onto the floor of her bathroom stall. Stuff like that works, both as a horror movie, but also as a Halloween movie. We get to know Allyson as much as we did Laurie the first time while seeing how Laurie handled the first attack from her big brother Michael. There’s some serious PTSD in that woman, and if anything, the movie should be commended for how it handles the effects of violence on a person’s psyche.
As such, the purpose of Laurie’s house is in question. Is it a fortress or a cage? And if it is a cage, who is supposed to trap?
That all said, this is far from a perfect movie. The reasons for Michael’s escape are a bit much. True, Michael needs to get out of the hospital to go back to his killing ways, but the actual reason for Michael getting out seemed to be a bit too close to the edge even a good horror movie can go to without losing suspension of disbelief. It wasn’t something I couldn’t get past, but it could have been a lot better.
But I only saw the original Halloween because my good pal Jimmy told me I needed to see it. And since he hasn’t seen this one, ball’s in your court, Jimmy.
Grade: B+
0 Comments