Halloween
Year: 2018
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Judy Greer, James Jude Courtney, Jamie Lee Curtis & Andi Matichak
Runtime: 104 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 31/10/20
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Judy Greer, James Jude Courtney, Jamie Lee Curtis & Andi Matichak
Runtime: 104 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 31/10/20
For someone who claims to love horror as much as I do, I need to admit that I’ve not really seen many of the iconic classic horror films. Franchises like Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween I’ve either not seen any entries of, or if I have I’ve only seen the original. I watched the original Halloween for the first time two years ago in time for the release of the 2018 sequel this review is for and understandably it was a little difficult to fully engross myself with because it was simply so dated. Anyway, if you want to know more about that film check out my review for it, for now though what do I think of the series eleventh instalment that has rebooted the franchise and acts as a direct sequel to the 1978 original.
Forty years after the infamous Babysitter Murders committed by Michael Myers, the town of Haddonfield still has a fear lingering in the back of their mind every year during Halloween. Worst affected of all though is Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the only survivor of that fateful night many years ago. Now a grandmother, Laurie raised her daughter to always be wary of Michael’s return and has installed countless traps around her home to ensnare Michael if he ever does return. Her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) is tired of her countless mental breakdowns and paranoid nature, so she tried her hardest to keep her own teenage daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) shielded from Laurie’s overprotective reach.
The night before Halloween Michael is set to be moved to a new institute for the criminally insane when his transport crashes and he escapes. He returns to Haddonfield to begin a whole new spree of killings, with Laurie and her family being prime targets.
Halloween 2018 takes the basic formula of Halloween 1978 and just cranks it up to eleven (see what I did there? Because it’s the eleventh film. Alright I’ll stop). The concept is no different from early slasher flicks and it doesn’t try to be something it’s not. It doesn’t try to implement any gimmicks like many other slasher films have attempted to vary degrees of success. It’s just clear cut. A guy in a mask who does not move particularly fast stabs people to death, that’s literally it. It doesn’t really do jump scares, it doesn’t even have many moments that are particularly gruesome. What Halloween really leans into is the horror that this could happen to anyone and I think it hits that nail on the head better than the 1978 original did.
In the original film Michael’s killing spree was focused on a particular home, his childhood home. He returned to that specific house and killed the people who were there. In this film his reach is much broader, he will kill anyone he wants. He has a specific target, that being Laurie, but almost everyone Michael comes into contact with he kills. There’s a brief scene where he spots a woman on the phone in her living room so he goes round the back of the house. Her phone conversation is about some bodies having been found so she should lock her doors and close curtains etc. The moment she hangs the phone up Michael kills her. Despite not being overly bloody and gory it’s just so brutal and senseless that it really does instil a fear in you that you the viewer could be next.
Forty years after the infamous Babysitter Murders committed by Michael Myers, the town of Haddonfield still has a fear lingering in the back of their mind every year during Halloween. Worst affected of all though is Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the only survivor of that fateful night many years ago. Now a grandmother, Laurie raised her daughter to always be wary of Michael’s return and has installed countless traps around her home to ensnare Michael if he ever does return. Her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) is tired of her countless mental breakdowns and paranoid nature, so she tried her hardest to keep her own teenage daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) shielded from Laurie’s overprotective reach.
The night before Halloween Michael is set to be moved to a new institute for the criminally insane when his transport crashes and he escapes. He returns to Haddonfield to begin a whole new spree of killings, with Laurie and her family being prime targets.
Halloween 2018 takes the basic formula of Halloween 1978 and just cranks it up to eleven (see what I did there? Because it’s the eleventh film. Alright I’ll stop). The concept is no different from early slasher flicks and it doesn’t try to be something it’s not. It doesn’t try to implement any gimmicks like many other slasher films have attempted to vary degrees of success. It’s just clear cut. A guy in a mask who does not move particularly fast stabs people to death, that’s literally it. It doesn’t really do jump scares, it doesn’t even have many moments that are particularly gruesome. What Halloween really leans into is the horror that this could happen to anyone and I think it hits that nail on the head better than the 1978 original did.
In the original film Michael’s killing spree was focused on a particular home, his childhood home. He returned to that specific house and killed the people who were there. In this film his reach is much broader, he will kill anyone he wants. He has a specific target, that being Laurie, but almost everyone Michael comes into contact with he kills. There’s a brief scene where he spots a woman on the phone in her living room so he goes round the back of the house. Her phone conversation is about some bodies having been found so she should lock her doors and close curtains etc. The moment she hangs the phone up Michael kills her. Despite not being overly bloody and gory it’s just so brutal and senseless that it really does instil a fear in you that you the viewer could be next.
Jamie Lee Curtis is THE scream queen for a damn good reason and it’s because she’s a great actress. It’s great to see her back as Laurie again and she’s given so many great moments in this film to give us her full range from terror to anger and everything in between. Her daughter’s aren’t given as much to do as her though, Karen is cold and dismissive of there being any threat; and Allyson is little more than just another teen caught up in a slasher film. She doesn’t even encounter Michael until the third act kicks in, in fact she spends most of the film at a high school dance. The film starts off by framing Allyson as the main character in the film but it’s a bit indecisive about who actually is the main character. First it’s Allyson, then it’s Laurie, then it seems to be Michael for a bit, before going back to Laurie. This isn’t really an issue, but because of the lack of a true protagonist you can feel a little bit like you’re just going with the flow rather than being invested in one person’s fight for survival.
The third act is really excellent though. The action moves to Laurie’s home which she’s turned into something out of a Saw film. The three women are trapped inside the house with Michael as they attempt to lure him into traps or the line of gunfire. The ending is also ambiguous, leaving it open for another sequel, of which two have already been confirmed to be arriving in the next two years. But even if the series had ended there it would have been a satisfying enough ending I feel to have stopped at (bearing in mind I have almost no attachment to this franchise beyond seeing the first film a couple of years ago).
I want to talk about the music briefly as they’ve given the original’s iconic John Carpenter soundtrack a bit of a facelift. It’s still distinctly Halloween, but it sounds richer and more sinister than ever before. The synthesised stings of noise whenever something scary happens are still present, but they aren’t as ear piercing as they were in the original. This may be because of better sound mixing technology but I feel it’s generally less shrill which is welcome.
Halloween 2018 was a great slasher flick that returned to the barebones basics of the genre, whilst making it far more sinister and threatening than it had been in its first iteration simply by using the original films legacy as its driving force. It didn’t need to be a film that attempted to be ‘bigger and better’ than its predecessor as most horror films try and fail to do, instead it just did more of what people loved about the first film.
The third act is really excellent though. The action moves to Laurie’s home which she’s turned into something out of a Saw film. The three women are trapped inside the house with Michael as they attempt to lure him into traps or the line of gunfire. The ending is also ambiguous, leaving it open for another sequel, of which two have already been confirmed to be arriving in the next two years. But even if the series had ended there it would have been a satisfying enough ending I feel to have stopped at (bearing in mind I have almost no attachment to this franchise beyond seeing the first film a couple of years ago).
I want to talk about the music briefly as they’ve given the original’s iconic John Carpenter soundtrack a bit of a facelift. It’s still distinctly Halloween, but it sounds richer and more sinister than ever before. The synthesised stings of noise whenever something scary happens are still present, but they aren’t as ear piercing as they were in the original. This may be because of better sound mixing technology but I feel it’s generally less shrill which is welcome.
Halloween 2018 was a great slasher flick that returned to the barebones basics of the genre, whilst making it far more sinister and threatening than it had been in its first iteration simply by using the original films legacy as its driving force. It didn’t need to be a film that attempted to be ‘bigger and better’ than its predecessor as most horror films try and fail to do, instead it just did more of what people loved about the first film.