Originally Posted by Oro13
(Post 1034742)
I gotta say, I was psyched for this one. The trailers looked promising, the premise ( retconning everything after II ) intrigued me, I dig the hell out of Michael’s new look ( so much that I attempted to recreate it for Halloween this year ), and seeing Laurie Strode turned survivalist made me ::love::.
However, I was fooled once before. H2O promised to deliver similar things, and I find that flick to be one of the worst examples of the late 90s “ teen scream “ lame ass trend of putting just enough blood on screen and use of the word fuck, to earn the softest of R ratings you can get. Then came Resurrection... So I came into Halloween 2018 with cautious optimism.
I really liked it.
It’s not perfect, but I left satisfied overall and am happy with what was done here. Michael is handled extremely well, and we get the original Shape back in this film. No family ties, no cults or curses, and no bullshit backstories that humanize him to the point of being an antihero or sympathetic. He is pure evil, and he behaves as such. James Jude Courtney is perfect in the role and he makes Michael scary again. Yes, Nick Castle is in the film as Michael in one scene and he does the classic head tilt ( the scene in the trailer where Laurie sees Michael for the first time in the upstairs window is the scene ), and he also provided all of the iconic heavy breathing in the movie.
Laurie is also done more than her fair share of justice. Her character development and backstory are well written and make sense, on top of being delivered with gusto by a very invested Jamie Lee Curtis. When she finally confronts Michael, this film turns into the film H2O could only wish to be. She also manages to come across as both tragic and psychotic in her own right. She’s just as stuck in the endless loop of that night as Michael, and it’s become so all consuming and defining, she can’t even conceive of life any other way.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the supporting cast.
Laurie’s daughter and granddaughter, which is how I’m going to refer to them as I can’t be arsed to remember their names, are underdeveloped and the overall narrative suffers from the lack of substance these subplots offer. While her granddaughter and her coffin stuffer friends get more screen time, they’re the same old vapid stereotypes we’ve come to expect from slasher flicks. Laurie’s daughter, on the other hand, has some interesting backstory and depth hinted at having grown up being trained to both fight and be prepared for Michael, until she was taken away from her mother. Her resentment and lamentation over her lost childhood and strained relationship with her mother, would make for some heart wrenching and interesting scenes... Only it’s never explored or fleshed out, so she may as well not be in the film. There’s also more than a few awkward moments of forced comedy that left me scratching my head and only served to jar me out of the groove other better sequences put me in. Though, I must admit, the little kid being babysat in this flick is hilarious.
The other big problem I have with this film, and I won’t spoil it, comes from a curveball thrown as the film proceeds into its third act. This is the polarizing moment that you either will or won’t recover from. It’s something that is hinted at, but still seems to come out of left field, and I’ve spoken to several others who said it ruined the movie. As for myself, I overcame it and enjoyed the rest of the film in spite of this confusing decision on the writer’s parts. The only other gripe I have, ironically enough, is the gore. Halloween didn’t become a body count flick until the sequels, and this was largely done because they couldn’t recapture the atmosphere and subtlety from the original. This being a retcon of these same subsequent entries, we had the chance for a triumphant return to more subtle and effective kills that carry the same impact, without feeling the need to hose down the audience with arterial spray. However, the kills in this are mostly messy affairs that suffer from the excessive gore, imo. The ones I found most effective, were the ones you see the aftermath of, or occur just out of view. The difference between hearing someone beat to death with a hammer and then seeing the aftermath, versus graphically watching a head get curbstomped into lasagna, is the difference between Halloween and Rob Zombie’s Giant Hobo Clone Takes Haddonfield 2: The Fuckening.
Overall, there’s more to like than hate here, and some really great sequences, tension, and a proper mix of new and nostalgia that make it worth the price of its flaws. I’d give the new Halloween an 8/10 and recommend you all check it out and judge for yourselves.
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