Image Credit: Universal Pictures
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Michael Myers has another stab at terrorizing Haddonfield. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
Autumn – or fall, for those of you in my adopted home country – is my favourite time of the year. Even in Los Angeles the weather cools a tad, and you can feel something in the air. The nights draw in and the promise of spooky goodness fills the atmosphere. And though, as I’ve stated in columns past, I’m hardly the biggest horror fan (a combo of being exceedingly hard to scare in a cinema and not usually finding the fun in watching people scream and die), I do enjoy both some of the classic chillers and the work of David Gordon Green. Yes, I’m one of the five people who A) saw and B) really had a good time with Your Highness.
Green’s take on Halloween was more of a mixed affair for me. Though I appreciated his (and co-writers Danny McBride and Scott Teems) clear affection for John Carpenter’s iconic slasher pic, some of the elements didn’t quite work. It was great to see Green and Jamie Lee Curtis re-invent Laurie Strode in the Linda-Hamilton-in-Terminator-2-mold, letting the terrorized former babysitter mature into a kick-ass vigilante. And the director had a solid eye for tension in what makes Michael work. Yet the attempts to cram in more nuance and theme didn’t really pay off, and that’s also a weakness in Halloween Kills.
Even more than the 2018 movie, Kills looks to channel the past of Haddonfield and Michael Myers while also saying something about the present. The concept of mob mentality – survivors of Michael’s past rampages whipping up a frenzy of locals to hunt down everyone’s least favourite house guest and try to put an end to him once and for all – is treated in a slightly ham-fisted manner that blunts its effectiveness. There’s plenty to be mined from the idea that evil spreads and infects a group, but that idea of shared paranoia was explored much more effectively by one J. Carpenter in 1982’s The Thing. Here, it’s a relatively straightforward pitch about the town slowly going berserk in the wake of Myers’ actions that has all the subtlety of, well, Michael himself.
Also unfortunate is side-lining Curtis. While it’s logical that our heroine would be in no fit state to spring out of her hospital bed and track Michael down after the effects of the last film, having her unconscious for a chunk, then delivering speeches about his impact feels like a waste of the character. It also means that less effective townsfolk such as Anthony Michael Hall’s Tommy are left to carry the weight, and their characters simply don’t get the job done (in more ways than one).
One of the traditions of Halloween is that Michael is very, very hard to kill, yet here he evolves from a hulking, stalking killer into a handy action man. It’s as though he spent all his time in the institution watching John Wick chapters or the Jason Bourne franchise. He’s always been handy, but here he’s practically a supervillain. And on that point, no one ever thinks to deliver a truly killing blow to someone who is on a murder spree.
Looking to tie things in even more closely to the original this time, Green and co. opt to retcon elements from the original, adding scenes and details that honestly detract from the 1978 film. At least Carpenter has stuck around to deliver a killer score.
With Halloween Ends on the horizon for next year, there’s even more of a feeling than usual that Michael’s going to be back for one more showdown with Laurie and whoever else remains standing to face him. Kills has the distinct feel of spinning its wheels until then, gradually moving the plot along, but really pushing you to return. Green has an eye for inventive, effective horror in the moment, but the movie wrapped around it suffers in comparison to even his own most recent effort.
Halloween Kills is in UK and US cinemas now. In the States, you can also watch it on streaming service Peacock.