It is 40 years since the original and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has never fully recovered from the trauma of Michael Myers attacking her and killing her friends. She has become something of a doomsday prepper as she has trained herself to survive in the woods, shoot guns and do all kinds of other preparations in the event that Michael Myers returns. She unfortunately does all of this at the expense of spending time with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). While being transported to a new facility on October 30th, Michael escapes and of course goes on a killing spree, working his way to his intended target; Laurie and her family. Now Laurie must protect her family and hopefully put an end to Michael once and for all.
Apart from liking the original film, I can’t call myself a fan of the Halloween franchise, but I know enough about it to know that this is the second time they have retconned it. The first time was with Halloween H20 (1998) which ignored movies 4-6. And now we have the 2018 film which ignores everything but the original.
This new timeline features Laurie as a kind of Sarah Connor. There is even a bit where her daughter Karen had a childhood where she grew up under fear of Michael showing up and having to train for that eventuality only for social services to later take custody away from Laurie which is sort of like what happened to John Connor in Terminator 2. This clearly puts a strain on Laurie’s relationship with her family and could have been something worthwhile to focus the story on more but unfortunately there are too many other things in the film that detract from this.
First, there are too many characters. You have two British journalists who show up to study the Myers case and question Laurie and the only purpose they serve is have the famous Michael Myers mask on hand and to have Michael kill them, so he can get it back. Then you have the whole drama with Allyson’s friends and boyfriend who primarily serve the purpose of eating up screen time, getting killed and to feature callbacks to the original. You have Michael’s doctor who has does a certain act (sorry no spoilers) in the film that comes out of the blue and ultimately goes nowhere. And you have the sheriff played by Will Patton. The excessive amount of characters in the film detracts from a potentially interesting story of Laurie reconnecting with her family through the process of protecting them.
Second, the picture is not scary. And this shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone. Whatever potential for scares or surprises for the audience have been played out already in not just the Halloween franchise but in just about every horror film since…ever. There really is only one direction for Halloween and other slashers to go…that is have a killer, add people to build up the body count and watch the bodies hit the ground in increasingly gruesome ways. That has been done to death.
Third (and this kind of links with the second point), there is a surprising lack of suspense and atmosphere this supposedly good Halloween sequel. When I saw the original film in college, I wasn’t horrified by it like audiences were back in 1978 when it was released but it was intense. John Carpenter knew how to develop suspense and an atmosphere of dread and it kept my eyes glued to my television screen (yes, it would have been cooler to see it in theaters but what can you do). In this 2018 film, despite David Gordon Green’s best efforts, he couldn’t effectively create either one. When he wasn’t copying John Carpenter, it seems he was trying to create suspenseful horror scenarios himself. Although his scenarios were not completely terrible, they were just not executed well.
To be fair, I haven’t seen any of his work prior to this. I see that he has made acclaimed work in the past but none of them appear to be horror or even thrillers. Yes, I know in the past that there are filmmakers that have had made effective horror/thriller films with little to no prior history of creating horror/thrillers, but it looks to me that he’s not particularly talented in this area. Again, it’s competently filmed, and it doesn’t look bad but it’s not immersive.
And the fourth point is really a collection of other problems. The film is too gory which is surprising considering the original film was almost bloodless. There are too many references to the original including one or two self-aware jabs at past installments and while seasoned actors such as Curtis, Patton and Greer’s performances are fine all the performances from the younger cast were not. Lastly, the ending is far too abrupt as we don’t see any real reconciliation between Laurie and her family especially when it is proven that Laurie was right and really went out of her way to protect them.
I don’t have a whole lot else to cover here. Halloween 2018 is one of the most forgettable films I’ve seen this year. I didn’t go in with unreasonably high expectations and I wasn’t looking for this movie to reinvent the wheel. It wouldn’t have been a masterpiece but there was a potentially interesting film here if the focus stayed primarily on Laurie, her family and the fight to survive against Michael Myers but alas this all falls into the coulda/woulda/shoulda territory that’s not particularly helpful. And I guarantee you this won’t be the last we see of Michael Myers as there will be sequels…because this one is making bank. That’s just how these things work.
