2018 Film Review: Halloween (2018)

Directed by: David Gordon Green
Written by: David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, Jeff Fradley
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak
IMDb Link

Finally, we have a genuinely good sequel to the original Halloween; not just a decent sequel, not a sequel that's weird enough to get by on its own merits, but a piece of work that stands above the rest, nearly as tall as its namesake, by recognising what worked about the first and actually playing to those strengths, while also carving out enough of an identity of its own to stand by itself.

Forty years after Michael Myers wreaked havoc on Haddonfield, we find him trapped in an asylum, having never spoken a word, the evil within him festering all that time, his thoughts never straying from his urge to kill that defined that fateful Halloween. Laurie Strode (Curtis) has seemingly been trapped in the same night; through multiple divorces and forcible removal from her daughter, she has never truly been able to move on from Michael, instead preparing every day for the moment when she can finally finish him. The movie sidesteps the terrible input of all the sequels by ignoring them completely, instead treating this as if only the first really happened. It's a good move, making the set up for the story very clean while also establishing that the first movie is the key reason why this film exists as it does. This focus is maintained throughout the film; while a few moments seem to echo plot points from the otherwise unused sequels (Myers escapes during a prison transfer, similar to Halloween 4), the new Halloween is a love letter to the original's best attributes.

This is particularly notable in the way the horror of the plays out; tension is the basis of every scare, a build-up and pay-off that plays with the genre tropes while still being satisfying in its execution. Myers moves through the movie like a phantasmal force, stepping from one shadow to the next and always just at the corner of your vision. It's truly excellent horror work that is clear in its intention to take from its predecessor to make something new. A few times the film will transition to a scene that feels ripped right from the original, only to mix things up while still finding time to pay homage. It's a delicate balance of new and old that never feels overbearingly nostalgic or out of ideas, and it makes for some genuinely chilling moments between story beats. The film also does take the time to try something much more original for the series, with a skillfully-crafted look in to the slow, methodical approach Myers has to simply killing for the sake of killing. It traps you with Myers and makes you bear witness to primal, chaotic evil as it moves once again through Haddonfield. At times it can feel like pure shock value (the movie has its fair share of blood, guts and brains), but the film recognises what Myers is and simply tries to show that.

That said, well-made though it may be, the gore is the least interesting aspect of what the movie has to offer in terms of horror, and it's also most notably attached to the only story beat that I didn't find particularly intriguing. To be fair, it is a coherent thread, with Myers' doctor becoming fascinated enough with him to want to emulate him, it's just that it does so little to affect the plot meaningfully that I can't help but feel it was the writing team's attempt to echo some sort of intended fate for Dr. Loomis had Donald Pleasance been alive to play the part; the earlier sequels played with this idea too, and had the character actually been Loomis it might have been more satisfying, but it was attached to a substitute character who had way less development and relevance to the mythos, so the thread ultimately fell flat.

What doesn't fall flat is Curtis' return as Laurie Strode. She absolutely nails the character, scarred by her experiences with no want to heal, consumed by vengeance and paranoia and the tragedy that she can't let go. The emotional toll it's taken upon her plays so well, with Judy Greer as her daughter, Karen, playing fantastically opposite her, with disappointment stemming from a want for the best and a complicated understanding of why this is all so destructive without blaming Strode for what happened to her. Strode carries so much pain and doesn't know how to stop it, but she fights it with no less fervour; she's a survivour, and more than that, she's a survivour in a horror movie. It's hyper-real, a representation of abuse survival that cuts to the heart of the experience and then dials it up to eleven with a booby-trapped house designed to trap even the most elusive of horror monsters. Here the meta-commentary and the abuse metaphor are taken full circle, and the result is so satisfying because of how truly convincing Curtis is in every moment.

The Short Version: Halloween does great work as a sequel to the original, and has enough going on to be its own thing. The tension is real, the callbacks are thematically appropriate, and the performance of Curtis transcends the expectations of the genre, with notable supporting work from Greer creating an interesting family drama underneath all the slasher fare.

Rating: 7.5/10

Published November 15th, 2018