An Insomniac Review!🎃
Last weekend, Halloween Kills slayed the theaters with $50.4 million dollar opening box office. Pretty impressive even if less than the $76 million its 2018 predecessor racked opening week. Despite still in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, Michael Myers slashed the competition, dethroning the James Bond flick, No Time to Die to 2nd place. Just goes to show you cannot keep horror fans down.
That being said… I have some thoughts about the film.
While Hollywood has been scrambling to make remakes, reboots and sequels nobody asked for, the Halloween series was no exception. When it was announced that Blumhouse would be not only remaking the sequel but retconning everything following the initial 1978 release, fans were ready, even if apprehensive and willing to see their favorite knife-wielding Boogeyman on screen. Even I who loved part 2, enjoyed the 2018 release. Following its success, it was announced that this latest flick would be part of a trilogy.
While it paid homage to the other films in the series such as part 2’s hospital setting and part 3’s killer masks, Halloween Kills took Michael Myers out of the shadows and amped up the gore. And though it lives up to its name, it’s best to keep in mind that this is incomplete story that has yet to be concluded as seen with it’s cliff hanger ending.
If you want to avoid spoilers… Stop here!!
Laurie Strode is pretty much still a bad ass but she’s been sidelined the majority of the film. She is much older now and has been nearly mortally wounded. So if you were expecting a showdown despite her gallant words in the hospital to face Michael, you’re gonna have to wait until Halloween Ends comes out next year.
While the rest of the town has been notified that ol’ Mikey is back, they revert to mob mentality causing mayhem. I mean they were on some grab your pitchforks type of stuff, even causing the death of a mentally ill patient. It is here where we see that the town of Haddonfield is not only fed up with Myers’ mayhem but they have yet to heal from the psychosis said mayhem has caused. In particular, Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace, whom Laurie had babysat all those years ago in the first film.
Haddonfield is no stranger to mobs as seen in parts 2 & 4, yet it is in Halloween Kills where we get more character development from some of the residents. The flashback scenes are impeccably done… They are filmed in such a manner that it feels like they were filmed in the late 70s. Even though they changed a lot of the story we already know, it’s still a good addition to the film and builds some context into the backgrounds of the towns’ folks.
Tommy Doyle is a bad ass plain and simple. He’s still stricken from the trauma that Michael Myers caused that night. But unfortunately it’s to no avail. I was really looking forward to a much better showdown between he, Laurie and the Boogeyman. That would have been pretty cool. And I wish that the dynamic of PTSD here would have been better played out.
But sadly that is where the plot goes downhill from there. While I enjoyed Halloween Kills, I particularly did not care to see Michael Myers so far removed from his stalker origins. The original 1978 film showed him stalking Laurie and her friends for the majority of the film before things went down. It was quickly established what type of killer we were dealing with. But that was the beauty of John Carpenter’s creation and I think this film forgets that he was intended to be the Babysitter Killer. It was what made him terrifying. Not knowing where he was hiding or when he’d strike next.
In this movie however, Michael Myers isn’t in the shadows anymore. He is full-fledged amped up to a thousand. Michael Myers is on a rampage that we have never seen the likes of before. He causes nothing but destruction and carnage. Makes me wonder what steroids my guy was on after he escaped that fire because damn! Even the 2018 retcon-sequel-reboot or “requel” if you will didn’t rob us of that. We still got that creepy feeling that Mike could be out there and that danger was eminently gonna happen. Halloween Kills tries too hard to explain what Michael is instead of letting us try to figure it out. It tries to over explain things that don’t need explaining because bombards you with constant visuals. Not to mention that it’s so many
I think this is where fans and critics are divided the most because although the film cranks up the gore to 100 but sacrifices the tension. I didn’t feel like I was on the edge of my seat like I was when he stalked Laurie Strode, whether it was in her neighborhood, the hospital or any of the subsequent films to follow.
Even the bastard film Resurrection had you wondering where Mike could be lurking.
But Kills makes you nostalgic for that and reduces Michael Myers to a run of the mill slasher. There’s no ominous to it at all. He pretty much kills whatever and whoever is in his way, or in the vicinity, or in the city for that matter. It’s one of those situations where less would have definitely been best.
But that’s not to say this film is terrible, it’s just incomplete. And what a lot of folks are forgetting is that this is simply the climax of this trilogy. And yes it does suck to see beloved characters return only to be dispatched of in horrific fashion but we know that the stage for the final showdown between Myers and Strode is being set.
I for one am waiting to see the epic showdown and I hope that Halloween Ends goes out with a bang.
Oh and one final note…
Michael Myers is not homophobic. He kills any and everyone without prejudice. I know a lot of folks went in on Twitter sarcastically and the liberal woke took the bait but… Mikey isn’t a homophobe. He’s an equal opportunity slasher. No one is exempt from his butcher knife.. straight, gay, women, men, black, white, Latino… If you’re in his path… You will die. Period!
My vote:
No thumbs yet… Waiting for the conclusion!
Until Next Time Kiddies,
Shalom
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