As an avid lover of horror movies I take it upon myself to decipher which movies are a messy cliche of blood and guts or a truly haunting and iconic piece of cinema. Naturally, because this is a review, spoilers for Halloween Kills are to come.
The Halloween franchise is an incredibly iconic and successful series of movies centered around the serial killer Michaels Myers. I’ve watched every movie of the Halloween franchise, yes, every single one. The original 1978 film, while a little slow paced for my liking, kick-started the slasher franchise and allowed for other iconic killers such as Ghostface and Jason Voorhees to take to the big screen. Of course this film also almost single handedly created the final girl trope, my personal favorite horror movie cliche. The original Halloween is a suspenseful and chilling film that should be on everyone’s watch list during the fall. Personally, I prefer the 2018 sequel. This movie disregards all of the messy sequels of the original film, all of which attempt to be as innovative as possible by creating new, and arguably unnecessary plot points, such as Michael being a part of a cult or immortal. Halloween 2018 sweeps these sequels under the rug and that’s a cause for celebration, as the only thing frightening about those films is the poor cinematography and writing. Halloween 2018 is filled with callbacks to the 1978 original and ends on a slight cliffhanger and the survival of not one, not two but three final girls. I went into Halloween Kills with high expectations, the 2018 version started the franchise basically from scratch and forty years after the original movie it still managed to stay consistent with everyone’s characterization and the overall tone of the film. My expectations were high and my popcorn bucket was full but by the end of the film I was left scratching my head and contemplating how this sequel could’ve gone so wrong. Let’s break down why this film was a flop.
Personally, I enjoyed the flashbacks to the 1978 film which seamlessly added in new characters and with some heavy editing and brilliant scripting allowed for the new characters to fit perfectly into the new and old storyline. I enjoyed seeing the return of survivors from the original movie. It was a fun callback but in the end, each returning character was tossed to the side, killed or just irritating. Even Laurie Strode, the original final girl played by the iconic Jamie Lee Curtis was benched for the entirety of the film. As the movie continued each kill became increasingly more violent and disturbing. Typically with horror, I’m partial to a good, slow stalk before the kill. The suspense keeping you on the edge of your seat to me is far more rewarding than a quick and gruesome kill. This is something the original halloween exceeded in, but Halloween Kills essentially murdered every character who appeared on screen. Plot points like Laurie’s romance and the escaped psychiatric patient were both attempts to deepen the story but both were easily forgotten and equally disturbing. I physically recoiled each time a dead body was shown as the onslaught of bloody corpses became too much to bear after two hours. Perhaps that was the point, to make me feel disturbed in disgusted, but was it actual fear or just detest for someone being sliced in half with a chainsaw? I was kept entertained by the movie and I did look over my shoulder as I walked to my car so there was an element of success to it. It was a popcorn movie, created to keep you entertained and keep you in the Halloween spirit, but nothing more. Halloween 2018 was the perfect sequel to a near perfect original and it should have been left at that, but overall the movie put me in the mood to carve a pumpkin and sleep with the lights on but also rewatch the 1978 version to erase the latest franchise flop from my memory.
