Halloween 2018

• Directed by David Gordon Green
• September 8, 2018 (TIFF) / October 19, 2018 (US)

Michael Myers has been locked up for 40 years and finally escapes when being transferred to a new facility.

I did enjoy this film but am a little conflicted on it. I will not call it great but it was enjoyable. With all the other reboots out there of Halloween though it did not feel too special to me. And I am not sure what this says about my psychology but there did not seem to be enough kills in this movie. Myers certainly earned his reputation as a dangerous killer in the original film but here he just did not kill enough to reestablish that reputation in my opinion.

This is the second reboot of the Halloween concept. Third if you count the soft reboot that brought back Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween H2O before the Rob Zombie reboot. I think my major problem with this movie is that it is the second or third reboot depending on your point of view. How often can you keep restarting a concept? I am of the mind that you should run with what you have. If you have issues with what came before use the film you are making as a course correction. Do not try to start a new continuity or ignore previous continuity.

There is a reason that someone can make the movie they are making and that is because of everything that came before it. People have an emotional investment in not only the original film but what came after it. They may not have been happy with everything, but they were happy enough to justify the current film whatever the fictional universe is.

I am guessing the character of Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney with Nick Castle as Michael Myers in a window scene and general breathing sounds) is around 60 right now and has managed stay in relatively good shape. Not saying you cannot stay in good shape well into old age but he has spent his whole life in an institution. From the looks of this film he can easily overpower just about anyone he comes across. That is great for an older individual.

How did I deduce Michael Myers’s age? In the original it was stated that Michael Myers was around six when he killed his family and wound up in the institution. The original film took place 15 years after the events of his childhood which put him in his early 20s. This film came out about 40 years later which put Michael Myers at around 60 or 61 at the youngest or 63 to 64 at the oldest.

Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode. Not the Laurie Strode from Halloween H2O but Laurie Strode directly from the first Halloween. She has been prepping for 40 years for the return of Michael Myers. She’s suffering from serious PTSD and is estranged from her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak).

Curtis as Strode came off more often as frustrated and not angry. I felt that Matichak was a little stiff. She does well in the moments where she had to be scared but for the rest of them she was a little flat. Greer did well as a daughter upset over the miserable and dysfunctional childhood she had that was prepping her for what she is now facing.

I was a little confused by Dr. Sartain’s (Haluk Bilginer), a former student of Dr. Loomis, abrupt and brief turn to crazy in an attempt to keep Michael Myers alive. It just didn’t seem to fit with what came before. I could see him struggling with Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton) in order to keep Myers alive and actually killing Hawkins and being cool with it, but he just decided to kill the guy.

Hawkins is mentioned as the officer that arrested Myers after his second spree. He regrets not killing Michael on that day and decides to do now what he should have done then. Interesting idea that goes nowhere because of the aforementioned incident with Sartain. I am not saying he needs to be the hero but you create a plot point like this it becomes extraneous if the character dies towards the beginning of the action.

Despite Laurie’s 40 years of prepping and I guess training, Michael Myers is able to easily get on her property to attack her. I understand the whole thinking concerning the finale, but wouldn’t you want to try to take care of things before the guy you have spent 40 years prepping to stop got into your home? I would think there might be a couple of traps set up outside or maybe an early warning system of some type to alert you to intruders. She appeared to just wait for a news notification that he was released and then hunker down at her home with possible police protection added in.

While they did not have enough kills in this movie, what they did show were pretty good. And at least one of them struck me as something akin to what you would find in an over-the-top 80s horror film. I am talking about the death of Sartain. With one blow Michael is able to squish that guy’s skull. I don’t really think humans in general have that much power available.

I have heard people lavish praise on this and I have heard a minority trash it. I fall between these two extremes. I do not really hate Halloween 2018, but I do not think it is great. It is merely okay. I will check out the second film in this new series and will give this one an if you want.