No Spoilers Here....but there were several awesome things about this sequel that was fun to watch, but then...there were some other parts that just fell completely flat to me as well.
No Spoilers Here....but there were several awesome things about this sequel that was fun to watch, but then...there were some other parts that just fell completely flat to me as well.
My feelings exactly. I left thinking, "that was just okay."
I'm happy it made a boat load of cash over the weekend though. That's good news for the franchise and hopefully other dead franchises like Nightmare on Elm Street.
Here’s my non-spoiler movie review from a few days ago...
40 years after his gruesome murder spree in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, the legendary crazed killer, Michael Myers, is still confined to a sanitarium, where his chilling aura of mystery, thanks to his spending his entire imprisonment in silence, unsettles his caretakers, especially Dr. Ranbir Sartain, who has been studying him on a daily basis to no avail. Meanwhile, the sole survivor of Myers's 1978 rampage, Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, is still haunted by extreme post-traumatic stress. After two failed marriages and the loss of custody of her daughter, she now lives a life of constant paranoia in her heavily-secured rural home, where she maintains a massive arsenal of firearms. Her adult daughter, played by Judy Greer, cannot forgive her mother for the emotional turmoil inflicted during childhood, but she and Laurie's teenage granddaughter, played by Andi Matichak, are still warily hopeful that Laurie will break out of her shell and have a normal relationship with her loved ones. Soon, these three people and an entire unsuspecting town will find out that the ever-present nightmares of one woman are grounded in a terrifying reality. On the night before October 31, a bus transferring Myers and other inmates to a maximum security facility crashes, and Myers escapes. After four decades, this relentlessly evil villain, with his unseen eyes staring from behind a blank mask, is finally coming home again.
The 2018 slasher film, Halloween, which was directed by David Gordon Green, is the 11th entry in a lucrative horror series that started with the 1978 independent cinema classic of the same title, which was brought to the screen with sparse immediacy by John Carpenter, who serves as an executive producer and composer this time around. This new installment, which thankfully jettisons everything that occurred in the post-1978 movies, is marketed as a direct sequel to the original film.
Like Jamie Lee Curtis's intense lead heroine, I approached this latest Halloween film with both barrels loaded, ready to open fire at what I expected to be the latest in a disappointing string of franchise features. I love the 1978 original Halloween, I love its slightly trashier 1981 successor, Halloween II, and I even hold the unjustly maligned 1982 third sequel, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, in cherished esteem, although it does not feature Michael Myers. I quite enjoyed the 1988 fourth film, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, but I am of the opinion that the series has suffered a speedy downward trajectory since then, ultimately crashing and burning with the two entries that were directed with Rob Zombie, who took it upon himself to over-explain the origins of our silent knife-wielding killer. This afternoon, I walked into the mostly empty theater with an irritable disposition, thanks to a severe common cold that I'm toughing my way through, sat down as far away from other patrons as possible, and proceeded to watch this new story unfold with low expectations.
Much to my surprise and joy, this 2018 Halloween story works, and, for the most part, it works wonderfully well. This one captures the spirit of Carpenter's taut original film notably better than any of the sequels that were released in the interim. Nick Castle briefly reprises his menacingly iconic turn as Michael Myers (“The Shape”) in the 1978 movie, although actor James Jude Courtney helms the role for the most part. Both of them hit the nail on the head (or stab the victim in the heart, I should probably say) with regard to this character. For the first time in decades, my pulse quickened and my blood grew cold whenever the murderer was onscreen. Jamie Lee Curtis, who has lost none of her character's inner steel with age, effectively conveys the years of paralyzing fear that have taken a toll and inflicted her with a heartbreakingly dysfunctional existence. John Carpenter, his son, and others also succeed in updating the universally recognizable music score from the first film in a dread-inducing and more emotionally fractured way.
Through it all, this new Halloween never forgets that slasher movies, above everything else, are supposed to be wildly fun. The sheer offbeat euphoria that genre fans like me have always found in the rollercoaster ride experience of watching vulnerable characters find their hidden toughness and resolve in the face of unspeakably bloody mayhem is present and accounted for here. Although the events of the previous sequels have been tossed to the roadside, this movie relishes in throwing Easter eggs to loyal fans without letting them overwhelm the tension-filled plot at hand. One early diss to an origin story from Halloween II (1981) had me laughing out loud through my sniffling and sneezing today. There are a few storytelling curveballs here that may dismay other followers of the series, but, without revealing spoilers, I'll say that these surprises made sense to me.
I could nitpick at a few of this movie's shortcomings, of course. I believe that a focus on Laurie Strode's granddaughter at a high school dance is a sign of the filmmakers trying too hard to appeal to younger audiences. The basic tale of Laurie facing her longtime tormenter at long last did not need any subplots to diminish its impact. I also think that the unmistakable scent of fan service lingers over the proceedings here to mixed results, even if several of the visual callbacks to previous films in the franchise function well.
I have treasured the slasher genre since childhood, because I find the experience of watching ordinary people defeat evil and darkness to be therapeutically motivational, and I appreciate how the stories helped me counter insecurities in my younger years and various speed bumps in my adult life. The beauty of the more effective titles in this horror subgenre is that the actors who portray the likes of Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and such understand that, when playing villains who are defeated by the goodness in the world, they have a responsibility to convey pure evil in an unsettlingly believable way. This 2018 Halloween, despite a hiccup or two, brings everything that I love about slasher cinema to the table.
The filmmakers here, God bless ‘em, even manage to throw creepy mannequins, one of my favorite horror movie stalwarts, into the recipe.
I can't find the article now (and my browser history is at home so I cant check), but the director said that there'll be a ton of alternate takes on the disc. They did several versions of the murders, some more bloody, some less so. There was only one that they shot one version of because they ran out of time to reshoot it (it was the head stomp on New Loomis, if I recall correctly). It was much more bloody and nasty than they anticipated and he wanted to shoot a less visceral version, but couldn't find the time.
Eagerly awaiting this one!
EDIT - here we go: The movie's home video release will be loaded with some of these alternate murders, giving gore-fanatics and murder students a lot to review. The movie also provides a lesson in run-and-gun filmmaking, even on a studio scale. One of the movie's most gory murders, Green said, made the cut because it was one of the rare times they didn't have the luxury of shooting any number of different variations on the same kill.
It was violent enough as is it is imo. Pacing was fine as well, don't need it to be any longer.
For an at home viewing, and being able to choose which version, I would like having other options. The theatrical I have no problems with, but I would love to see additional scenes and a longer runtime because I had so much fun with it.
For an at home viewing, and being able to choose which version, I would like having other options. The theatrical I have no problems with, but I would love to see additional scenes and a longer runtime because I had so much fun with it.
I am sure they will include the deleted scenes and the alternate ending as bonus features.
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Halloween (2018)
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