Review: Halloween Kills

With survivor Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) incapacitated in hospital, Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle) springs to life at her burning home, killing the fire-fighters on the scene to start a new rampage on the residents of Haddonfield. Grown-up Tommy Doyle (now played by Anthony Michael Hall) from the events depicted in the 1978 original sees things playing out on TV at the local bar and has had enough. He decides to try and form a mob of Haddonfield residents to take out Michael once and for all. Judy Greer, Will Patton, and Andi Matichak reprise their roles from the 2018 film, whilst Robert Longstreet takes on the role of former local bully Lonnie Elam from the original 1978 film, Charles Cyphers returns as Sheriff Brackett from the 1978 film and “Halloween II”), whilst Kyle Richards (the 1978 film) and Nancy Stephens (the 1978 film, as well as “Halloween II” and “Halloween H20”) also return to the franchise. The previous “Halloween” re-boot from David Gordon Green (“Pineapple Express”, “Undertow”) had some positives but was far too cluttered to really work whole-heartedly. For the follow-up, Green and co-writers Danny McBride & Scott Teems (the latter of whom wrote/directed “The Quarry”) have given us more of the same only more and worse. The idea of Laurie Strode and the other characters like Tommy Doyle returning to the franchise to kill Michael Myers once and for all – that stuff is in theory really interesting. Anything involving pretty much any other character? Completely unnecessary clutter. Sadly, there’s quite a bit of time spent with the latter, to the detriment of the film, and even the connection to other films in the franchise is hit-and-miss.

 

Firstly to the positives, though. This is a damn good-looking film, with the cinematography by Michael Simmonds (the previous film) and the music by John & Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies all contributing to giving this film the right connective feel, look, and sound to the franchise. I also liked the awesome flaming pumpkin opening credits. As with the previous film I rather like this version of the Michael Myers mask as well, even if the original white-painted Cap’n Kirk is still best. I liked Michael’s rather blunt brutality here, a bit Rob Zombie-esque without being full on “Halloween II” unpleasant. So the attack scenes here are well-done and the body count is quite high, too.

 

That’s about it for positives here though, because even the film’s best asset – Jamie Lee Curtis’ excellent performance – is badly wasted in a poorly structured mess that seems to forget about Laurie Strode for long stretches. Curtis is absolutely outstanding as a very troubled and very haunted Laurie.  So it’s a real shame that her good work goes to waste. The narrative flow is appalling, especially early on. 20 minutes in and Laurie has only just been introduced and Tommy Doyle barely in it at that point either. The whole film plays like the screenwriters couldn’t agree on who the main character was. At the climax it appears they even want it to be Laurie’s daughter, played by Judy Greer. After 40 minutes, so much cross-cutting and character clutter was taking me out of the film completely. I know Michael needs victims to slice and dice, but did we really need the young doctor and nurse or the possibly gay stoners living in the Myers home? They’re dull and unnecessary. I think mob mentality and the Trump era were on the minds of the screenwriters here, and while I think it’s an interesting idea in theory, I don’t think the film should’ve gone in that direction ultimately. It gives you a film where the entire townsfolk are essentially the protagonists when one singular main protagonist would’ve proved more effective. I also didn’t feel the connection to the other returning characters terribly strongly. It’s nice in theory, it just isn’t executed well at all. Whether that’s because some are being played by different actors or if it’s poor acting or poor writing, I’m not sure. It just seemed forced and unconvincing, with even Anthony Michael Hall coming across as hokey. I did like Will Patton though as Frank Hawkins, and Charles Cyphers was a nice surprise too as Brackett. Judy Greer is rock solid as Laurie’s daughter as well. Unfortunately like Curtis, Patton spends much of the film incapacitated, which is a shame especially since I couldn’t have cared less about Laurie’s granddaughter or her fellow youngsters. Meanwhile, although the film is quite violent, it’s not remotely scary. It’s too busy juggling too many unnecessary characters and timelines (too many flashbacks) in its unwieldy story to get around to terrifying you. I did rather like the set-up for the next film “Halloween Ends”, though. That was cute, I guess.

 

Disappointing, cluttered sequel keeps getting in its own way with unnecessary characters at the expense of the more interesting characters, let alone terror and tension. Looks and sounds great, though.

 

Rating: C-