HALLOWEEN (2018): AFTER FORTY YEARS DO WE STILL NEED MICHAEL MYERS?

We’ve rolling out a slightly belated review of “Halloween” (2018) as my fellow Ginger Nutter Chad Clark is also reviewing John Passarella’s “Halloween: The Official Movie Novelization”. Chad is a terrifically observant reviewer who always looks for the positive in everything so hopefully he enjoyed the book more than I did the film. Novelizations of films are often based on earlier versions of the scripts, so there is no guarantee they are exactly the same. When it comes to celluloid I’m a very jaded horror fan, who is also very hard to please, neither am I a fan of never-ending endless sequels. Why did I bother you might ask? It’s always nice to see a horror film on the big screen and you never know… Even if it’s a seemingly never-ending franchise.
 
Ultimately “Halloween” really was a film of two halves and depending on what you’re after may well dictate which one of these parts you prefer. The first is quite slow, but never boring, sets the scene and really holds the attention. The second part is totally predictable, Michael Myers escapes (not exactly a spoiler) and returns to his old town, going on an all too familiar rampage. This sequence was very dull and lacked any particularly inventive or graphic kill scenes and as usual the police were worse than useless. I would struggle to even call this a proper slasher film, and I suppose the film was also attempting to rise above genre stereotypes to a wide audience.  Actually, I was surprised it was an ‘18’ certificate in the UK, it played like a ‘15’ and was rather tame on the gore front. Few of the victims put up much of a fight and it’s only when Michael goes one on one with Laurie Stobie (Jamie Lee Curtis) do things pick up. Laurie really goes through the gears near the end of the film which had slightly more spark.
 
It’s already been well covered in the media that this film is a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s original “Halloween” and us, the gullible movie going public, have to discount the multiple sequels that have appeared down the years. So, this film is set exactly forty years after Laurie Strode survived an encounter with Michael Myers, the masked figure who killed her friends and terrorized the town of Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween night. Myers was later gunned down, apprehended and committed to Smith's Grove State Hospital. When the film opens there is still considerable interest in the Myers criminal case, as the serial killer has not spoken a word in all those years in prison. Early in the film we find out that Myers is going to be transferred to another secured unit and, of course, he escapes. He also does.
 
For forty years, memories of that nightmarish ordeal have haunted Laurie and this has destroyed her relationship with her family. She lives in a fortified house, surrounded by guns, and has a fractured relationship with her daughter Karen and granddaughter Allyson. I enjoyed this family aspect of the film and if handled well this could be a strong feature of the accompanying book Chad Clark is reviewing. It genuinely added new stuff to the familiar story.
 
As you would expect, the film provides no fresh insight, Myers does not speak, we do not see his face and ultimately we learn nothing new. Were we expecting something different? Probably not.  Is this enough material to pan out into a full novel? Somehow I doubt it, and the complete lack of answers and closure might be acceptable in a film, but not necessarily a book where the reader has a deeper and more meaningful connection which is deserving of answers.
 
The Stobie family were all believable characters, as usual Jamie Lee Curtis was terrific and she was well matched by her sparky granddaughter played by Andi Matichak. However, many of the other characters did not have enough screen-time before being dispatched by Myers, including a couple of the teen friends of Allyson who are out partying when Myers is on the prowl. The granddaughter provides the opportunity to add a spicy teen party, however, there was way more sex in the original film than this which was rather prudish compared to many slasher contemporaries.
 
After Myers arrives in town the film tries and fails to capture the atmosphere of the John Carpenter classic, using the long lens distance tracking shots and with Myers lurking in the background. The problem is this is so old hat now, and cloned so many times, it lacked scares and atmosphere. The music was similar to the original, but the legendary score is so distinctive anything similar just sounds like a diluted copy. There were numerous nods to the original, we visit the grave of Michael’s murdered sister and Donald Pleasance (Dr Loomis) can be heard on audio. I’m not sure whether these were necessarily and the film seemed to teeter rather close to fan fiction or some kind of tribute.
 
A couple of the strongest scenes take place before Myers returns to Haddonfield, the first is when his wrecked bus is discovered and the second is when he finds his iconic mask and kills two true crime podcasting in a truck-stop restroom. That was a pretty convincing scene and the woman put up a fight before her death. These were potentially interesting characters which more could have been made of and were killed off too soon.
 
I have seen so many films just like this I could not get excited about it and ultimately it was exactly what I expected. I only have myself to blame as nobody forced me into the cinema.  The character development of the Stobie family was new and did take the story forward, the rest was exactly the same as usual. Dull, pedestrian, unimaginative and another reminder why I rarely bother watching new horror films any more unless they come recommended from those whose opinions I trust and I’m not talking about Rotten Tomatoes. However, once is turns up on streaming services, if you’re expectations are not too high, it passes a couple of hours easily enough.
 
Tony Jones