'Halloween Kills' Review: An Overkill, Even Within The Genre
The followup to 2018’s ‘Halloween’ offers a much more brutal and superhuman Michael Myers than we have ever seen before! But does that translate well in this franchise?
The title of this film really does tell the whole story. If we are to believe Michael Myers is a supernatural entity, we must accept every single hurdle he manages to get past. But that was never really the crux of the ‘Halloween’ franchise. It was always a slow methodical game he played, not only with his victims, but with the audience. He would be there one second and gone in another. Never knowing where or when he would show up again. With this latest film though, there is no game being played, there is just a straight line of brutal, yet laughably stupid deaths. Sure, some of the deaths are comical in how gruesome they are, but the writers seem to want to have it both ways in making it feel like we need to care about the characters we are watching while also simultaneously wanting us to brush off them entirely by laughing at their predictable demise.
There is no stakes in this film because nobody in the town has any sort of rational mindset. The psychological toll that Myers has taken on the town of Haddonfield turns into something more than just a regular town hall meeting or maybe forming a neighbourhood watch. The town itself turns into maniacs with a taste for blood no matter who it is. It’s almost as if Myers has put a spell over the town to turn them into ravaging maniac and not very smart ones any that. that is what we are actually supposed to believe through Laurie Strode’s many monologues about how Michael isn’t just flesh and blood and how he is the boogeyman, there are points in the speeches where she genuinely brings up the notion that this was all his master plan to get the town to fear so much that they turn into a bunch of unstable morons. But they also bring up the notion that Michael’s only goal is to go back to his childhood window, not to stare out of it, but to look at his reflection. They don’t really get into why they would be his motive, the writers just thought that sounded creepy so they kept it in. But all this pandemonium eventually does result in the citizens finally getting what they asked for in a showdown with Michael Myers but they are not even capable of that task. Unlike the first movie where one teenage girl was able to fend off this overpowering man, this film, while also being a direct follow up to the original, is to make us believe that twenty people with guns and baseball bats cannot achieve what one girl could achieve with a kitchen knife and a clothing hanger.
The premise is simple, the townspeople who Michael Myers previously terrorized, think Michael Myers is dead but it turns out he isn't. The people of the town decide to gather together to take him down once and for all themselves, seems pretty straightforward right? What isn't so straightforward is the way the people go about it. They repeatedly say strength in numbers but eventually always end up splitting into groups of two. They stampede the hospital thinking Michael Myers is inside. It turns out an escaped patient from a mental health facility was mistaken for Myers even though he had absolutely no matching physical description to Myers and is not wearing anything remotely close to the clothing and mask that Michael always dons. All this culminating in making a man jump off a building as we see his body splattered across the concrete. What exactly is the comical gruesomeness in that? The movie makes that whole sequence very dramatic but also still need to have that unnecessary aspect of gore involved because thats what the people want right? Wrong! See what people want is to know what the tone is throughout but the tone in this film is such a rollercoaster ride that once it reaches the end, you are happy you can get off the ride.
The weaving subplots in this movie as well are incredibly uninteresting and borderline unwatchable due to the horrible script and some of the worst acting I have seen in years. By bringing on childhood actors who haven't actually acted in years and a more accustomed to the set of a 'Real Housewives' reunion show than an actual movie set, it became apparent that the quality of their performances were not the priority. Anthony Michael Hall, who is best known as the loveable red headed nerd in all those John Hughes movies like 'The Breakfast Club' and 'Sixteen Candles', is completely unrecognizable in this film, which is probably for the best due to his very poor performance. Even Laurie's granddaughter Allyson (played by Andi Matichak), who is seen as one of the starring roles in this film, has many cringeworthy moments through her delivery. There was just way too much going on in one movie that should be so simple. This includes bringing back characters from the original film when they are children, now adults, never seeming to learn their lesson from the first time around. The couple who live in Michael's childhood house who, to be fair, have some humorous dialogue from time to time. However, when added on to the main storyline of Laurie Strode (returning g to her role is Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis) and her family trying to kill Michael, it just turns into a headache. The best parts of the film are the flashbacks to the original 1978 timeline using new footage and weaving in the storyline of Officer Hawkins and his hesitancy to kill Michael. It felt like a real transport back to the original film but that too was cut short by more random additions to an already overcrowded story. Credit needs to be given though for John Carpenter’s score because no matter what you think of this movie, the score will always haunt you.
What it really boils down to though is that this movie has a serious ‘kills’ problem. no character is safe from the wrath of Michael Myers despite the incredible hurdles he goes up against. This reboot was made to go back to the franchise’s roots and pay homage to the original film but the original film only had five people killed in the entire movie. To put it into perspective, this Halloween holds the record for most kills out of the whole franchise. It even has more kills than Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of ‘Halloween’ which racked up a whopping 20 kills by Michael Myers. This film has a total of 25 minimum either on screen or implied. To be ranked higher in the kill count list than a Rob Zombie film though is not exactly something to be proud of. And it’s not just the amount of kills, it’s how they show it the audience in a way that you are either supposed to be sad or wowed by the special effects while also having that camp comic death aspect. If you can’t get your audience to know what to feel then you’ve already lost them.