Film: Halloween
Ten Second Review: A sequel come reboot of the classic slasher horror of the same name, the new Halloween doesn’t quite live up to the iconic status of the last but does provide a few hold-your-breath moments to keep an audience on their toes.
The original Halloween is one of the all time heavy hitters in terms of horror cinema. It features on most lists of top horror films and much of that comes form the way it defined its genre and carved a clear story: this “monster” is pure evil, he just wants to kill. There’s a little backstory but it doesn’t serve to explain Michale Myers, it serves to show us that he’s been evil from the start. This unfortunately is what I feel is missing from this latest attempt to revive the series.
The film opens on an institution that houses unstable individuals or people that appear to need specific care. Two journalists/podcasters come to see if they can get Michael Myers to talk, its been 40 years and he hasn’t yet uttered a word. He is due to move facility the next day to somewhere more secure and this is the last chance for someone to get him to speak. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t. We cut to Laurie Strode in the fortress she has built to defend herself if Michael ever escaped. The journalists also attempt to talk to her and, while she does at least talk, she doesn’t tell them anything they don’t already know. This whole opening is more a way to explain the backstory to new viewers and to be fair it is a very successful way of giving out a lot of exposition in the name of storytelling.
The inevitable happens and the bus transferring Michale Myers crashes and he escapes. The whole town is now at risk and Laurie Strode will have to hope her years of preparation will serve her well.
The heights that this film was attempting to measure up to made it almost certain it wouldn’t quite reach them. The good news is that it is not a bad sequel or a hard to watch reboot. The direction they take of having Laurie Strode as suffering from PTSD about her encounter is a strong idea and its execution is quite well done. You get to see how the events of 1978 changed her life and what their lasting effects were through the next two generations of her family. The problem is that this is where the film is at its strongest or weakest depending on your personal tilt of what you’re looking for from this film.
One of the great things about the original is the fact that it is such tight storyline with very little fat and excess information. This one builds on that barebones story to make a more fleshed out world but in the process may cause a fork in its audience. If you want something that feels like the original, in the sense of its simplicity, you might not find what your looking for (even if it is crammed full of visual references). If you instead want something that successfully builds on the original then I imagine you’ll quite enjoy this.
The actual style and content of the film is very enjoyable. The acting seems quite good all round, bar a few exceptions of overall campy characters (but to be fair these instances play well into generating that classic 70s/80s horror aesthetic and feel). Jaime lee Curtis plays a really good updated Laurie Strode and Judy Greer is excellent at portraying what it must’ve been like to grow up under Laurie’s care.
The thing I enjoyed most was the juxtaposition of what felt like classic horror and modern horror. There were shots that looked and felt straight out of the 70s but at other points it felt fresh and brand new. Some people might find this jarring, and it might be another point where half the audience will like the direction and half won’t, but it was certainly interesting.
All in all, Halloween felt like a mixture of all sorts of things and a little bit like it was a film made by committee. This will work for some but not for others and I imagine, unless you really lean in to it, it will leave most cold. Its not bad, in fact its very watchable, but its not great. It feels a little forgettable in a way that the original never will and a way that this one didn’t have to be. There nothing hugely awful to say just nothing astounding either.
