Being Film #25 for Hooptober 2021
For some people, there is nothing I can say that will keep them from watching Halloween Kills, the second in a planned trilogy that serves as a slate cleaning sequel to the immortal 1978 classic film. If you’re simply looking for a dozen or so brutal, borderline creative kills from an unstoppable and I guess immortal menace, this film will give you that. If you’re looking for anything even remotely resembling inner logic or a coherent script, or even Jamie Lee Curtis doing anything besides rambling in a hospital away from the action, well…you might want to look elsewhere.
THE QUICK SUMMARY: Immediately following the events of the first film we flip back to to 1977for another view of what happened at the film’s climax from the point of view of the cops. Then it’s back to the present and guess what? Michael Myers is still alive despite the Strode women’s best efforts. Michael keeps on his rampage for no discernible reason, and the entire town rises up led by Tommy, the young boy Laurie protected back in 1977 to stop the Shape from continuing to terrorize Haddonfield. A lot fo people die, a lot of people wonder if they’re responsible for whatever it is Michael wants and the audience? We’re left trying to piece together any sort of reason for how Michael can now waistband modern laws of physics, multiple stab wounds and being lit aflame. is it because he feeds off the evil and violence of what is done to him? Or is it because the script is kind of lazy and scattered and doesn’t know what it wants? I don’t know, but I’m glad I still have my blu-ray of Halloween II…
Man, I really wanted to like this film. I enjoyed the 2018 reboot/sequel for what it was, and I appreciated the way it focused on Laurie’s trauma and how that was passed down to her children. Halloween Kills tries to speak to the trauma of the town who had to live with this evil, but in doing that it rips away the focus on Laurie and her family, and I really don’t care about the other folks. Plus it’s really distracting to see how aimless and silly Michael Myers is in this film. I can kind of buy the invulnerability and super strength (though it completely lessens the terror he presents), but unless he’s also 500 pounds and wearing cleats, getting hit full force with the pressure of a fire hose is going to knock you back.
The shortcut to caring about the new main characters is that they’re all from the original film: Tommy (played by Anthony Michael Hall), the nurse who was in the car with the doctor when Michael escaped, another young woman traumatized as a kid. But really they’re nothing more than fodder in the end for Michael, and while there’s a lot of talk about why he’s come back, none of it really makes any sense. If there’s a standout moment for me, it’s that in the 1977 flashbacks one of the cops is played by Jim Cummings – if you’ve never his unhinged cop performance in the wonderful The Wolf of Snow Hollow (which he also wrote and directed) check it out.
Look…I know a lot of people are going to flip for Halloween Kills. It’ll give them what they want – a lot of “creative kills” and gore. But there’s no story here, just weird set ups that go nowhere and a major heroine left on the sidelines the entire film. I’ll take the original sequel over this any day…hell, I’ll even take Rob Zombie’s bonkers sequel as well. But this is a big mess, and that’s a damn shame.
Cinema Dual 