40 years after the release of John Carpenter’s horror classic, Halloween, a new sequel has come to theaters. This sequel ignored all of its predecessors and shares the name of the original film, taking place 40 years after the first Halloween killing spree of Michael Myers.
Though packed with homages to the original, this Halloween is worlds away from the original 70's slasher flick. The film is immediately entirely separate from John Carpenter’s with cinematography, writing style, and directing much more characteristic of Blumhouse’s style than that of its purported inspiration. Modern CGI and a much larger budget allows for 2018’s Halloween to have much more gore and guts than Carpenter’s, but, though entertaining, it creates a deep rift between them. One thing that this Halloween does well with cinematographically was its fantastic use of light. Use of fog effects allow light sources to fill the screen and make the actors into perfectly creepy silhouettes. It forces you to constantly look for Michael Myers among the shadows and consistently manages to surprise when he enters the picture.
The writing is where this film feels the most distant from the original Halloween. Where Carpenter’s original plainly accepted Myers as an uncomplicated monster, the new Halloween sets up expectations in the beginning that new truths about the inner workings of Michael will be revealed. It would be a creative overstep to have actually fulfilled these promises, but it is frustrating to have so much of the film poised for that end and receive no delivery on it. To propel the story forward, we are given a lackluster teen drama for the first half while Myers tears up the town. Once we’re finally in Laurie’s house and Myers has come for the two’s final battle, the story becomes more interesting but at the same time the small-town setting and the innocence of Myers’ victims that made Carpenter’s film so terrifying is completely abandoned. It becomes a suspenseful standoff with a changing dynamic between hunter and hunted that, while well-executed, has no precedent in the 1978 original.
Everywhere the film’s plot is failing to drive action forward, the film diverts all of its energy towards bits. These are either gory bits of Michael Myers doing his thing or just straight up jokes. There’s nothing wrong with that as a tactic for a horror film, but it is so anti-Halloween that it made me wonder why it was even a Halloween sequel aside from the obvious reasons of profit incentive. From the overly exposition-filled introduction starring podcast journalists (we are in 2018, after all) to the teenage drama that dominates the first half of the plot to the Home Alone style trap house that Myers finds himself in, the movie seemed to have a similar difficulty finding a reason for its existence.
As for performances, Nick Castle still knows how to be Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis, though not playing the same Laurie as in the 70's, plays the updated role well. In general the acting is perfectly fine, though for much of the film it feels as if some characters have their potential squandered in the film’s effort to keep the film moving by any means necessary.
The film is probably one of the best sequels to Carpenter’s Halloween, but reads as more of a fan-fic than a legitimate sequel. If you see this film, which I do recommend, don’t go in expecting the Halloween you know. It’s much more in line with the rest of the Blumhouse canon than with the films it is inspired by and it seems as if the net of its influence extends far beyond Carpenter’s work into the slasher genre in general. Part parody and part slasher, 2018’s Halloween is a fun if frivolous addition to this October’s horror flick lineup.
Rating: 7/10