2021, d. David Gordon Green - in theatre
If you were to tell me that I would not be able to see a film in the movie theatres for almost two years and that, were I to go back, I would have a choice between yet another entry in the Halloween franchise, the latest James Bond movie, and catching up on any of a dozen other films that had bypassed theatres to home streaming rentals, I most certainly would have put the Halloween film near the bottom of my must-see list. So why was Halloween Kills my first theatrical experience since December 2019 (Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker)? Simple: convenience.
During a virtual lunch date with friends one of them mentioned wanting to go see the new Halloween (being a huge fan of the franchise) but that he was having a hard time convincing anyone to go with him, more out of disinterest than any COVID scare. I had started thinking that it was time to get back out in the world, that COVID isn't going away and that we can only protect ourselves so much...life isn't life anymore if we're not really living it. I was just having a hard time figuring out when to pop that cherry (that's a gross metaphor, isn't it... how about pop that Pringles top?). This was an opportunity. I told my friend, excitedly "I'll go, you just have to figure out a ride, I'm not taking public transit AND going to the movies". There's only so much of the public one person can take in an evening.
And so, he took care of the tickets, and transportation and away we went to see the new Halloween entry.
I've heard people say how their first movie back in the theatre is perhaps viewed with rose colored glasses, that their reception is more favorable because they're just back in the theatre dammit!
I didn't have that with Halloween Kills.
As we well know, I'm not a horror guy (I state it often enough). I just don't think I get out of the genre what most horror fans get out of it. I have, however, watched most of the Halloween series. I think Carpenter's original is indeed a masterpiece of film, and the rest are...well...there, some entertaining, some boring, some stupid, some ...just... whatever. The first entry in this legasequel/reboot trilogy I thought was pretty good.
Rereading that review, it seems like Halloween Kills was made by a completely different team. Much of what I praised Halloween 2018 ("H2018") for is absent or overblown in Kills. The restraint director David Gordon Green showed with H2018, the kind of adherence to the chilliness of John Carpenter's original, the off-screen or obfuscated violence all showed a level of artistic thought and consideration. Kills abandons restraint from the get-go, it's a just violence stacked upon violence, falling into the grotesque for the sake of cheap thrills for gag junkies. Michael Meyers seems to kill without any sense of reason, invading homes and murdering and murdering anyone on the street just to do so. As my movie going companion pointed out afterwards, they turned Michael Meyers into Jason from the Friday the 13th series, and that kind of wanton psychopath isn't what Meyers should be.
I noted with H2018 that "there are all these people fascinated with trying to figure him out, understand his psychology and motivations...and it gets them all killed." Here it's not the people who are trying to figure him out, but the filmmakers themselves. We're back in the deep sequel territory (Halloweens 4-6) where the idea of Michael Meyers, the Shape, the Boogeyman, has become something they're exploring, or rather, demystifying. The film ends with Meyer's having been stabbed, shot and beaten and not only surviving but getting stronger. He is not human, and that's kind of a problem for the series. This whole exercise of Kills seemed to be about getting to that point, of establishing Meyers' otherness, and it leads me to believe that the closing chapter, the in-production Halloween Ends will spend far too much time delving into why Meyers' otherness is.
One of the good things about H2018 was three generations of Strode. Laurie, her daughter and her granddaughter, each with a complicated relationship to each other. They, as a trio, are cast aside in Kills though tangentially involve. Laurie is wounded from her confrontation with Michael last film, her daughter is grieving her lost husband (and shattering of her reality...remember she never believed her Mom's paranoia), and her granddaughter is just out for revenge. There's a good movie in exploring each of these three and their trauma, and then thrusting them right back into the mix. However the filmmakers chose to instead make the lead protagonist Haddonfield, the town, and to throw a dozen or so returning and new characters into the mix, but without imbuing much personality in them...they're just there to die. There's something inherently cynical, or maybe just insensitive about taking these survivors of past trauma and then just putting them in the same situation only to die horribly this time.
For all its missteps, though, the greatest is its foray into mob mentality. At a bar, and later at a hospital, Anthony Michael Hall, playing H1978 survivor Tommy Doyle (one of the children Laurie babysat) works the crowds up into a Frankenstein-style, kill-the-beast, frenzy about taking on Michael Meyers themselves, Trumpian-inspired chants at the ready. There's no real commentary here, just aping the effect of frustrated people following the loudest person in the room (and leading them to their doom). There are three mob scenes in the movie, the second of which eats up all of the second act. It's overblown and tedious, but the intent is to get the audience to shake it's collective head "no, that ain't right", only to cheer the same mob on towards the end of the film as they take turns doing their thing on the series boogeyman.
Look, Kills is unfocused, but it's not unentertaining (not to not use a double-negative). It's not the same kind of lower budget bad as the 4th through 6th entries in the franchise were kind of bad, there is craft to this, but it just doesn't satisfy. Going in knowing there's a third entry, there's no stakes to rooting for the hero(es) to kill the demon in a Shatner mask. Everyone is just fodder, with the only untouchable being Laurie. Hell at one point Laurie even says that it ends with the two of them. She's clearly taking Meyers down in Halloween Ends, and going down with him. This just feels like a holding pattern until then, biding time, building to that final confrontation.
As my first film back in the theatre, I have no rose-colored glasses about the film I watched, but I was so very happy to be back. I felt safe (in a theatre of over 150 seats there were maybe only 30 people in the audience), vaccination records were checked upon entry, and it all felt very casual and relaxed. I just want to go to the theatre all the time now but I need to have patience and avoid crowds for my optimal comfort.
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