Halloween Kills

[Shaky]

They definitely should've kept H2 canon. The Laurie/Michael link would've given these new ones some extra heft and made the mythology feel a bit more solid. Instead, it's just Michael wandering around killing with Laurie endlessly obssessing over him and it feels empty. The filmakers seem to think this makes Michael scary, but it doesn't anymore. There needs to be something else. There's an emotional and logical void at the heart of the last two films, and as much as Carpenter dismissed the brother/sister thing as a pissed up, last minute brainfart \at least it made sense as to why these two are so entangled.

I'm sure Halloween Ends will have some surprise new backstory up it's sleeve, but it will be shit.

And the volume of gore in this new one is so misjudged it totally takes you out of the film.

[H-O-W-L]

I rewatched it last night alongside someone I know who currently lives in suburban Illinois and she was hooting with laughter at people being terrified by Michael killing 3 people 40 years ago considering the state has an insanely high murder rate. 10th out of the murders per 100,000, and 4th out of murders in 2020 period.

Also:

Spoiler alert

they use clips of Halloween 2 for a couple flashbacks, and Marion Crane saying "This is for Loomis" makes me think they're silently retconning H2 into the canon... ?

[close]

[colacentral]

There's lots of reasons why the 2018 one stinks, but it boils down to just fundamentally misunderstanding everything about why the original is good, and doing the opposite of everything the original did right, from the amount of time you see Michael unmasked (when the original made a point of there being something that happens to him when he gets the anonymity of being masked, hence why he panics when the mask comes off towards the end); to the misunderstanding of the character (he's really just a child who enjoys scaring people and takes it too far, hence the stalking and the phone calls; the bed sheet and the haunted house etc; he's not an angry nutter who kills everything in sight); to the misplaced humor; and the fact that Laurie as Sarah Connor and the action film end sequence is antithetical to making a scary horror film.

I haven't watched it since it came out so my memory of it is a bit fuzzy now, but I'm sure I remember thinking that even on its own terms, it was sloppily written, with lots of bits that didn't make sense.

[phantom_power]

It also suffers from the thing that lots of long-awaited sequels do, namely tying the whole life of the protagonist to the first film so that it lessens the  victory of the first film by having their lives being pretty rubbish. The same is true with Luke in the Star Wars films

[colacentral]

Just watched it. It's an abomination. Been reading lots of reviews saying it suffers from being the middle of a trilogy. Nah, it suffers from being badly made shat.

Just like the 2018 one, it's tonally all over the place. One minute it's a Judd Apatow piss take with none of the characters acting like real people, the next it's some portentous monologue about the nature of evil or something.

Just like 2018 it's filled with quirkiness designed to trick people into thinking there's some level of care shown. A car is stolen and of course the radio starts up and it's playing lol opera. One person falling down the stairs in the hospital isn't enough, make it three or four with one doing a full on roly poly down them. The drone thing, whatever that was.

Again, like 2018, it's not remotely scary. There's one effective scene in the whole thing that lasts about 30 seconds -

Spoiler alert

Lindsay hiding in the river.

[close]

The music fully dropped out, everything slowed down, there was actual tension. The shots of Michael and the breathing were creepy for the one and only time in the whole film. It was great, and it's that much more depressing to see how good a modern Halloween film could be if it was 90% that, and then it devolves into nonsense again.

In the 2018 film thread, Bad Ambassador challenged me when I said that I would rather watch any of the other sequels over that one. Well I stand by that and I'd say the same about this one. If I want to watch mindless nonsense, I'd sooner pick silly bollocks like Halloween 5, or dare I say even the Busta Rhymes one, over having to sit through dull stuff like the hospital scenes here or the family breakfast and podcaster scenes from the previous one. If you want something that takes a reasonable stab at staying true to the original, H20 does a better job, as mediocre as that one was.

I'm surprisingly disappointed, as I expected to at least be able to laugh at it or turn my brain off and enjoy it as a Friday the 13th type film. It was worse than that, it was boring.

[H-O-W-L]

This one is basically the worst parts of Halloween 4 and Halloween 2 combined. Those movies, while being kind of dogshit, are infinitely more entertaining and watchable than this one, which has an undercurrent of raw nastiness with the over-excessive realism of gore and pretenses at verisimilitude. And as you say, all of the other sequels, execrable as ones like 5 and 6 are, are more  entertaining to watch.

There is about a solid minute and a half of Peak Michael in this one -- and by which I mean he fully resembles '78 Michael in those scenes. Both the one you mentioned in your spoiler and

Spoiler alert

the final chase at the end, when Karen grabs his mask and he starts walking fully like old school Nick Castle Michael.

[close]

That scene up until

Spoiler alert

he grabs his mask and methodically puts it on

[close]

works incredibly effectively IMO, even if the dialogue is pap, because you finally get a visual sense of Michael being a thinking, cat-like killer once again rather than a stumbling stiff zombieman. I really hate when people who counter this by saying that Michael was a stiff, cocked-head zombie in the original movie when he is incredibly animated and displays visible emotion (curiosity, hesitation, anticipation, anger) via body language during the entirety of that movie.

But that minute and a half is 100% not worth watching this heap of shit for.

[Custard]

Yeah, this is a bad film. And I quite enjoyed the previous one. The dialogue is absolutely honking, some of the worst I've heard in a mainstream film

SPOILERZ AHEADDDD

Laurie just sitting in bed for most of the film, while realistic as she'd be absolutely battered after the last film, leaves you with characters you don't really care about. The main baldy bloke leading the mob is really annoying and shit.

In what world would they think that poor little lad with learning difficulties was Michael Myers? They were completely different body shapes and sizes. That was so shit

The deaths throughout are absolutely horrible, and not in a fun or entertaining way. I know, it's a Halloween film, but it seemed especially fucking horrible this time round

I quite liked Big John and Little John too, so seeing one get his eyes squeezed out of his head was just horrible. All he wanted to do was dance awkwardly to some Halloween tunes and have a bit of cheese

2 bags

THIS FRANCHISE DIES TONIGHT! etc

[idunnosomename]

Halloween Sucks

[beanheadmcginty]

The RLM review of this is out and features clips of Jamie Lee Curtis calling this film a "masterpiece" and drawing comparisons between the behaviour of the mob in this to Black Lives Matter. Fucking hell.

[bgmnts]

Yeah the RLM guys made this film looks utter dogshit.

Curtis isn't going to come out and say "yeah it's really crap but I wanted a new kitchen for my third mansion" though, asa amazing as thanked honesty would be.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Curtis isn't going to come out and say "yeah it's really crap but I wanted a new kitchen for my third mansion" though, asa amazing as thanked honesty would be.

Yeah. She's no Michael Caine.

[idunnosomename]

what is particularly awful about that was she said it was not only a politically-relevant masterpiece, but "preceded" Black Lives Matter. Of course, BLM was established in 2013.

[oy vey]

Spoiler alert

Evil doesn't die tonight

[close]

surprise surprise.

Say what you will about the latest shite the music is great. Go John (and sundry others).

[madhair60]

this is a fucking appalling film.

[ImmaculateClump]

Haha, yeah, I watched it the other night. A couple of big laughs so it wasn't a total waste of time.

[Indomitable Spirit]

Just watched this out of morbid curiosity and I'm genuinely shocked quite how poor it is. Struggling to recall a modern, reasonably budgeted horror film with dialogue as atrocious (which is really saying something).

Plotting absolutely all over the shop. STINKING performances from JLC, Anthony Michael Hall and just about everyone else. The attempted catharsis of seeing

Spoiler alert

Michael gets seven shades of shit clubbed out of him

[close]

doesn't work cos they've already established that

Spoiler alert

the mob are a hateful bunch of bloody-thirsty psychopaths responsible for the death of one innocent person, so you just end up feeling sorry for MM

[close]

Utter shite. Actually worth watching as it misfires so hard at times it's almost funny.

[H-O-W-L]

I do think that the moment where

Spoiler alert

Michael sizes up the crowd and then casually pulls his mask back over his head and gets right back to the ole' killing

[close]

was somewhat goosebumpy. Though honestly fucked up because it had me rooting for Michael rather than them.

[Custard]

Heh, that's the fundamental flaw with the film, isn't it? That you end up rooting for the serial killer over the moronic braying mob of absolute cunts

Who on earth would pull for them, after what they did to the poor learning difficulties lad? I watched them die horribly with absolute glee. Especially baldy bollocks

[H-O-W-L]

When he

Spoiler alert

gets his mask taken off

[close]

and starts doing The Walk I literally cheered for him because it was like seeing your mate walking around in a hangover the whole day then suddenly they wake up.

[Shaky]

Just seeing Michael out in the open, casually killing the entire town, is ridiculous. He's scary in the original because he's more elusive than murdery. In this one no-one ever stands a chance.

[H-O-W-L]

Yeah. I was watching it with someone on Discord and we pretty much immediately said, without prompting each other, "So, Michael has become a Terminator." when the

Spoiler alert

fireman scene

[close]

progressed.

[SteveDave]

"So, Michael has become a sixty-something year old Terminator."

[AsparagusTrevor]

So, Michael has become a sixty-something year old Terminator

Sounds familiar

[SteveDave]

Sounds familiar

Christ me back

[bgmnts]

Halloween 2056: Evil Dies Tonight.

Myers is in lying on a hospital bed, a myriad of tubes coming out of him, each life saving wire representing his number of victims/Halloween sequels.

All we hear is the slow and steady BEEP, BEEP, BEEP of the heart rate monitor and the quiet reverence of the hospital staff and the entire community of Halloween town, including a 97 year old Jamie Lee Curtis, who has been wheeled into see the spectacle.

A slow, tender synth plays the Halloween theme as the machines are plugged off and Myers passes away peacefully in his sleep.

They take the mask of and it turns out he has the exact same face as the mask.

(THE FACE OF WILLIAM SHATNER, THE FACE OF WILLIAM SHATNER)

[amputeeporn]

Almost impressively boring and shit - but as has been articulated so well up-thread, I never understood what anyone saw in the last one, either. Not remotely scary or fun (I say that having accepted that no sequel will never have the almost art-film spectral weirdness of the original, but scary and fun should be easy to do at the minimum).

In the past, when Michael has been about to get executed or something, there's usually some ironic human intervention on his behalf - and now we've seen the ending of this, we know why. The climax here just couldn't have been worse.

[Rev+]

Preferred it to the last one, to be honest, because it at least chose the right direction on the 'if you can't be interesting, be stupid' fork in the road.  2018 had a bit of a novelty effect that this one couldn't replicate, but it did threaten to be interesting at times.  The main thrust is Haddonfield as a community reacting to the masked wanker, which is the obvious thing that should have happened in at least one of the sequels before now.  But then that whole idea just fizzles out.

You've got to respect Jamie Lee Curtis for going full Malcolm McDowell on this one, though.  Top billing, and in it for under five minutes.

[H-O-W-L]

Myers is in lying on a hospital bed, a myriad of tubes coming out of him, each life saving wire representing his number of victims/Halloween sequels.

You joke but the flaming pumpkins flying at the screen in the intro of this one represent his victims -- there's even two black pumpkins to represent the doctor/nurse couple. I wish I was shitting you.

[Rev+]

Number of sequels rather than victims, isn't it?

The original plan for this was really interesting and daring, and it's a shame that it couldn't happen - mainly the pandemic, but also other factors.  This and the next one were supposed to be filmed back-to-back, and *both* were to come out last October, with 'Ends' releasing two weeks after 'Kills'.  This one is a middle act, and it would have worked so much better if they'd have been able to do that.

[Shaky]

Number of sequels rather than victims, isn't it?

The original plan for this was really interesting and daring, and it's a shame that it couldn't happen - mainly the pandemic, but also other factors.  This and the next one were supposed to be filmed back-to-back, and *both* were to come out last October, with 'Ends' releasing two weeks after 'Kills'.  This one is a middle act, and it would have worked so much better if they'd have been able to do that.

I know the next film is now due to jump forward four years, but would the content of this one have been any different with that original plan? Genuine question. I think it gets too many things wrong to have been salvagable by a different release date alone.