The original Halloween is unquestionably one of the all-time great horror movies, a true classic that almost single-handedly invented the slasher sub-genre. It would spawn a thousand imitations and a phalanx of sequels, all of which the creators of the remake have wisely decided to ignore. Halloween (2018) wipes the slate queen. The premise is a simple one: none of the sequels to John Carpenter’s original ever happened. We’re branching off onto an entirely new and different timeline, without any of the baggage that has accumulated over the past four decades.
Masked murderer Michael Myers has spent the last forty years in a mental institiution, silently biding his time and waiting for the right moment. His holiday murder spree is now the stuff of legend. You can pretty much guess where things go from there. Aftera visit from a couple of snooty British podcasters fires him up, Michael dutifully escapes from the bus sent to transport him to a different institution, killing the guards, driver, and — in a moment that I was shocked to see happen on-scene — a child who just happens upon the scene of the bus crash with his hapless father.
Enter Laurie Strode, heroine of the original movie, and once again played by the always-excellent Jamie Lee Curtis.
This time out, Laurie gets the Sarah Connor treatment. Telling Will Patton’s law enforcement officer that she has spent the last forty years praying for Michael to escape so that she can kill him, Laurie is soon revealed to be a gun-toting, knife-slashing badass with a basement arsenal full of weapons and an almost pathological desire to hunt down the escaped killer and put an end to what she sees at their unfinished business…permanently. Having raised (perhaps ‘trained’ is a better word) a now-estranged daughter in the hard core, militaristic style that would help keep her alive, Laurie also has a grand-daughter to worry about. Kudos are due to Curtis for her nuanced portrayal of an obsessive, alcoholic, PTSD-laden character who feels like a natural extension of her younger self.
The writers have ditched the frankly hokey premise of Michael and Laurie being brother and sister. Instead, we are left with the rather more disconcerting concept of Michael targeting her for reasons that are completely opaque…if, indeed, there is a reason at all.
Seeing Michael Myers without his mask on spoiled things a little, for me at least. It was cool to see that the injuries he sustained in the first movie are represented in the form of scars and a blind eye, but at the same time I didn’t want to see any of the character’s hair and face. The less we see of what lies underneath that William Shatner mask, the better, because the unseen is always scarier. This isn’t a deal breaker, but I did find it to be a little off-putting, and wished that the director had gone with a ‘less is more’ approach.
The movie contains plenty of nods to the original. Michael Myers is portrayed by Nick Castle, who played him in the first movie. This makes a lot of sense; Jamie Lee Curtis has aged, and so therefore must the actor playing her nemesis. Castle retains the looming, hulking sense of the monstrous that he first brought to the role, and yet there is also a very real sense that Laurie Strode could be a worthy adversary for him. When the two finally go head to head in the movie’s final act, all bets are off when it comes to which one will survive the encounter.
It’s here that my problems with the movie really start. Laurie’s house, scene of the climactic face-off, has been converted into a combination fortress and kill-zone, replete with floodlights, rolling steel doors that slam down on command, and a basement safe room. When Michael Myers finally comes to call, Laurie and her family wisely hoof it down to the safe room, which contains enough weaponry to fight a small war. And then, what do they do…lock it down and wait for the cavalry to arrive?
Nope.
Open up the only entrance to the room and start filling it with lead when The Shape appears in the doorway, putting enough bullets into the killer to turn him into a Swiss cheese?
Nope.
With most of the audience screaming “DON’T GO UP THERE!” Laurie does exactly that, heading upstairs to square off against her nemesis. In doing so, she throws away every tactical advantage she has spent years preparing. Stupid, and lazy writing. Yes, I know the case can be made that she is so driven that she was unable to restrain herself from impulsively going up against The Shape, but at the same time, this is one of the dumbest moves the supposedly tactically-savvy Laurie could have made, and puts the life of her daughter at risk. I just wasn’t buying it from a common sense point of view, but on the other hand it was a useful plot device in order to allow the two stars of the movie to finally go toe to toe with one another.
When the dust settles, we see Michael Myers turned into a crispy critter and three generations of the Strode family driving off into the sunset (er, darkness) with their hands covered in blood. Despite John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis both claiming that this will be the last Halloween movie, it sounds as though another one is already in the works. Judging from the monster box office on opening weekend ($71m) it would be a surprise if it didn’t get made.
Personally, I enjoyed 85% of Halloween (2018) enormously. It was great to see The Shape stalking and slashing its way across the big screen again, and I felt as though I definitely got my money’s worth as a fan of the franchise. Well worth seeing if you’re a horror movie afficionado, though it would probably be just as effective on the small screen at home.
