Day 292 of the challenge! It took 40 years, but we finally got a Halloween followup that KILLS IT. One of 2018’s best!
To say I was happy walking out of the theater would be an understatement. I was over the moon! This new Halloween captures everything that makes the original such a classic; the tension, the unknowing atmosphere, the unforgiving brutality of The Shape, and builds on it with a powerful story about trauma and PTSD. I never thought I would get emotional watching a Michael Myers movie, but here we are.
Jame Lee Curtis is back (again) as a very “Sarah Connor-esque” Laurie Strode (tank tops and gun stocked compound and all), whose entire life has been defined by her experience 40 years ago with Michael Myers, who is back to NOT being Laurie’s brother. Hooray for going back to basics!
It would have been easy to just have portrayed Laurie as a generic “PTSD badass” (think lady Rambo), but instead we are given a layered version of Laurie that is crumbling behind the tough exterior she puts up. She is very much still struggling with the emotional fallout of her experience, and can’t “get over it” much to the dismay of her broken family. A particularity heartbreaking scene near the beginning of the film really gets that sad point across, and Jamie Lee knocks it out of the park.
All the attention to Laurie’s mental state and motivation is what makes this new Halloween work so well. There’s no more convoluted need to explain why Michael is the way he is (a point Laurie herself makes in one of the movie’s many self aware meta moments), instead focusing solely on Laurie’s struggles, both inner and out. It really makes every “PTSD bad ass” moment she has mean something once the bodies start piling up. I really do consider Halloween 2018 to be the first great ME TOO movie of the era for that reason. I had seen that sentiment floating around as the movie neared it’s release, but actually experiencing it in a theater is a whole different affair than just reading a blurb about it online. Who says horror isn’t deep?
On the mythos side of things, Michael is back to being the “shark from Jaws” so to speak. Not a single trace of Rob Zombie’s white horse chasing, grizzly bear hobo, or the “thorny” Michael from the original series of sequels (H20 Myers was meh, much like his 2 films). As mentioned, it’s back to the basics and all the accompanying fun. And by fun, I mean clever remixes to classic Halloween homages, an AMAZING new score produced by the master himself John Carpenter, shocking moments that actually shock you, and beautiful cinematography (those Zombie films in particular really made me miss the long tracking shots).
I can’t say it enough: Halloween 2018 is a great movie. Scary, powerfully deep, and slick, it is a leading example of what the horror genre has to offer when handled properly. I can’t wait to watch it again, preferably as a back to back DF with the original.