Verdict
Summary
More invested in its history than the previous reboot entry, Halloween Kills is a visceral thriller with its roots firmly planted in John Carpenter’s original classic, and fans of the franchise should find it to be a hyper violent, but satisfying sequel. I enjoyed it much more than the previous film, and with its whole town-versus The Shape showdown premise, I feel that the film didn’t disappoint in that regard.
Plot:
Unstoppable serial killer Michael Myers is still loose on Halloween night, but this time an entire town tries to trap him and end his reign of evil once and for all.
Review:
Picking up immediately after the events of 2018’s Halloween, Michael Myers breaks free of the fiery prison Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) set up for him to die in, and he proceeds to go on his bloodiest and most destructive campaign of killing yet. With Laurie waylaid at a hospital for the injuries she sustained in her fight against Michael, the masked killer first dispatches an entire crew of axe-wielding first responders at the house he’s trapped in that has become a fiery inferno. Free to roam the town of Haddonfield, Michael moves methodically towards the house he grew up at, only this time Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), the kid Laurie babysat back in 1978, has riled up the entire town to trap and kill Michael and make sure “evil dies tonight.” Doyle’s torch and pitchfork (and baseball bat) brigade starts at a bar and ends up gathering steam and momentum, and when they eventually cross paths with The Shape (as Myers is referred to in the credits), their fight with him / it will be one for the record books. Meanwhile, Laurie and her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) are stuck at the hospital, which is packed and having its own pitchfork brigade when the hysteria of the people who think Michael Myers is roaming the halls culminates with an encounter with an escaped lunatic from a nearby asylum, and the crescendo doesn’t pan out the way the people want or expect it to. Only one thing is certain: Michael Myers can never be stopped, and Halloween is clearly not the day to pick a fight with him / it.
More invested in its history than the previous reboot entry, Halloween Kills is a visceral thriller with its roots firmly planted in John Carpenter’s original classic, and fans of the franchise should find it to be a hyper violent, but satisfying sequel. I enjoyed it much more than the previous film, and with its whole town-versus The Shape showdown premise, I feel that the film didn’t disappoint in that regard. The Halloween movies aren’t very sophisticated and don’t really say much on a cultural level, and any social-political readings into this one are pure bunk. Halloween Kills is a slasher movie, plain and simple, and it delivers. David Gordon Green directed.
Halloween Kills is out on a Blu-ray / DVD / Digital Code combo pack this week, and the package comes with an extended cut of the film that adds in four minutes of footage. There’s a gag reel, deleted and extended scenes, a commentary with Green and Jamie Lee Curtis and Judy Greer, plus a whole slew of featurettes.
