Halloween Kills (2021) Review

Halloween is one of my personal favourite horror films of all time. But over the 40 plus years since the original 1978 John Carpenter classic, the Halloween franchise, like so many other horror movie series, has become a convoluted mess. And the sad thing is it never had to be this way.

After scripting parts 1 and 2 with Debra Hill, Carpenter’s ingenious concept for Halloween III: Season of the Witch was to tell a completely new story, also set on Halloween, transforming the series into something completely timeless and original.

As he explained in a Fangoria interview “It is our intention to create an anthology out of the series, sort of along the lines of Night Gallery, or The Twilight Zone, only on a much larger scale, of course.” Halloween would go on an on telling a whole variety of spooky stories with endless possibilities, yet all linked to the movies nightmarish namesake.

Allas his fresh and fantastic vision was never to be. Due to bad reviews and bad box office receipts the under-rated mask madness of Season of the Witch, along with Carpenter’s alternate approach was abandoned. In 1988 Michael Myers returned in Halloween 4 unoriginally subtitled The Return of Michael Myers.

With two sequels to this new start in 1989 ’s The Revenge of Michael Myers and 1995’s The Curse of Michael Myers, things went from unoriginal to totally insane in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (should we be calling it Halloween Water: 20 Years Later?). Despite seeing the return of the wonderful Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode this movie only confused the franchise further by abandoning everything that came before Halloween 2 and starting all over again.

One respectful but pointless Rob Zombie remake and follow up in 2007 and 2009 to make things even more difficult and Michael seemed to have been laid to rest at last. That is until Dimension Films lost the rights to Halloween and Blumhouse Productions swooped in with John Carpenter’s involvement ready to get Haddonfields dark past back on track.

The brilliant 2018 film infuriatingly titled Halloween (making it the third out of the 12 movie series to bare that overused moniker) was a a surprising revelation. On the downside creating a new timeline springing directly from the 1978 original, but on the upside intelligently and interestingly exploring the post-traumatic stress piled onto Laurie Strode from that fateful night night and also the massive effect it had on her daughter and granddaughter.

Directed and co-written by one of the most unlikely people possible – David Gordon Green, who before taking on Halloween was best known for stoner comedies Pineapple Express and Your Highness, the script to Halloween and Halloween Kills was also co-written by Eastbound & Down and Tropic Thunder actor Danny McBride, another comedy curve ball that somehow works.

In many ways a far superior, far more serious and far scarier take on what H20 wanted to be, the 2018 film also ended with a refreshingly cathartic climax that has sadly since been completely undone in Halloween Kills – much the same way Halloween: Resurrection ruined a shocking decapitation which was actually the best moment of the entire movie.

Taking place mere moments after the Strode women’s now shallow triumph, a sensational and chilling shot sees fire engines rushing to Laurie’s blazing abode as she screams out the window for them to let it burn. Of course Michael Myers is still alive and as he continues his seasonal rampage, slicing-up rescue workers and locals alike with the news of his massacre quickly spreading across the community.

It is here that Halloween Kills takes its first fascinating turn, pushing the three Strode’s aside to focus on the general populace of Haddonfield. This includes four of the survivors of Myers original massacre, Kyle Richards and Nancy Stephens who play the same characters as in the 1978 film and Robert Longstreet and Anthony Michael Hall who are retroactively slotted in alongside Will Patton’s Officer Hawkins in some nicely realised flashbacks.

Meeting to commemorate the shocking events from forty years before, the group are roused when they hear news of Myer’s bloody return and quickly mob mentality has them armed to the teeth, ignoring law enforcement and patrolling the neighbourhood out for revenge. As chaos reigns and the cops lose control, the town tips over into anarchy with only Laurie aware of what is really happening this harrowing Halloween, aware but unable to do anything about it.

With repetitive chants of “evil dies tonight” ringing in our ears the exploration of mass hysteria in Halloween Kills is a welcome and nicely done element, with Anthony Michael Hall’s Tommy whipping the populace into a panic that results in riots and vigilante violence, none of which solves the towns problems.

Although completely in-keeping with the overarching story, allowing other characters to come to the fore and the community’s demon’s to be exposed, the payoff for sidelining the three generations of Strode’s is that there is a vacuum at the centre of Halloween Kills. A vacuum that could only be filled by one character, Michael Myers.

Played by James Jude Courtney, director Nick Castle and Airon Armstrong in the 1978 scenes, Myers is as chilling and childlike as ever, with his sensational slayings accompanied by the trademark head tilt that gives him an even more otherworldly and sinister quality. Although Halloween Kills seems desperate to quantify and qualify the character, Myers is a plague, a typhoon, a destructive force of nature uncaring and unleashed on Haddonfield with nothing more than destruction on his unknowable mind.

Slashers throughout history have had audiences secretly and publicly rooting for the villain due to the overly cardboard cannon fodder characters constantly breaking social rules that are introduced only to be murdered in the very next scene. For better or worse and against Carpenter’s original wishes, Halloween has become Michael Myers’ film and anyone who knows the series knows his blank masked face and blue boiler suit which has become the only constant throughout the series, meaning we all have a very strong attachment to him.

All this makes Halloween Kills extremely entertaining but also takes us a long way away from what David Gordon Green and his team seemed to be saying in the first part of their new vision. It means we will have to wait till Halloween Ends in 2022 to see if this fouth way to watch Halloween really is the best way.

Movie Rating:

Trailer: