Halloween Kills
Written by Cameron Geiser
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The horror genre is incredibly subjective, with perhaps comedy being the closest contender? What is it that scares you? Yes, we’re all prone to be taken aback by a good jumpscare every now and then, but it's those deeper, more primal, fears that seem the most universal. The notion that just outside your carefully crafted sphere of well-reasoned safety lies a predator in wait, waiting to stalk you- before devouring you. That’s a good thrill. It’s what has propelled the Halloween films since the original 1978 John Carpenter scarefest, and more recently through the newly rebooted sequels from Danny McBride and David Gordon Green.
That first film has been noted as “tame” when compared to the decades of horror slashers that have followed in Michael Myers’ footsteps. It makes sense given audience expectations from the likes of Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger since the slasher inception. However, that core concept is alive and well in this latest sequel featuring the original slasher villain in Halloween Kills. Speaking of audience expectations, I’ve seen a lot of online debate over this film during its opening weekend. People seem to either love or loathe this entry in the Halloween franchise.
Personally, my bar for slasher films is low. I expect to be unnerved, to witness some horrifically brutal kills, and I’ve always enjoyed a mythology that plays with imaginative expansions. This film does all of that. I also don’t expect the writing or script structure to be shockingly good either. Maybe that’s just a personal aspect of my approach to film criticism, but alas, c'est la vie.
Halloween Kills is a solid slasher film if you don’t set your expectations too high.
Halloween Kills is a direct sequel that picks up exactly where 2018’s Halloween left off. Laurie Strode’s trap house is burning to the ground with Michael Myers inside. The three generations of Strode women are being taken to the hospital for the wounds received in that last film’s final act. Cameron, the aloof teenage boyfriend of Allyson strode also returns after his drunken betrayal in the first film as well. Then however, we’re taken on a quick tour of 1978’s Halloween night once again to see a few of the events of that night from another angle, or two. I really appreciated this sequence, it was crafted like a film from that era would be, dark blacks for shadowing, controlled camera movements, even the character work was given serious care to not seem as though these people were just modern day caricatures plopped into the past. It’s mostly to serve as background info for the cop introduced in the last film (Deputy Hawkins), but also as an added slice of the manifest chaos that Michael Myers causes in his wake.
An aspect of the film that I thought was a wise choice was seeing the town of Haddonfield Illinois turn inward on itself from the effects of Michael Myers’ trail of bodies. The citizens are rightly upset at the evolution of death and destruction plaguing them and they want it to stop. In their pursuit to end the madness, they end up creating some of their own. Monsters beget monsters after all. The part of the film that I adored most though, were the practical effects utilized to craft some truly brutal kills throughout the film. Each one was over the top and explosive in nature. This is probably the highest kill count of the franchise overall, but definitely of this new timeline of films. The filmmakers also wisely backed off the out of place awkward humor that was in the last film. No peanut butter on anyone’s penis in this film, and that’s a good thing. Overall the film tightened its scope, cut out what didn’t work the last time around, and expanded on the mythology of Michael Myers. Not bad for a slasher flick.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.