Halloween

Dir: David Gordon Green

2018

**

After failing to develop a new Halloween film in time, Dimension Films lost the production rights and good riddance to them. They failed to make a decent Halloween film during the time they had it and it looked like a sad way to end a popular series. Miramax got the rights back and teamed up with Blumhouse Productions who are affiliated with Universal. Blumhouse are responsible for recent horror franchises such as Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Sinister, and Insidious. They also produced the masterpieces Whiplash, Get Out and BlacKkKlansman and they’ve also got M. Night Shyamalan making great films again. I personally thought that the last Halloween film, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, was utter rubbish and a tragic way to end the franchise but as much as Blumhouse could be the ones to bring the story back to life, I really had no enthusiasm for another installment, whether it be re-make, re-boot or prequel. That was until I learned that Jamie Lee Curtis was coming back – forty years after the original, to correct the series and give it its proper send-off. It was then officially announced that original co-creator John Carpenter would return as composer, executive producer, and creative consultant. They had me at composer. Nick Castle returning as Michael Myers (aka The Shape) was the icing on the cake. I usually hate it when film makers tell us all to forget certain sequels had ever happened but the news that Halloween would be a direct sequel to the original 1978 version was both intriguing and refreshing. It kind of made sense and essentially, we were only asked to forget three films ever happened (out of ten), two of them being fairly rubbish anyway. The franchise is a mess but this was the best scenario and no one was going to go and watch yet another re-boot. The appointment of director David Gordon Green intrigued me further, he isn’t known for his horror but I thought the mood in his films such as Joe and George Washington could lend themselves to an atmospheric horror and his script for Goat is pretty dark too. I bought my ticket and went to the cinema open-minded and without knowing too much about it on purpose. I was ready to be thrilled and scared all over again, like I was with the original. I was popcorn-ready, the film’s title sequence was excellent with Carpenter’s score, the original orange typography of the first film and a brilliant reverse film of a decomposing Jack-o-lantern pumpkin in the background. Then I saw the words that nearly made me throw my popcorn in the air in disgust: co-written by Danny McBride. I know he’s friends with David Gordon Green but seriously, I didn’t see that coming and if I had I wouldn’t have bought the ticket. Was McBride’s script any good? No, it wasn’t. Who would have guessed that the writer of The Foot Fist Way and Your Highness wouldn’t be able to write a capable Halloween sequel. It beggars belief. The premise is that Michael Myers was arrested at the end of the first film and has been in a maximum security hospital for the mentally ill for the last forty years. Meanwhile, Laurie Strode has been living in fear that Myers will one day escape and hunt her down. She has spent her life building a fortress for her and her daughter to live in, her obsession resulting in two divorces and social services taking her daughter away from her. Now that her daughter is grown up, she fears for the safety of her granddaughter also. The story takes off with true-crime podcasters Aaron Korey (Jefferson Hall) and Dana Haines (Rhian Rees) as they travel to Smith's Grove Sanitarium to interview Michael Myers, who was captured after Dr. Samuel Loomis shot him off of the Doyle house balcony. Dr. Ranbir Sartain, who has been treating Michael since Loomis' death, informs them that Michael is able to speak but chooses not to. They meet Myers in the outside section of the hospital in a scene that looks like a cross between Richard Lester’s Chess scene in The Three Musketeers, the work of Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum and a sugar-free version of Tarsem Singh’s early work. Myers is standing in a square, chained to a large block of concrete. There is a dreamlike feel to the scene, a bit like when we meet Hannibal Lecter for the first time, but in a surrealist painting – David Gordon Green trying to be all Ingmar Bergman basically. Aaron fails to get Michael to speak, even after brandishing his mask and mentioning Laurie Strode’s name. How and why he has the mask is fairly absurd, it makes for an interesting scene but it is sadly the first and last. I think Green and McBride forget that in asking us to forget all but the first first ever happened, they also erase the infamy of Myers himself. Of course Laurie Strode would still be traumatised but in this version, as is pointed out, they are not brother and sister, so there is no real reason why he would target her, as we are also reminded that his murders are indiscriminate. So which is it? Laurie Strode in 2018 is basically Sarah Conner in Terminator 2. Anyway, Myers escapes from the Sanitarium – as is totally expected – during a transfer. It is so expected that they don’t even show how his transport crashes, releasing the prisoners. What they fail to address however, is why the security is so low. He is transported in one little school bus, after years of living in high security. The beginning sequence suggested the terrible danger of stepping within meters of him when he’s surrounded by armed guards and chained to a block of concrete, so to then stick him in a bus with only a couple of officers is a dumb step down. The development of the new characters is pretty rubbish too, with many characters featured disappearing from the story and others never followed up (they clearly want a sequel) and Haluk Bilginer is no Donald Pleasence/Sam Loomis (but by casting a ‘foreigner’ the producers clearly think it’s enough). We really get nothing from Laurie Strode other than that she’s developed a tough exterior, leaving very little for Jamie Lee Curtis to get her teeth into. Will Patton plays his character well, convincing us that he really was the arresting officer from the first film but none of the other original players look like they’re really up for the fight. Curtis gives more performance in the production stills for the movie than in the movie itself. Her fortress house, which she has been building for forty years, is an absolute joke. Why did she fill it with mannequins? Remote-control escape hatch? Are you kidding? This might be the dumbest entry of the franchise so far and that is saying something. Myers does wander into a house and kills a babysitter for good measure but it doesn’t fit within the story, the structure of the film is really messy and none of it flows. The ending is overly smug and very unoriginal. I’ve never been as bored watching a horror film, knowing exactly what was coming next and not having the least bit of concern for the characters. It is perhaps the first time in the franchise where Myers isn’t in the least bit scary. John Carpenter says he got involved to put the story to bed, stating that this is definitely the last one but the producers say they’ll definitely be another one if the film does well – which it has. Jamie Lee Curtis thinks the film is ace and has praised the story no end but then she also said that about H20 and lets not forget Halloween: Resurrection. If they really wanted fans on their side they should have cast Danielle Harris as Strode’s daughter, that would have been pretty cool but the studios still don’t get what made the original so great, they never did and they never will. Time to call it a day.