What Halloween Kills lacks in brains it makes up for in blood, but is that enough?
By Scarlett Milburn-Smith, Sociology, First Year
If you’re looking for extreme gore and an abundance of mindless slashing, look no further. If you’re looking for something a little more innovative from the new Halloween sequel, perhaps some more character development; a true insight into who or what Michael Myers is, or a clever twist, you may want to give Halloween Kills a miss.
The film starts almost exactly where its predecessor left off. Michael Myers has survived the burning basement trap set by Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), so unscathed that he begins his cold-blooded killing spree whilst still entombed and relatively burn free. Laurie however is much worse, rushed into hospital to recover from her stab wounds, oblivious to Michael’s survival.
Unlike previous films, the whole town comes together to fight Michael as a collective, whilst chanting the slogan ‘Evil dies tonight!’ Amongst the vigilante mob we see the return of original characters Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall) and Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards), whom Laurie was babysitting on Halloween night 1978, as well as a welcome cameo from Dr Loomis (a CGI Donald Pleasence).
The return of some of the original characters felt progressive and promising at first. However, a major flaw is the unbelievable stupidity of the people who, in the most part, have come across Michael Myers before and are at this point aware that he is somewhat inhuman. Michael therefore can’t seemingly be defeated with a baseball bat or any other kind of impractical weapon.
Even with the knowledge that we must suspend a certain amount of disbelief whilst watching this type of horror, the predictability felt lazy, scenes felt repetitive and the jump-scares fell short of the previous instalments. The civilians Michael Myers attacked, on the whole, lack any true character development. With little threat posed upon Laurie for the majority of the film, we lose the fundamental emotional connection that we’ve previously had. We are left unsure of who the central character is and who we are really rooting for.
Hard-core Halloween fans will be pleased however with director David Gordon Green’s intertwining of John Carpenter’s original theme. Keeping a lot of the iconic music from the 1978 film, the musical score feels like an impressive expansion of the original, and the similar camerawork feels like a justified continuity.
Jamie Lee Curtis offers yet another captivating and emotional performance despite spending the majority of the film in one room of a hospital. Her acting capability, alongside her impressive female co-stars Judy Greer and Andi Matichak, adds a special kind of integrity that slasher movies usually lack.
The film is a functional enough follow up, but feels like a rather unnecessary filler in the trilogy that is too reliant on the pending conclusion of Halloween Ends next year; I couldn’t help but leave feeling that not much actually happened. In this case, it became clear to me that (fake) blood isn’t just thicker than water, it also happens to be thicker than the plot of Halloween Kills.
Featured Image: IMDB
Did Halloween Kills spook you out?