The 2018 "Halloween" was simple but effective: with a blood-curdling opening that set the tone for the rest of the film, which remained gory and full-throttle, but always remembered to be fun, and a little bit sinister. It focused on Laurie Strode, but was never beholden to nostalgia and managed to also be about how society is more willing to protect killers than it was their victims and survivors, and how we allow our morbid fascination with murder to destroy our humanity.
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| Me too Will, me too... |
"Halloween Kills" is enslaved to canon and nostalgia, ramps up the gore (seemingly beholden to the Rob Zombie movies, never a great start), is befuddled and messy in what it wants its story and idea to be and so just comes across as a selection of weird interconnected vignettes, and its flaws in plotting and structure and characterisation become even stupider as it rushes to kill off characters previously portrayed as smart for the sole reason of wanting a "shock". It brings back the "Gottcha!" moment from the previous entry in a way which makes not a jot of sense, solely there for the benefit of the audience, and opens with Michael Meyers having a kung-fu fight with firemen armed with a buzzsaw.
There is a spark of brilliance at the hospital, as it focuses on the idea that we become monsters ruled solely by rage in our desire for catharsis and vengeance (a crowd hunt down an innocent man in the corridors, whilst the mother of one of the actual victims finds her son's corpse, breaks down and cries: unnoticed and ignored by everybody who is after "justice". It's probably the only effective moment in the film); and the gore is fun, I guess.
But fuck this movie. I was so disappointed. I just want to forget it, blot it from my mind, and move on.
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