Franchises: Halloween. Halloween (2018)

Like with Chucky, I first reviewed the Halloween series early on in this blog, specifically in the fall of 2013. If you've read those reviews (which I've since massively overhauled), you'd know that this series is very special to me, particularly the first two movies, as they, along with the Chucky movies, served as my gateway into "contemporary" horror. And you'd also know that I wasn't that big on the two Rob Zombie movies, with his first one, to this day, being my least favorite of the series, in spite of both Halloween 5 and Halloween: Resurrection. At the end of the initial version of my review on his second film, I talked about what the future held for the franchise and what was being planned. Being rather disillusioned at the state of it, I concluded, "As much as I've enjoyed the Halloween franchise over the years, I think it's time to let it go. With all the different storylines it's been through, ultimately leading to a remake of the classic original and a sequel to that remake, I think they've done all they can with the character of Michael Myers. This should be the last of it to me, because I don't want another movie with him being a mama's body like Jason Voorhees (they're obviously never going to go back to the original series) and besides, it's impossible at this point for it to regain the greatness that it once had. I'll always treasure the films I love, but I think it's now time to call it a night and let the series rest. But, it's unlikely that'll be the case, so we'll just have to see what happens next." After that, I went on my way, continued watching the Halloween movies that I enjoyed every year, but didn't think about where the franchise was going to go, and didn't even care that much, either. Then, in September of 2017, I was browsing around, possibly looking at the main page of IMDB, which I check every day to see what's going on, when I saw an article about Jamie Lee Curtis returning to the Halloween franchise in a new movie. As you saw up above, I wasn't expecting them to go back to the original series, let alone that Curtis would be back after the H20/Resurrection fiasco, and this was before I also learned that John Carpenter himself was also going to be involved. Now, I was dubious as to just how involved he would be, given his apathy towards the franchise, his admitting that he merely collected a paycheck on remakes of some of his other movies, despite having producer credits on them, and his overall disillusionment and grumpy attitude, but his apparent enthusiasm really piqued my interest. And then, there was the announcement that Nick Castle was going to be playing Michael Myers again, which I especially didn't expect. Of course, while they made it seem as though it would be him for much of the movie, when he really just has a brief cameo as the character, it was still a cool thing to hear.

One thing I didn't like, though, was the movie simply being called Halloween, as it reminded me of how lazy I thought it was when the 2011 prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing was simply titled The Thing again. I can understand retaining the title when it's a remake, but not when it's a direct sequel (or, in that case, a prequel), as it makes things way too confusing. At this point, we now have three movies in this franchise that are just called Halloween, and two that are called Halloween II, making James Rolfe's complaints about the series in his Chronologically Confused About Bad Movie and Video Game Sequel Titles video, back when the most recent movie was Resurrection, seem like nothing. And speaking of sequels, while I was glad they were going back to the classic version of the series, the idea that they were disregarding everything but the original Halloween felt, inane, for one, since they already ignored a big chunk of the past when they did H20, and stung, for another, given how they were erasing Halloween II, which I absolutely love. I understood why they were doing it, to get rid of the brother/sister connection between Michael and Laurie, but that didn't make it hurt any less (and plus, talk about being confusing for newcomers when they're siblings in big chunks of the franchise and aren't in others). All that said, when the trailer dropped in the summer of 2018, I liked what I saw, for the most part. I thought Laurie coming off like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 was a bit much, and I really didn't like the idea of Michael being captured not long after the original movie ended and having been back in the asylum ever since, but once I got past that, seeing the original, purely evil incarnate version of Michael Myers, with no abusive, white trash upbringing, visions of his mother, or white horses, stalking Haddonfield on Halloween night, as the classic version of the Halloween theme played, was an awesome sight to behold. So, I couldn't help but look forward to this movie, and it would turn out to be the first Halloween I saw in theaters (in fact, I would see all three of the Blumhouse movies in the theater).

I saw it when I was on vacation in Orange Beach, Alabama that October (that's another thing: I was so happy that they were actually releasing it in October rather than in summer, as they'd been doing since H20), on a day when it was rainy and cold and I had nothing else to do. I tried not to get over-hyped but I was quite excited going in, being such a fan, and after it was over, I found myself really enjoying it. I thought it was a really nice palette cleanser after the Rob Zombie movies but, more than anything else, I loved seeing Michael on the big screen for the first time in my life, as well as the way he looked and was portrayed, as it felt like, for the first time in a long time, he was the Shape. In addition, I thought there were a lot of memorable sequences and setpieces, great kills, the music score kicked ass, and it ended in a manner where I was fine with this being the last one. I've watched it several more times since then on Blu-Ray and, initially, I still enjoyed it just as much as I did in the theater. But, after considering others' criticisms of it, which I found more and more valid, as well as what I never liked about it from the beginning and looking at it in retrospect of the whole trilogy, it has lost quite a bit of its luster. While I still say there's a lot to love about it, it's far from the instant classic that many at the time proclaimed it to be, and I certainly don't think it's the best of the sequels. There are some characters I don't care for, I still find Laurie's depiction here to be problematic for various reasons, a lot of the humor they go for isn't my cup of tea, and it feels like they defeat their own purpose in eliminating Laurie and Michael's familial ties in the screenwriting.

October 29th, 2018. Two British true crime podcasters, Aaron Korey and Dana Haines, visit Smith's Grove Psychiatric Hospital in Illinois to see Michael Myers, who has been incarcerated there since his Halloween night killing spree in Haddonfield in 1978. Michael's doctor, Ranbir Sartain, who was once a student of Dr. Loomis, laments that he will soon be transferred to Glass Hill, a maximum security prison. He shows them to the courtyard, where Michael stands in the center, shackled to a cinder-block. Aaron attempts to speak with him, even pulling out the mask he wore that night, but Michael doesn't respond. Aaron and Dana next travel to Haddonfield and manage to speak with Laurie Strode, who's now a paranoid recluse who lives in a heavily-fortified house and whose daughter, Karen, was taken from her when she was twelve. However, they're not able to get much out of her before she makes them leave. Karen, meanwhile, lives in town with her husband, Ray, and their teenage daughter, Allyson, the latter of whom tries to keep her grandmother in her family's life, while Karen would rather distance herself from her. On the night of October 30th, Laurie watches from nearby as Michael is put on the bus with the other patients to be transferred to Glass Hill. The sight of him after so many years causes her major distress, and when she joins her family to celebrate Allyson's making it into the National Honor Society, she has a breakdown that only estranges her more. Meanwhile, while heading out on a camping trip, a father and son come across the transfer bus, which has crashed and the patients are now walking about. Michael kills both of them and steals their truck. Before he's killed, the boy makes a 911 call, and Deputy Frank Hawkins heads out to the scene. Onboard the bus, he finds Sartain, who was accidentally shot in the shoulder but is alive. The next day, Hawkins meets with Sheriff Barker and tells him that Michael was one of the passengers and is unaccounted for. Elsewhere, Aaron and Dana, after visiting the grave of Judith Myers, stop at a gas station, unaware that Michael is following them. He murders the two men inside, taking one's coveralls, then kills both Aaron and Dana, and retrieves his mask from their trunk. Come nightfall, he begins a new killing spree, while Laurie, upon learning of the crash, tries to warn her skeptical family that evil has returned to Haddonfield.

In my final statement in the initial version of my review for his second Halloween, I was rather dubious about Rob Zombie's insistence that he wouldn't be back for a third, given how he once dumped on the idea of remakes in general before turning around and doing one, and also because he swore up and down that he wouldn't do a sequel to his remake. In the end, though, after the lousy experiences he had making both of them, especially the second, he made good on his promise not to return to the franchise again. Regardless, the Weinstein Company almost immediately announced their intention to do another film in the universe he'd created. Called Halloween 3-D, it was to be written and directed by Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier respectively, and fast-tracked to come out the following summer. However, since it was felt they were rushing into it too quickly, production was delayed until after Farmer and Lussier finished making Drive Angry, which was released in 2011. While development restarted that summer, it got delayed again when Farmer and Lussier got attached to the long-awaited Hellraiser remake, which, of course, fell apart. Following an attempt by some other writers to revive the series, including one who attempted to pick up from the ending of Halloween: Resurrection, Farmer and Lussier tried to get Halloween 3-D up and running one last time. But when Bob Weinstein, in his infinite wisdom, insisted on it being a found footage movie, given how successful the Paranormal Activity franchise was at that point, everyone bowed out and the film was canned. Another attempt at a Halloween revival occurred in 2015, intended to be co-written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who worked together on the Feast movies, several of the Saw movies, and both The Collector and The Collection, and with Dunstan directing, as he'd done on those latter two films. Called Halloween Returns (a title I think they should've maintained for the movie that was ultimately made), it would've been another direct sequel to the first two films, like H20. But, due to delays in its production, Dimension Films lost their rights to the franchise, which reverted back to Miramax, and that movie was canceled as well.

Things finally began to fall into place in 2016, when Miramax and Malek Akkad teamed up with Blumhouse to produce the new movie. Moreover, after having had no involvement with the franchise since Halloween III: Season of the Witch, save for his initial screenplay for Halloween 4, John Carpenter returned as a producer. Like I said in my introduction, I was skeptical as to how much input into it he would actually have, but it seems like, at least for this initial movie, he was fairly heavily involved, especially when Danny McBride and David Gordon Green were developing the screenplay, as it's been said they had to run any major ideas by him first. Also, while they admitted he wasn't on set every day, there are plenty of photos of him there, something I've heard never happened during the remakes of Assault on Precinct 13 and The Fog, which he also had producer credits on. And, of course, he did the score with his son, Cody, and godson, Daniel Davies, both of whom he'd collaborated with on a number of albums from 2015 to 2017. Carpenter himself also said that the reason why he got involved in the first place was because he felt that, instead of just doing nothing but hurling criticism at the series as it went on from the sidelines, he should try to do something constructive. Take that for what you will, but I would like to think he was being sincere when he said it.

Though directors like Mike Flanagan and Adam Wingard were offered the chance to direct, Jason Blum and Malek Akkad ultimately went with David Gordon Green, who would not only direct but also co-write the movie with his friends, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. They were definitely unusual choices, given how they're best known for comedies like Pineapple Express, Your Highness, and The Sitter, although Green had begun his career doing dramas and had directed less comedic films in recent years, like 2013's Joe, with Nicolas Cage, 2014's Manglehorn, with Al Pacino and Holly Hunter, and 2017's Stronger. Though they'd never been involved in a straight-up horror film before (Green has said he always wanted to do one, though), Blum said he hired them because he saw Green, in particular, as a great storyteller, period, and their ideas were approved not only by Carpenter but also got Jamie Lee Curtis to agree to return as Laurie Strode. Personally, while I think Green shows off a lot of filmmaking skills in all three of his Halloween movies and proves himself very adept at the horror aspects, he and the other writers kind of fell flat with other things, which I'll get into.

At the time of its release, I heard some comments about how this movie may as well be called Halloween H40, and they're not that far off. The basic plot is virtually the same as H20: decades after the events of Halloween night, 1978, Laurie Strode is badly traumatized, leading to major tension between her and her loved ones, who wish she would get over her paranoia and move on with her life. Then, of course, as Laurie always feared, Michael Myers returns, her loved ones are threatened, she decides to finally confront him, and she seemingly emerges victorious. The major difference is that in this film, Laurie's PTSD and estrangement from her family are much more extreme. Rather than having faked her death and gone into hiding with her child, like she did with John in H20, Laurie has spent the last forty years of her life going through two marriages and raising her daughter, Karen, to be prepared for Michael's return to Haddonfield, which she feels is inevitable. Having lost her to Social Services when she was twelve, Laurie now lives as a recluse in a heavily fortified, maximum security house in the woods near Haddonfield. When she's not engaging in target practice on various mannequins with blank faces akin to Michael's mask, she's drinking heavily and failing to maintain a relationship with Karen, although her granddaughter, Allyson, tries to keep her in her life. She also keeps tabs on Michael, as she reveals to Aaron and Dana that she knows the exact time of his transfer to Glass Hill on October 30th. When it comes, she parks near Smith's Grove, armed with a gun, and later admits she was intending to take a shot at him, but couldn't in the end. The trauma from this experience causes her to have a nervous breakdown when she joins her family at a celebratory dinner, causing even more discord between her and Karen, while Allyson sees just how damaged her grandmother is. But then, the next day, Laurie learns of the transfer bus' crash and tries to warn Karen and the others about it, as well as make them come to her house. Since she doesn't explain herself very well, and breaks into their house, acting like an absolutely paranoid, crazy person, they don't listen to her. That doesn't stop her from taking things into her own hands and attempting to take Michael down when she spots him during his rampage. Ultimately, when Karen and Ray learn of the danger, they are taken to Laurie's home, where she has a trap set for Michael.

While I can always respect their, once again, making Laurie a strong character who fights back and is fully prepared, I feel that the approach they took here, making her akin to a 60-ish version of Sarah Connor, is really over-the-top. I understand that an experience like hers would really traumatize and mentally scar someone, especially when their attacker wouldn't die no matter what they threw at them (speaking of which, I do like how Laurie is the only one here who seems to understand that Michael is more than just a

serial killer), and they wouldn't want their children to go through what they did, but it felt more grounded and believable in H20, when she faked her death, went into hiding with her child, and moved far away from Haddonfield. In fact, her still living not only near Haddonfield but also Smith's Grove (which, in the original film, they said was 150 miles away) feels really implausible. You would think, if she's as traumatized as she is, she'd want to be at least another continent away. But the biggest reason why I feel this

portrayal is overdone is because of how, in this timeline, only the events of the original Halloween are canon, whereas I feel Laurie acts how you'd expect her to after witnessing everything that happens at the hospital in Halloween II. Upon seeing just how utterly unstoppable Michael is over the course of that long, blood night, and for him to disappear after seemingly burning alive, as we're told was the case in H20, it would be more understandable why Laurie is so prepared, has trained her daughter to be ready, and made her house into a fortified deathtrap in case that

human embodiment of pure evil ever comes back (hell, it feels like it would be more appropriate for Laurie to take the steps she does in H20 if only the original film was canon there). But if we're only counting the original film, while that was certainly a horrifying experience, with her friends being murdered and made into gruesome displays, her being relentlessly chased by a creepy man who wouldn't die, and him disappearing into the night, this level of paranoia and PTSD doesn't feel "earned", if you will (especially since Michael was captured shortly

afterward). I know they erased Halloween II from the timeline in order to get rid of the brother/sister angle, but it wouldn't have been too much of a stretch to have the movie take place, save for that revelation, especially since they retcon the ending of the original as it is (and were planning to do so even more at first).

That's another thing: while they may not be siblings here, Laurie and Michael still come off as tied to each other, with Laurie being sure that he's going to come for her, that he's been waiting so long for the opportunity to escape for that express purpose, and others, from Aaron and Dana to Dr. Sartain, drawing connections to them. (Ironically, as we'll get into, the only one who doesn't feel this way is Michael himself, and they would point that out in Halloween Kills.) This is what I meant when I said it felt like the

filmmakers defeated their own purpose by erasing the familial connection. I get that the main point of the story is to finally have Laurie overcome her fears and literally slay her demon but, brother and sister or not, it seems like they're still bonded together in some manner. If she'd simply had this overwhelming desire to hunt him down and kill him herself once she learned of his escape in order to find peace, or specify that she feels he'll come for her because she was the only one who ever got away (my own personal alternative motive for his following her to the hospital in Halloween II), with Michael going straight for her upon spotting her in the midst of his otherwise random killing spree, it might've made it worth it; as it stands, though, it feels worthless.

After all of this, you probably think I absolutely hate this portrayal of Laurie but, despite my issues, I still like seeing Jamie Lee Curtis in this role. While I still think some aspects of her performance are overwrought, and she did this characterization better in H20, she still delivers the goods, with one of my favorite parts being her despair over missing the chance to kill Michael and her subsequent breakdown at dinner. I also like how Laurie gives the money that Aaron and Dana paid her for her interview to Allyson,

telling her to use it for whatever she wants and adding, "Fuck college," when she says she'll put it away for that. Plus, beneath all the paranoia and harshness, you can tell that she really does love her daughter and, during the climax, when they're in the basement and hear Michael enter the house above them, she tells Karen, "I was wrong to raise you the way I did, but at least I can protect you. Nothing will happen to you." And when she goes upstairs to confront Michael, she and Karen have a nice

exchange of, "I love you." Finally, like in H20, it's cool to see Laurie not only stand up to and confront Michael, but also give him a run for his money in her fights with him: beating on him, blowing off two of his fingers, stabbing him, and finally trapping him in a burning house.

Even though her mother lives near Haddonfield, Karen (Judy Greer) is, understandably, very estranged from Laurie at the start of the movie. She's so determined to keep her out of her family's life that she lies to Allyson about having invited her to their celebratory dinner. When Laurie does show up, only to immediately start drinking and have a breakdown over having recently seen Michael, Karen tells her, "This is exactly why we don't reach out." Following this, after Laurie has had to excuse herself and Allyson comforted her, Karen tells Allyson that she's glad she saw just how damaged her grandmother is, adding, "I never told you how I spent my childhood. I learned how to shoot a gun when I was eight. I learned how to fight. I had nightmares about the basement. Social Services came when I was twelve-years old and took me away. I've spent my entire life trying to get over the paranoia and neuroses that she has projected on me." Thus, when Karen comes home the next day to find her house has seemingly been broken into and Laurie suddenly pops up, scaring her and berating her for her lack of security, she's not willing to listen. And like I said, Laurie doesn't explain herself well, simply saying, "The bus crashed," while wielding a gun and saying they need to get out. Karen, not understanding what that means, and already aggravated, throws her out of the house, telling her, "Mom, you need help and you are not welcome in this house until you get it!... The world is not a dark and evil place! It is full of love and understanding, and I'm not letting your psychotic rants confuse me or convince me otherwise." Both she and her husband don't realize the real danger until late that night, when Laurie shows up again, this time with the police, and they're evacuated to her house. The whole time, Karen is frantic to get in touch with Allyson, arguing with the police about their inability to find her, and Laurie has to scream at her to get her and Ray to come inside. For the rest of the movie, Karen has little to do other than fret about what's happened to Allyson and hide down in the basement when Michael arrives and breaks in. She does have one nice moment where, after Michael manages to uncover the way into the basement, she acts all helpless and yells for Laurie, but when he appears at the top of the stairs, she points a gun, says, "Gotcha," and shoots him. Other than that, there's not much else to say about her.

I don't have much use for Karen's husband, Ray (Toby Huss), as he's a perfect example of someone who's trying to be funny but is just cringe. Infamously, when he's first introduced, he's setting mousetraps baited with peanut butter, when one of them goes off while he's holding it and he groans, "Oh, man! I got peanut butter on my penis." Before that, he was going on about how Allyson's boyfriend, Cameron, comes from a wild family, and when she insists that he's nothing like that, Ray adds, "They're all nice guys until they get you pregnant, and then you gotta drive in their pickup trucks, and you clean their guns, and you got children, and you clean guns, and you like to get high with them, and then y'all get fat." Like Allyson, I was ready for him to stop talking. Then, at the dinner, while he and Cameron seem to hit it off, Ray goes on about how his father sold him peyote when they were in high school and they got high out in the woods. The next day, when Laurie shows up at their house, Ray tries to make the case that he can defend his family, claiming to know jujitsu and other martial arts. And while they're hiding out at Laurie's house that night, he spends most of his time walking around, fiddling with a yo-yo. He's just a painfully unfunny person, and while he has his good moments, like comforting Karen after the scene Laurie makes at the restaurant and trying to get her to stop arguing with the police over Allyson, I don't feel much of a loss when Michael strangles him to death.

Unlike her mother, Allyson (Andi Matichak) wants Laurie in her life, and tries to get Karen to invite her to their celebratory dinner. However, she knows that Karen is lying when she claims Laurie can't make it, as she spoke with her grandmother herself. While she definitely has sympathy for the trauma and how it's defined her entire life, Allyson does have a limit to her tolerance. After Laurie shows up at her high school and gives her the money from her interview, she confronts her with how much everything she's done has cost her, telling her, "Say goodbye to Michael, and get over it." When Laurie has her breakdown at the dinner that night, Allyson follows her outside and comforts her, but also listens when Karen lays out how Laurie raised her in a very harsh, strict manner, now seeing just how damaged her grandmother is. Come Halloween night, Allyson attends a high school dance with her boyfriend, Cameron, with the two of them dressing as Bonnie and Clyde, only gender-swapped (and I have to say, she looks really nice dressed up as Clyde). But after she catches him cheating on her and the two of them have a nasty argument about it, she storms out and heads home. Unfortunately for her, the night goes from bad to horrific when she runs into Michael, and is picked up by Deputy Hawkins and Dr. Sartain, only for the latter to turn out to be a madman obsessed with bringing Michael and Laurie together again. Allyson finds herself locked in the patrol car's backseat with an unconscious Michael, as Sartain drives them to Laurie's house. But Allyson, picking up on the doctor's obsession to hear Michael speak, lies and says he said something to her. She gets Sartain to stop the car in exchange for telling him, but when he does, Michael awakens and attacks Sartain, allowing her to escape into the woods and run for Laurie's house. But, by the time she makes it there, Michael has already arrived, leading to Allyson getting caught up in the final confrontation.

When Allyson insists to her parents that Cameron (Dylan Arnold) is a good guy and not like his parents (his father is Lonnie Elam, the kid who bullied Tommy Doyle in the original movie), you know that's going to bite her at some point. When Cameron is first introduced at school, there's an awkward vibe about him that doesn't feel quite right, given how, when Allyson reminds him that her parents want to meet him, he comments, "I thought you were joking when you said your parents were old-fashioned." And when the dinner comes around, Cameron kind of seems to hit it off with Ray, although there's still that feeling of discomfort and not really wanting to be there. He does come off as understanding about Laurie's breakdown, though, and come the night of the high school dance, he and Allyson have a good time... until she catches him flirting and even kissing another girl. Cameron chases her out of the gymnasium and, being fairly drunk, turns into a total douchebag, as he actually tries to gaslight Allyson, telling her that the girl, Kim, was just talking to him. He adds, "You don't have to cry about it. It's not that big a deal." And then, to add insult to injury, when Allyson's cellphone goes off, Cameron, already steamed that she took a call earlier, grabs it and throws it into a bowl of dip, then sneers, "You gonna get that? Or you want me to get it?" Needless to say, Allyson walks out on him, while Cameron, seemingly coming to his senses and realizing how badly he messed up, tries to apologize. Ordinarily, that scene would ensure him a slow, painful death at Michael's hands, but he's not seen again afterward. (He would return, redeem himself, and then die a horrible death, in Halloween Kills.)

Cameron's friend, Oscar (Drew Scheid), this very awkward guy with a massive forehead, comes off as the type of person who says and does the things he does because he's perpetually the third wheel and wants attention. He comes upon Allyson and Cameron when they're kissing in the hallway at school and starts kissing on both of them, saying, "You're two yucky dumpsters and I want to go diving." That's when Cameron has to break it to him that the two of them aren't dressing up together for the Halloween dance and Oscar, jokingly, acts like a jilted lover who tells Cameron he can't go around breaking hearts. Still, he manages to have fun at the dance, dressed up in a devil costume and making a fool of himself. After Allyson leaves following her fight with Cameron, Oscar runs after her and walks her home, trying to comfort her about what happened. When she laments that everyone always lets her down, he tells her, "You deserve better. I mean... Allyson, you're the coolest, you're the prettiest, and you're the nicest girl in school. And if anyone doesn't appreciate that, they're a crazy person." Seemingly heartfelt, but later, as they're taking an overly long "shortcut," he comes on to her, reiterating, "I mean, you deserve better. Right?" She quickly shoves him off, and he says he thought she was sending him signals, then asks her not to tell Cameron, before collapsing to the ground and whining, "Allyson, I'm, like, really drunk right now. Seriously. I got really horny at the party and, like,  all these girls were, like, dancing on me. Their beautiful bodies got me all chubbed out, Allyson... They, like... they were feeding me guacamole in all these sexy ways... It's not my..." That's when Oscar sees who he thinks is Mr. Elrod, the owner of the yard he's sitting in. He pours his heart out, saying that he really likes Allyson, only to eventually get stabbed at and die a really painful death while trying to escape.

Allyson's two friends, Vicky (Virginia Gardner) and her boyfriend, Dave (Miles Robbins), are fairly typical horny, pot-smoking slasher movie victims. That said, they're not totally loathsome, and actually come off as good friends to her, agreeing with her that Karen's attempts to keep Laurie out of her life are pretty crappy. That said, Dave stupidly downplays what Laurie went through, saying that, considering the kind of things that go on in modern times, "A couple people getting killed by one guy with a knife

is not that big of a deal." Granted, I kind of agree with him in the context of just how traumatized Laurie is in this timeline, but still, Vicky, who has a fairly tough but likable personality, rightfully tells him to shut up. Shutting up, but still being very stoned, Dave proceeds to blow up a jack-o-lantern with a firecracker. On Halloween night, Vicky is babysitting a little kid named Julian, planning to have a meet-up with Dave there, and invites Allyson and Cameron over as well. Of course, the latter two never make it, and shortly after Dave arrives, so does Michael. Vicky, after playing a trick on Julian after he claims to have seen the Boogeyman, gets killed while trying to defend him, while Dave gets killed offscreen, with Deputy Hawkins finding him stuck to the wall with a knife.

Speaking of Julian (Jibrail Nantambu), I like this kid, as he proves to be very savvy and smart, telling Vicky that he knows what "Alakazam" means and threatens to tell his mother, and she, in turn, threatens to reveal his browser history. The two of them then take playful jabs at each other, Julian saying, "If I had some other kind of babysitter, she'd be reading me a story. I wouldn't be up, clippin' my nasty-ass toenails... You used to be cool. We used to be friends. But now..." However, the two of them do have a really sweet bond, as seen when Vicky puts Julian to bed and they admit that they do really like each other, and Vicky leaves his bedroom door open a crack, like he asks. Later, he interrupts Vicky and Dave's make-out session, saying he saw a creepy face watching him from the dark and insists it's the Boogeyman. Hilariously, when Vicky goes up to investigate, Julian yells, "Send Dave first!", showing whose life he values more. Vicky goes upstairs and into his room, acting like she's run into somebody and yells for said person to get out, before popping out and scaring Julian, much to his annoyance. But, when she puts him back to bed, she finds Michael in the bedroom closet, with Julian promptly yelling, "Oh, shit!", and running for it. He does come back to try to help her, but when she tells him to run, he does so. He runs out the door and into the night, telling Dave that he's going to die if he goes upstairs.

I don't think many would argue that Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) is one of the movie's weakest aspects. He starts off seemingly as a stand-in for Dr. Loomis (Laurie even calls him, "The new Loomis," a line that I don't like at all), with the only apparent difference being that, instead of seeing him as a dangerous threat that must be kept locked away, he has genuine fascination and even apparent affection for Michael. You learn he's actually a former student of Loomis' and is obsessed with learning everything he can about Michael. Thus, when he meets with Aaron and Dana at Smith's Grove, he openly laments Michael's eminent transfer to Glass Hill, which Sartain calls, "The pit of hell," saying the state has lost interest in learning anything new about him. He also notes that Loomis was the only person to see Michael "in the wild," an allusion to his ultimate ambition. He allows the two podcasters to enter the courtyard and get as close to Michael as they can safely, telling them that he is very much aware of their presence. Come the night of the transfer, Sartain opts to stay with Michael until he arrives at Glass Hill, but en route, something unexpected happens. When the hunter and his son come across the crash, the former is killed offscreen by Michael, whereas the son (whose name is Lumpy, of all things) enters the bus and accidentally shoots Sartain in the shoulder. He's later found there by Deputy Hawkins, and asks, "Did he escape?", before passing out. Sartain doesn't regain consciousness until late the next night, well into Michael's rampage. Explaining what happened on the bus and that Michael must be found quickly, he's also quite happy to meet Laurie Strode, saying he's read everything about her and Michael's first encounter back in 1978. Because of his insight into how Michael thinks, Hawkins is forced to bring Sartain along while searching for him. Along the way, the doctor makes it clear that he wants to understand what's driving Michael, and also tells Hawkins that he's not to be harmed. However, shortly after the two of them pick up Allyson, they come across Michael and Hawkins attempts to kill him. And that's when Sartain shows who he really is, as he produces a pen that's actually a concealed blade and stabs Hawkins in the throat. Then, he actually takes Michael's mask off, puts it on himself, and puts him in the back with Allyson, intending to bring him and Laurie together again.

When I saw this movie in the theater, I thought it had just pulled a massive bait-and-switch when Sartain put on Michael's mask, suggesting that Michael was now dead and Sartain was going to be the villain (sort of like what they later did with Halloween Ends). I don't know if I would've liked it, but it would've been more interesting than what they ultimately do with Sartain. I understand that they're trying to create a character who represents what Loomis' obsession with Michael may have driven him into becoming,

and, indeed, Sartain's speeches and soliloquies about what drives Michael to kill are in a similar vein as the good doctor, but in the end, he serves little purpose besides providing a contrived way for Michael and Laurie to cross paths again. Also, while it's not 100% confirmed, it's suggested that he may have been the reason why Michael was able to escape in the first place, given his earlier comment about Loomis seeing him in the wild and his telling Allyson, "I've never seen him in an uncontrolled environment... Tonight,

so many possibilities exist." (Personally, I like to think that Michael being visited by Aaron and Dana, and shown his old mask at the beginning of the movie, got him riled up to where he broke loose of his own volition and Sartain just managed to escape being killed in the bus crash.) More than anything, he wants Michael to speak, saying he's being trying to get him to for years, which is what Allyson uses to get him to pull over. When Michael regains consciousness, he attacks Sartain from the backseat, then pulls him out of the car and across the ground.

And after Sartain tells him to say something, Michael responds by stomping his head in. I guess this whole subplot is meant to be a big "take that" to all those who've tried to assign motivations to Michael over the years, but I find Sartain to be a pretty pointless and unnecessary character overall.

Though a pretty minor character here, Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton) would prove to be fairly significant as this trilogy went on, especially considering how he seems to buy the farm in this film. He's at a gas station, playing a Back to the Future pinball machine, when he gets the call about the crashed bus from Smith's Grove. Arriving on the scene, he finds some bodies, including that of the hunter who first happened on the wreck, and also finds the injured Sartain onboard the bus. The next

day, at the hospital with the unconscious Sartain, Hawkins tells Sheriff Barker (Omar Dorsey) that one of the men onboard the bus was Michael Myers, and is concerned about the implications. But, while Barker also realizes the potential madness, he jokes, "But, hey, what are we gonna do? Cancel Halloween?", and walks away laughing. However, he's not laughing then when they come upon the aftermath of Michael's bloody killing spree at the gas station. Spotting Laurie watching from the sidelines, Hawkins reminds Barker that he was one of the officers who apprehended Michael back in 1978; moreover, he stopped Dr. Loomis from killing Michael, a decision he clearly regrets now that he's on the loose again. This time, Hawkins is determined to take Michael down, encountering him at the one house after he's killed Vicky and Dave and taking several shots at him. He also comes to think that Laurie, whom he clearly knows informally (exactly how wouldn't be elaborated on until Halloween Kills), has lost her mind when she talks about having prayed for Michael to escape so she could kill him. And while he sees Sartain as a liability, Barker makes Hawkins take him on the hunt for Michael, saying he knows him better than anyone. Ultimately, when they find him, Hawkins drives at Michael and knocks him down, then intends on shooting him in the head. That's when Sartain stabs him in the neck, seemingly killing him, as well as partially driving over him when he departs.

Like I said, I like to think that Michael escapes of his own volition, and that the catalyst was Aaron Korey (Jefferson Hall) and Dana Haines (Rhian Rees) visiting him at Smith's Grove. Two British true-crime podcasters, they come to Smith's Grove to see and even interview Michael. While Sartain shows them to the courtyard and allows Aaron to get as close to Michael as he safely can and speak with him, they, naturally, don't get any response for him... save for when Aaron brings out his old mask. Aaron clearly intends to get a major reaction out of him, holding the mask out to him, saying, "You feel it, don't you, Michael? You feel the mask." He repeatedly tries to get him to say something, but to no avail. Thus, the two of them go to speak with Laurie, with Aaron speaking into his tape recorder, "Could it be that one monster has created another? And although the iron bars and barbed wire that separate them are both strong and sharp, the metaphysical lines are blurred and slight. Both exist in isolation, fettered by their own fear and hatred of one another. Could it be that the only hope of rehabilitation is through confrontation?" Arriving at the gate leading onto Laurie's property, and seeing the very strict "NO TRESPASSING" sign, Dana suggests they may have to pay to speak with her. Though Aaron tries to brush it off, when Laurie doesn't respond to his inviting her to speak with them for their podcast, Dana offers her $3,000, which immediately makes her open up. However, they don't get much out of her, as she tells them there's nothing to be learned from either Michael or what she went through. At the end of the interview, Dana crosses a line by bringing up Karen, asking Laurie, "How long until you regained custody," to which Laurie answers, "I didn't. But you already knew that." Aaron, desperate for something to go home with, tells her, "Laurie, we saw him. We met with Michael. I showed him the mask. It was nothing. No response, nothing. He won't talk to anyone. Never has. But I think he might speak with you. So, why don't you sit down with him, and say all the things you must be longing to say? Come with us, and let us help you free yourself. Please." With that, Laurie takes her payment and throws them both out. The next day, after the two of them visit Judith Myers' grave, they head on to a gas station, where Michael shows up and brutally kills everybody there, including the two of them.

Although he'd never made a horror movie before, David Gordon Green proved to have a talent for it here. First of all, the movie looks great, but without coming off as overly slick, with a slightly desaturated color palette that gives the feeling of this taking place over several mostly gray, overcast days in October (helped by their shooting during the first few months of 2018). Things do, however, become much more colorful in certain scenes, thanks to various types of lighting, such as the blue and purple porch-lights during the scene where Michael begins his killing

spree, the various colors in Julian's bedroom, the flashing police lights later on, and, most notably, during the high school dance, where there are all sorts of different colored lights flashing. Moreover, like in the original movie, while Haddonfield looks like a safe enough neighborhood during the day, when night falls, it and the surrounding area come off as much more sinister-looking, with it getting really dark and creepy (the scenes at the site of the bus crash and the dark woods around Laurie's house, as well as the interiors of the house itself during the climax, are

prime examples of the latter. And speaking of darkness, the lead-up to Oscar's death, where Michael appears and then disappears each time the yard's motion-sensor lights activate, is a particularly clever use of it. The camerawork and cinematography by Michael Simmonds is also top notch, as they made use of both Steadicam and anamorphic lenses like in the original, with Simmonds even consulting with Dean Cundey.as to how to make the best use of it. The Steadicam is brilliantly used in one of the better

homages to the original, as we watch one seemingly continuous, unbroken shot that lasts over three minutes, as Michael goes in one house, murders the woman there, leaves, then goes to another and murders the woman inside it, too (it's not 100% unbroken, though, as there is an obvious cut at one point). Also like in the original, the anamorphic lens is used to let you see things that the characters don't, but more than that, it's sometimes done in such a peripheral manner that you might not see it the first

time around. For instance, when Michael is watching Aaron and Dana at Judith's grave, you get an over-the-shoulder shot of him from behind a tree (not dissimilar to him watching Laurie walk down the sidewalk in the original), but then, when the caretaker looks in that direction, there's a wide-angle shot of him standing by the tree in the distance, but he's so far off to the right and small in the frame that you could miss him. An even better example is when they're at the gas station and Dana prepares to go to the

restroom. As they loiter around their car, there's a shot of Aaron, while in the background, a car pulls up alongside another vehicle that a mechanic is working on. A few seconds later, you see the mechanic walk away and head inside the garage, while the person driving the other vehicle, a man dressed in white, gets out and slowly follows after him. It's so peripheral and innocuous that, the first few times you see it, it might not click that you just saw Michael pull up and walk after the man whom he murders for his coveralls. And shortly afterward, when Dana goes inside and asks where the restroom is, if you look in the background, you can see Michael murdering the mechanic.

The film is also full of memorable imagery in general, such as the long, wide shots of Michael standing in the middle of the Smith's Grove courtyard; Aaron holding out Michael's old mask; the picturesque shots of Haddonfield during the daytime when Allyson and her friends are walking to school; Laurie sitting in her car and having a breakdown when she sees Michael put on the transfer bus (the lime-green color there makes me think of a David Fincher movie); the eerie imagery of Lumpy walking towards the crashed bus to search for his dad, with their vehicle's headlights

behind him providing the only illumination; the horrific aftermath of Michael's assault on the gas station; Michael standing in and wandering the streets on Halloween night; him peering through the one woman's window, his mask reflecting in the glass, before going around back, entering her house, and murdering her as she peers out that very window; him appearing in Julian's closet and later standing over Dr. Sartain before stomping his head in; and him glaring up at Laurie, Karen, and Allyson after they've trapped him down in the house's basement. The editing is also

good, if a bit melodramatic at times, like the rapid cuts to and zoom-ins on the patients' reactions to Michael's mask during the opening; the montage of Laurie shooting targets and then cleaning her gun; and her having her breakdown after walking out of the restaurant, with Allyson going to comfort her, where only sounds are those of the cars on the road. The ones I do like include a montage that juxtaposes an audio recording of Dr. Loomis (Colin Mahan, doing a pretty good impression of Donald Pleasence)

saying that Michael must be executed, with him being loaded onto the transfer bus with other patients, along with Aaron and Dana pouring over bits of research, including courtroom drawings of Loomis and photo negatives, and Laurie watching from her car; the cutting from Aaron and Dana at Judith's graveside, talking about her murder, to actual footage from the original Halloween's opening; the awesome, slow-mo shot of Michael removing his mask from the trunk of their car and putting it on; the bright, colorful, and

energetic montage of everything happening at the dance, with Allyson and Cameron posing for photographs and dancing along with everyone else, as we see all the wild costumes and makeup everyone has on; and the triumphant one of the women escaping the burning house at the end and hitching a ride.

After two movies in Rob Zombie's filthy, profane, white trash world, it was really refreshing to get back to the Haddonfield that represents the notion of wholesome, hometown America invaded by evil. Even though this film was shot entirely in South Carolina as opposed to the original's shooting location of Pasadena, those shots of the tree-lined streets do remind me a lot of the ones from that movie, with some of the trees even looking very similar. And I must say, this one gives off vibes of the actual holiday much more than the original, with it being gray and

overcast, the trees being bare (that alone makes me able to buy that it's fall in the Midwest more than in the original), the decorations you see lining the streets and houses, and all the trick-or-treaters roaming the streets and sidewalks come nightfall. Not only do those initial nighttime scenes give off the spooky fun feeling of Halloween, but as the night goes on and Michael kills more people, it becomes, like I said, increasingly sinister and dark, culminating with those scenes on the very dark backstreets where Allyson and Oscar run into Michael, and where the former

ultimately finds herself stuck in the police car with both Michael and the deranged Sartain. As is usually the case in these movies, the houses are typical, middle-class, suburban homes, and it seems like Haddonfield has, in the decades since 1978, gone back to being the type of place where everyone keeps their doors unlocked or even open, allowing Michael to easily break that sense of security. Among them, Allyson and Julian's homes are the ones we see the interiors of, with the latter's being memorable because

of the way his bedroom is lit in various, shifting colors from his nightlight and the fish tank (which has jack-o-lantern decoration in it), as well as the sheets on the clothesline blowing in the wind and the garage with the Harley Davidson (which Dave, stupidly, messes with at one point). As for the high school, what little we see of it when Allyson meets with Cameron in the hallway and then goes to class also looks pretty ordinary. But come Halloween night, the gymnasium is turned into a colorful, bouncing party

room, with people dressed up in all sorts of costumes, and the immediate exterior hallway being bathed in blue and housing a refreshment table. However, my personal favorite location in all of Haddonfield is the small graveyard where Aaron and Dana visit Judith's grave. You should know by now that I love classic, spooky, isolated locations like this anyway, and this one is even creepier than the one we saw in the original.

While not nearly as much as in films like Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers or the first Rob Zombie film, we do see a bit of Smith's Grove here. In the book, Halloween: The Official Making of Halloween, Halloween Kills & Halloween Ends (a very good read for fans of this trilogy), one of the producers, Atilla Salih Yucer, says that the security checkpoint where the movie begins and where Aaron and Dana first meet Dr. Sartain was shot at an actual prison, albeit a minimum-security one. The most notable scene here takes place in this large, red-and-white checkerboard

courtyard, which was actually the courtyard of the Charleston school that partially stood in for Haddonfield's high school. Also, according to Yucer, the extras playing the inmates in that scene were people who really had psychiatric problems and did various things while filming. I also really like the creepy, isolated road where the bus crashes, as it makes for such an eerie scene, with the patients roaming around in the dark, the only light coming from the headlights and the bus' interior, and the pine trees lining the road's outskirts.

Finally, there's Laurie's heavily fortified house in the woods, with a long fence and gate that she opens from the house, as well as a buzzer and intercom that's the only way to talk with her when you first arrive, and security cameras on the trees. The house itself is pretty weather-worn on the outside, with more security cameras and spotlights installed on the roof, and a shooting range full of mannequins out back. But once you get inside, past the numerous locks, iron bar, and metal screen door, the inside is actually quite hospitable, even homey, especially the kitchen.

However, Michael does away with that feeling once he arrives and manages to break in, with Laurie fearing he could be hiding within a closet in the living room or a couple of large, unfurnished rooms, one of which only has a fireplace. Upstairs, the one bedroom that we see seems very sparse, and also contains a dollhouse that's actually built like the Myers house (its only representation here), while another room is full of spare mannequins, and has a balcony. The most notable part of the house, though, is the basement, the

entrance to which is hidden beneath an island in the kitchen. This basement not only has shelves lined with jars of fruit, jugs of water, and the like, but a veritable armory, with lots of different weapons and ammo hidden behind a sliding, metal door. In the end, the entire house is revealed to be one big deathtrap. While searching for Michael, Laurie closes off each of the rooms with a mechanical shutter, and after they trap him in the basement, she flips all kinds of switches that fill the house with gas, which she ignites by throwing a flare down into the basement with him.

The movie is full of allusions and references to the original Halloween (right down to the color and font of the credits), as well as a number of other movies in the franchise, but they're a mixed bag in terms of effectiveness. For me, the best ones are those that aren't as blatant or in your face, like the long, extended shot of Michael's first killing spree, the sound of kids singing the nursery rhyme about Halloween night from the original movie's opening as he walks towards his first victim's house, the patients roaming around following the bus crash, Aaron and

Dana visiting Judith Myers' grave (her headstone is almost identical to the one in the original), Vicky's body having a sheet placed over her and Dave being found pinned to the wall by a knife, the shot of Allyson and her friends walking to school, Cameron being the son of Lonnie Elam, and Laurie thinking Michael may be hiding in a closet similar to the one she hid in. One of my favorites is when Hawkins describes Michael as having been behind the "Babysitter Murders, 1978," as well as Laurie actually referring to Michael as "the Shape" in her breakdown,

the song she sang to herself in the original being made into an actual one here, and, one I didn't even realize the first few times I watched the movie, PJ Soles voicing Allyson's off-camera teacher in the classroom. I also couldn't help but smile when I saw three kids wearing the Silver Shamrock masks from Halloween III (you see a lot more of them in Halloween Kills), as well as Oscar mistaking Michael for Mr. Elrod, a character from Halloween II, and Sheriff Barker joking about canceling Halloween, a

possible reference to the holiday being banned in Haddonfield in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. So, I do appreciate the filmmakers making allusions to some of the other movies, even if John Carpenter himself isn't fond of them and they've been retconned from the timeline here. However, the ones that rather make me groan are those that are so upfront and blatant about referencing the original (and they all involve Laurie doing things that Michael did there): Allyson sitting in her classroom's back, right

corner, looking out the window, and seeing Laurie looking at her from across the street, all while her teacher is talking about fate; Laurie getting knocked off the balcony and disappearing between shots; and her appearing in the darkness behind Michael near the end. It depends on the movie but, for the most part, too many obvious references like that tend to get on my nerves. It is cool on one hand to see Laurie doing all of that but, after a while, it stops being endearing.

Even though David Gordon Green and Danny McBride have been previously acclaimed for their work in comedy, a lot of the humor here doesn't land for me, and I don't think that's an example of humor being subjective, as I've heard others who enjoyed their comedies not caring for what they did here, either. As I've already said, I don't find Ray to be funny at all, and the humor involving Allyson's friends, particularly Vicky and Dave, as well as Oscar, is okay, and the little boy Julian is probably the most genuinely funny thing in the movie, but it's

hardly laugh-out-loud stuff. In addition, before Lumpy and his dad come upon the bus crash, they're talking about how Lumpy would rather be at dance class than out hunting and fishing, which is just... "Okay." And when Hawkins is playing pinball in his first business, there's the one guy who's trying to psych him out to keep him from beating his high score who I really wish would shut up. But the absolute worst are these two dumbass cops, Richards and Francis, who are stationed outside of Laurie's

home during the third act. There's one scene where they're sitting in their patrol car, and one of them educates the other about a "banh mi" sandwich, before being all snooty about what his partner prefers to eat. They remind me of those two moronic deputies in Halloween 5, though, thankfully, they don't have nearly as much screentime (and one of them is killed in a manner that's both horrific and very creative). There was more stuff that they also wisely cut (I remember a deleted scene with Dr. Sartain picking his nose and Hawkins calling him out on it), but, fortunately, though none of them would be completely free of it, this lackluster humor would lessen.as the trilogy went on.

I think my least favorite thing about the writing is how the movie sometimes feels the need to hammer home that it's disregarding everything that came after the original Halloween specifically to get rid of the sibling relationship between Michael and Laurie. Saying that this is set forty years after that movie, that Michael killed five people back in 1978, and has been imprisoned since then is more than enough. It wasn't necessary for Dave to ask Allyson, "Wasn't it her brother who, like, cold-blooded murdilated all those teenagers?", and for her to quickly say, "No. That's

just a bit that some people made up to make them feel better, I guess." They even felt the need to put that in the trailer, and then, just to hammer it home all the more egregiously, Vicky comments, "I mean, that is scary, to have a bunch of your friends get butchered by some random crazy person." Okay, I get it. They're not siblings in this timeline because Carpenter always regretted coming up with that idea in Halloween II and, yeah, Michael being a motiveless killer who

butchers random people is scarier, but it's not necessary to lay it on that thick. Moreover, the brother/sister angle was a major part of the series' mythology for so many years, with many fans, myself included, growing up with it, that flushing it away with such harsh commentary comes off as rather disrespectful.

It seems like ever since H20, they've tried to depict Michael Myers as a real serial killer rather than a human personification of pure evil that can't be easily killed. As I said in my review of Halloween: Resurrection, I guess since we no longer have Donald Pleasence' Dr. Loomis conveying that Michael is much more than just a dangerously psychotic man, the filmmakers have decided that it's probably best not to try, and this film is no exception. David Gordon Green and Danny McBride have even said outright that they didn't want to take a purely supernatural approach to Michael, with the latter saying he feels it's scarier if it's like something that could really happen. While I can appreciate that sentiment, and Green, at least, does acknowledge that there are very inhuman qualities about him in the original film and keeps some of them here, I think they kind of miss the point and appeal of that, admittedly tricky, balancing act that John Carpenter pulled off there. As I've already said, I don't like the idea of Michael being captured shortly after the ending of the original and having been imprisoned for forty years, as it badly negates the creepy power of that ending, that he's still out there and may return another Halloween night. I really think it would've been better to build on that final revelation that Loomis was right about him being more than a mere human and have him simply disappear afterward, only to suddenly return to Haddonfield out of nowhere in this film. Moreover, I don't like how, with this plot-point, they either gloss over or totally retcon Loomis having shot Michael six times and blowing him over a balcony, only for him to get up and walk away. Even with Halloween Kills making his capture better in retrospect, I hate that they don't acknowledge that at all, even if by just having Loomis insist he did it, with Laurie possibly back him up, but nobody believing him. And all this talk about his psychology by Dr. Sartain, with him stating in the beginning that he's been seen by numerous psychiatrists, just feels more like that realistic madman approach that I don't like being applied to Michael. Thankfully, though, we still never learn in this trilogy what it is that drives him. I can also appreciate him being returned to the motiveless killer he was in the beginning, and, as I'll expound upon, I like that they made him strong and powerful without going really over-the-top in terms of his size and strength, like in the Thorn trilogy and the Rob Zombie movies. But at the same time, despite some obvious unnatural abilities, he doesn't quite feel like the unknowable force of evil that he was originally.

Okay, that's enough negativity. Now, let's get into the many things I like about this portrayal of Michael. There's no beating around the bush: James Jude Courtney instantly proved himself to be one of the best to ever portray him, right up there with Nick Castle and Dick Warlock. I like how, during the first act, when Michael is in captivity and being transferred to Glass Hill, he comes off as inert and nearly catatonic, reacting to nothing around him in the courtyard, neither Aaron talking to him nor the patients around him. The only thing that gets even the

slightest bit of an acknowledgement is when Aaron holds out his mask, but even then, he seemingly remains dormant. However, like during the fifteen years between when he killed Judith and his 1978 killing spree, he's just waiting for the right opportunity, which he gets at some point during his transfer. Upon escaping the bus, Michael kills Lumpy and takes his father's car, follows Aaron and Dana to the graveyard and then the nearby gas station (proving Sartain right when he said that Michael was very aware of everything happening around him),

kills a mechanic for his coveralls, then kills the two podcasters and takes his mask from their trunk. Once he has that back, he truly comes to life. As soon as he reaches the center of Haddonfield, he begins killing, and as he goes door to door, trading in the hammer he uses in his first kill for his coveted butcher knife, then looks out on the street at all the potential victims, you really get the sense that this is what he's been waiting for. And sure enough, he's not targeting anybody in particular, but rather whoever he can easily get to,

only finding his way to and getting onto Laurie's property because of Sartain's intervention. Also, the reason why I don't particularly believe that Sartain let him loose on the bus is because Michael proves he has no loyalty to him whatsoever and would've easily killed him there if he had the chance. After he saves him from being killed by Hawkins, Michael, upon awakening in the back of the police car, angrily targets Sartain in the driver's seat, rather than going

for Allyson, who's sitting right beside him. Whether it's because Sartain made the mistake of thinking he could possibly understand his unknowable motivations or because he simply had the audacity to remove his mask and put it on, Michael kicks him in the back, drags him out of the car, and stomps his head in.

In many ways, this portrayal of Michael is like the original Nick Castle version combined with Tyler Mane's. Like in the original, Michael sort of becomes one with the night, seemingly able to appear and disappear at will, best exemplified in the scene where he stalks Oscar in Mr. Elrod's yard as the motion sensor lights continually go on and off. Another is how he's able to get into Julian's house and his bedroom without being heard or seen. Also, he again has some of that sadistic, playful side that he hasn't really had since the original, save for hanging up his

victims' bodies, which he does here as well. Again, he doesn't just attack Oscar right away but messes with him a little bit, watching him from nearby, then disappearing when it goes black, and suddenly reappearing in front of him and staring at him for a few seconds, before going for the kill. Similarly, before he attacks Vicky in Julian's bedroom, he prevents her from closing the closet door all the way, then lets her open it and see him before he slashes at her. And he later puts a sheet over her body to make her look like a Halloween decoration when Hawkins

finds her. However, he sometimes takes this playfulness to horrific extremes. Early on, when he enters the gas station restroom where Dana is, he first spooks her by rummaging around outside her stall, then reaches over the top of the door and sprinkles what initially looks like candy corn, but turns out to be some guy's teeth that he ripped out. He also later hollows out one of the deputies' head and turns it into a makeshift jack-o-lantern. That serves as a great segue into how, like Tyler Mane's Michael, he's

infinitely more brutal in his killings and subduing his victims than he was when he was younger. He beats the hell out of Aaron and Dana, positively mangles the two guys working at the gas station, kills a woman with a hammer, viciously stabs and impales several of his victims, and even kills a young kid with Lumpy, something he's never done as an adult (save for when he was specifically targeting young Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 4 and 5, and when he intended to kill baby Steven in The Curse of Michael Myers). But

what I like is how, as gruesome and brutal as these kills are, and they, again, get across that Michael is stronger than an average human, they're not Jason Voorhees-level over-the-top. (I'll say this much: I'm able to buy that this 61-year old Michael Myers is able to do all this more than what the supposedly 70-something Leatherface did in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022.)

Since Michael goes unmasked for quite a while at the beginning of the movie, I like how they shoot around his face, showing just enough without revealing it full on. When they first visit him at Smith's Grove, his back is to both the camera and his visitors, and you see a little bit of the side of his face, as well as the back of his head, but that's about it. I must admit, I was a bit taken aback by just how visibly older Michael is here, with his balding head, salt-and-pepper hair, and that short, white beard, but I quickly got used to it and accepted that this is what he

probably should look like. Also, in one shot when he's being put on the transfer bus, you see that he's blind in his left eye, alluding to when Laurie stabbed him with the coat hanger, and it's a makeup effect that makes you wince. Following his escape, his face is either kept in the shadows, obscured, or he's so far in the background that you can't make it out. And during his fight with Aaron in the gas station restroom, his face is obscured through camera angles and very quick editing, meaning you can only make it out if you freeze-frame it.

From a purely visual standpoint, I think this is the best that Michael has looked since the first two movies. I like that he's tall and thin, rather than a hulking brute, but that he's also not as tall as he was in the Rob Zombie movies, which I also felt was too much. This is brought home in those scenes of him wandering the streets of Haddonfield, surrounded by numerous potential victims who have no idea of the danger in their midst, since they think he's just another person enjoying the holiday. It's an image that we haven't really gotten since Halloween II, and I'm

so glad to see it again. Also, like in the original, the only sound that Michael makes for the most part is his deep breathing (actually Nick Castle's voice), although he does softly grunt a few times when seriously injured. Speaking of Castle, while it is James Jude Courtney for the entire movie, he does cameo as Michael in the scene where Laurie tries to shoot him through a window, only to realize she was seeing his reflection in a mirror. And finally, there's that all important visual: the mask. It took a long time after the first two movies, and a lot of masks ranging

from pretty good to downright shitty, but, starting with the Rob Zombie movies, we finally started getting masks that had the essence of that original, modified Captain Kirk one, culminating with the one we have here. This is, by far, the best mask since the original, as it's the one that looks and feels the most like it, only aged forty years. Like Tyler Mane's mask, it's dulled, weathered, creased, and cracked, symbolizing the effect that time has had on Michael

himself, but maintains that cold, blank, emotionless stare when he kills people. It also just looks awesome, and is often lit in ways that make it look even cooler, be it in different-colored lighting or in the shadows. All of this is why I said that, for the first time in a long time, Michael feels like the Shape again here.

When I first read a quote from Danny McBride saying that they intended to go for "tension and dread" as opposed to gore, I laughed, as this film is quite gruesome. But, the more I thought about it, I realized that the most gruesome visuals were the aftermath of Michael's kills, as those that happen onscreen, while certainly violent, are often not explicitly bloody. In fact, he kills quite a few people offscreen, like the guards in the bus, Lumpy's dad, the two guys at the gas station, his first victim on Halloween night, Dave, and the deputies outside of Laurie's home. However,

what we see of the aftermath lets us know that they died in gruesome, painful ways: Lumpy's dad has his head bent far back to where it looks like his neck is about to split open; the one guy at the station has his jaw ripped open and his teeth yanked out, while the mechanic whose coveralls he took is found lying in a pool of blood; the one woman is shown brutalized, her head lying in blood on the table; Hawkins finds Dave pinned to the wall by a butcher knife jammed through the back of his neck; and when Ray finds the deputies' bodies, one has his throat gruesomely

slashed open and Sartain's pen-scalpel sticking in his head, while his partner's severed head is hollowed out, with a flashlight placed in the stump of the neck to make it glow from the inside like a jack-o-lantern. As for onscreen deaths, Lumpy gets his face smashed against the window and his neck broken; a random woman gets stabbed through the back of the neck and out the front; Vicky is viciously stabbed to death and her body covered with a sheet; Oscar gets stabbed in the back, and when Allyson finds him, he's impaled

through the lower jaw and out the mouth by one of the gate spires he was trying to climb over; and Ray just gets strangled. The most violent onscreen deaths are Aaron, Dana, and Sartain. Aaron gets his face repeatedly smashed into a wall and then a restroom stall door, Dana is brutally strangled, and Sartain gets his face smashed into bloody pulp (that's the one death where I feel they went a bit too over-the-top). In addition to Michael's own kills, Sartain stabs Hawkins

in the throat, then several times in the body, and you see a bit of him bleeding out on the road. Michael himself takes some abuse, such as several shots and stabbings, most notably when Laurie blows off two fingers on his left hand with a shotgun during a struggle, and he seriously stabs Laurie during their final confrontation.

The first major scene is at the very beginning, when Aaron and Dana attempt to speak with Michael at Smith's Grove. Approaching him in the courtyard with Dr. Sartain, and failing to get any reaction from him, Aaron pulls out his old mask, getting a little more of a response but not much more. However, the sight of the mask disturbs the other patients in the courtyard, with some of them yelling (one guy in particular starts singing, "Figaro,"), others struggling and pulling at their chains, and even a security dog

starts barking fiercely. As all of this happens, Aaron tries to provoke Michael by telling him that the mask is a part of him, as well as shouts at him to say something. It all builds to a fever pitch, with an alarm sounding over a loudspeaker, when it suddenly cuts to the opening credits sequence, which is a clever spin on the original (something that all three of these movies would do). With the same font and orange-colored letters rolling on the right, and as an awesome, new version of the classic theme plays, a pumpkin on the left starts out completely crumpled

and rotted, then slowly inflates and rises back into position (time lapse photography of an actual rotting pumpkin played in reverse), until it becomes a glowing, grinning jack-o-lantern. The light highlighting it eventually goes out and the image becomes completely dark, save for the glow from inside, and even that goes away at the end of the sequence.

Later, as Laurie cleans her gun following some target practice, and Aaron and Dana pour over research material in their motel room, Michael is loaded onto the transfer bus to Glass Hill with other inmates. All the while, audio from the recording of a 1979 statement from Dr. Loomis, which Dana is listening to, is heard. When asked about Michael, he says, "My suggestion is termination. Death is the only solution for Michael. There's nothing to be gained from keeping evil alive. A shot of sodium thiopental would

render him unconscious. I'll be with him to make sure his life is extinguished. My ear on his chest to hear for myself that his vitals no longer function and immediately incinerate the body. It needs to die. It needs to die! It needs to die!" Laurie is revealed to be watching the transfer from nearby, in her car, as Michael walks up onto the bus; at the same time, Sartain insists on staying with him until he reaches Glass Hill. Having seen him for the first time in decades, Laurie drinks heavily at the sight of Michael, then screams in anguish when the bus drives off and she misses her chance to kill him.

Following Laurie's disastrous attempt at joining her family at Allyson's celebratory dinner, the film cuts to Lumpy and his father. In the middle of their talk, they stop in the middle of the road when they see a man standing there. Lumpy sees the bus from Smith's Grove, which has crashed into a ditch, and his dad gets out to make sure no one's hurt, telling his son to call the police. With the patients wandering around in the dark, Lumpy calls 911, and then, upon the caller's urging, gets out and, carrying his hunting rifle, slowly

approaches the bus. Looking off to the side of the road, he sees a guard lying face down in the grass. He slowly approaches and nudges him with the butt of his rifle. The man reaches for him, causing him to fall back. Looking at him and seeing that he has blood on his face, Lumpy tells him that he'll go get his dad, but the guard tells him to run. Lumpy yells for his dad, then walks towards the bus, hearing movement onboard. Climbing into it, he finds it seemingly empty, when Sartain pops up, telling him not to shoot.

However, Lumpy, in his surprise does exactly that, getting him in the left shoulder. Panicked, Lumpy runs off the bus and back towards his dad's car. Climbing into the driver's seat, he starts the engine, when Michael rises up in the backseat, grabs and slams him repeatedly against the window, and breaks his neck. Shortly afterward, Deputy Hawkins receives the report on Lumpy's 911 call and heads out to the scene. Arriving there, he finds a dead officer in the road, and upon approaching the bus, finds the corpse of Lumpy's dad next to it. Ripping open the bus' rear

door, he shines his light inside, yelling, "Show your hands!" Lying on the floor, Sartain tells Hawkins that he's been shot and Hawkins, in turn, tries to keep him conscious until help arrives. He asks him what happened but Sartain merely asks if "he" escaped, before blacking out.

The next morning, at the grave site of Judith Myers, Aaron and Dana crouch in front of it, narrating into their tape recorder an account of what happened. Dana says, "As she sat combing her hair, unaware, her six-year old brother crept in quietly with a kitchen knife," and Aaron adds, "He then proceeded to slice the base of her skull, scraping her spinal cord. When she turned, raising her hands in self-defense, he continued stabbing, into the nerves and arteries of her palms. Three more stabs into her sternum, penetrating

her heart." During this narration, we get silent flashbacks to Michael committing this act at the beginning of the original Halloween, with Aaron's narration, combined with the music, making it a very eerie reminder of how it all began. And all the while, Michael watches them from nearby, with only the caretaker noticing him.

At a gas station, Dana goes to the restroom while Aaron fills up their car, neither of them aware that Michael is in their midst, murdering those working at the station. While Dana is sitting on one of the toilets, doing her business, a figure walks in, closes the door behind him, and starts looking in the stalls. The sound of his thudding boots and the rough way in which he opens the stall doors clearly frightens Dana, and she sees him reach her stall through the edges in the door. He loiters around, then tries to open the door,

prompting her to tell him that it's occupied. Outside, Aaron goes to pay for the gas, but when he looks through the office window, he sees that the manager is slumped against the desk. He's unable to see that the man is dead, with his face and mouth mutilated. But when Aaron goes into the garage, he finds a mechanic dead, lying in blood and his coveralls stripped off him. Back in the restroom, the figure sticks his hand over the top of the stall door and drops a handful of what turns out to be human teeth onto the floor. Once

she realizes what they are, Dana panics, as the figure grabs the top of the stall door and tries to force it open. She gets down on the floor and crawls underneath the stalls, trying to reach the door. He follows after her, flinging open one door and grabbing her legs, trying to pull her out. She screams for help and struggles against him, at one point banging her head against the side of a toilet. However, she manages to kick herself loose and stands up in the one stall. She backs up against the door and tries to hold it shut, as he attempts to tear it down. Aaron runs in,

armed with a crowbar, and finds himself face-to-face with Michael Myers. He swings the crowbar and clips the side of his face, but Michael grabs and easily overpowers him. He forces him to drop the crowbar and slams him against the wall, viciously smashing his head into it. Dana grabs the crowbar, while Michael smashes Aaron's face against the stall door, eventually smashing it open right in front of Dana. He flings Aaron into a corner, where he slowly dies from his injuries, while Michael attacks Dana, who's too frightened to defend herself (her screams here are

really disturbing). He grabs her by the neck, slams her against the stall wall, and slowly chokes her to death, which is the last thing Aaron sees before he himself dies. Michael then goes outside to their car and takes his mask from their trunk.

Come nightfall, Michael wanders into the middle of Haddonfield, with a pair of kids bumping into him (nice little callback to Halloween II, right down to one of the kids carrying a little mini-boom box). Promptly beginning his killing spree, he walks past one house towards another, as a woman walks inside from a tool shed. Heading over to the shed himself, he finds and grabs a hammer on a shelf right inside, then walks over and into the house, as the woman goes into the kitchen and off to the left. Michael also heads

into the kitchen and the woman gasps right before he attacks her, bludgeoning her right out of sight. Once he's done, he walks over to the counter, drops the hammer to the floor, takes a butcher knife, and walks through a doorway in the back of the kitchen and into a bedroom, where a baby lies in a crib, crying (the sound of the crying is actually Jamie Lee Curtis, who's apparently really good at it). Walking by the crib, Michael does glance at the baby but, thankfully, moves on. He heads back out onto the streets, stands

on the sidewalk, scanning his surroundings for more potential victims, then looks to his right, approaching a couple who are preparing to leave for a party. With the two of them dressed as a nurse and a doctor, the husband goes back inside to find his stethoscope, leaving his wife out there alone, waiting for him. Michael approaches, going in for the kill, when the guy comes back out, saying it was in his pocket. They get into the car and drive off, unaware of how close they came to being murdered. Michael then turns his attention to a house where some kids just got some

treats. Walking up some steps towards it and peering in through the front window, he then goes around the side and heads for the back, while the woman inside gets a call and apparently learns of either the bus crash or the victims found at the gas station. Getting off the phone, she goes to lock her house up, then walks to the front window and draws the blinds, unaware that Michael is already inside and coming up behind her. Grabbing her by the hair, he slams her faces against the top of a chair and stabs her through the back of her neck and out the front.

Later on, while she's babysitting Julian, Vicky is joined by Dave, who shows up with a jack-o-lantern that has eyes carved in the shape of hearts, and he also reveals a tattoo that really gets her going. But when the two of them are making out on the couch, Vicky stops, saying she heard something, and makes Dave go see what it was. Walking into the foyer, he's startled when Julian suddenly jumps from the top step, claiming he saw someone outside his door. Hearing him, Vicky walks in and he goes on about a "fucked up face" watching him, adding that the

Boogeyman is in the house. Though neither of them really believe him, Vicky opts to go up there and check it out. She walks into his room and off to the right, out of Julian's line of sight. She suddenly says, "Excuse me, sir, what are you doing in here? Please, you need to leave! Please leave! Get out, now!" Then, she leans into view in the doorway and goes, "Blah!", at Julian, startling and then annoying him. She assures him that there's no one in there, while outside, Dave is smoking a joint and wanders over to the garage, where he checks out a Harley Davidson sitting inside.

After putting Julian to bed, Vicky goes to close his closet door, only to find something blocking it on the inside. That's when she opens it to find Michael, who slashes at her. Julian immediately jumps out of bed and runs, and Vicky, throwing a chair at Michael, tries to do the same. However, she slips and falls hard outside the door. Michael grabs her foot and tries to drag her back in, as she grabs onto the stair railing, screaming for help, which Dave hears down in the garage. Julian comes running back upstairs to find

Michael dragging her back into the bedroom. She yells for him to run and he heads back down, saying he's going to go for help. He passes by Dave on his way out, telling him that he'll die if he goes up there. Dave then hears Vicky scream as Michael pulls her back into the room and stabs her repeatedly. Saying, "Fuck this," he runs into the kitchen and grabs his own butcher knife, while Michael looks down at Vicky's dead body, then slams the door shut.

Out on the streets, both Deputy Hawkins and Laurie, the latter listening to a police scanner in her truck, hear a report of a domestic disturbance and head to the address given. Hawkins gets there first, going through the back door and getting no answer when he announces himself. While he heads through the house, Laurie pulls up outside, brandishing a magnum, and yells for everybody on the street to get indoors. In the house, Hawkins heads upstairs and into Julian's bedroom, where he sees what looks like somebody sitting in a chair with a sheet over

themselves. Approaching it and ripping off the sheet, he finds Vicky's brutalized body. Outside, Laurie look up at the house's second story, sees Hawkins in the bedroom, then looks over at a window on the other side of the house and sees Michael standing there. She quickly points and fires, only to shatter the mirror that was reflecting him. Michael calmly walks out of that room and down the hallway, heading downstairs. Seeing him, Hawkins fires at him but misses, as he heads out the back door. While Hawkins finds Dave's body stuck to the wall downstairs, Laurie sees

Michael in the backyard and shoots. She gets him in the left shoulder, but other than stumbling a little, he makes no indication that he's hurt. Hearing the shot, Hawkins rushes out of the house and makes the mistake of coming up behind Laurie, who swings around and whips him in the face. Once Hawkins gets over that, the two of them point their guns into the darkness. Hawkins calls in back-up, and as they're isolating the crime scene, Sheriff Barker arrives with

a now conscious Dr. Sartain. Following that, while Hawkins and Sartain search for Michael, Laurie and the police arrive at Karen's home so they can be evacuated to her more secure house. But upon arriving, Laurie learns that Allyson isn't there and both she and Karen try to contact her about what's going on.

Elsewhere, after Oscar stupidly tries to make a move on Allyson while the two of them are walking home, she leaves him behind in Mr. Elrod's yard. As he sits there, he turns and sees who he thinks is Mr. Elrod standing nearby. After he talks for a little bit, the motion sensor lights go off, and when they come back on, "Mr. Elrod" is gone. Getting to his feet, Oscar begins to sense that something's wrong, as he says he's acting "really sketchy." He then sees him standing closer, watching him and breathing heavily. Thinking he wants him to leave, Oscar prepares to do

so, when the lights go out again. When they come back on, Michael lunges and slashes at him. Panicked, he runs for the gate, as Michael walks after him. He attempts to climb over the gate, frantically screaming for help, while his devil costume's cape gets snagged on the gate's spires. He doesn't manage to get far over the gate before Michael plunges the knife into his back. As the lights go out again, Oscar slumps down, as Michael stands behind him in the dark. Having

heard him screaming, Allyson comes back and finds Oscar with his face impaled through one of the spires. Michael walks out into view and Allyson, knowing exactly who he is, runs off, screaming for help. She runs to a couple of houses, pounding on the doors for someone to let her in. Fortunately, she doesn't have to go far to find help. She's later picked up by Hawkins and Sartain, planning to take her to Laurie's house.

As Michael continues wandering the streets, Hawkins and Sartain drive Allyson to Laurie's home, the latter telling her to keep her eyes out for Michael. They don't have to wait long before she sees him walking along a sidewalk that they drive past. Hawkins immediately veers his car right at Michael, telling the others to brace themselves. Despite Sartain's protests, he slams directly into Michael, bouncing him on the hood and knocking him to the ground. While Allyson remains in the back, Hawkins and Sartain disembark, the former brandishing his gun. He yells at Sartain to

get back in the car, but he doesn't listen. Checking Michael's pulse, he says he killed him, but Hawkins is still intent on putting a bullet in his head for good measure. When he disregards Sartain's protests, the doctor takes out his pen, deploys the hidden blade inside it, swings around, and stabs Hawkins in the side of his neck. Allyson watches this in horror from the backseat, and as Hawkins collapses and Sartain stabs him repeatedly, she futilely tries to break out of the car. As Hawkins bleeds out on the ground, Sartain

walks over to Michael and murmurs, "So, this is what it feels like." He reaches down and caresses Michael's mask, delighted to hear him resume breathing. Inside, Allyson, knowing she can't escape, is further aghast when Sartain rises up in front of the car, wearing Michael's mask. He drags Michael over, opens the other back door, and shoves him in, growling, "Make room for my patient." Once he has Michael inside, he pulls the mask off and dumps it in the seat between him and Allyson. Getting into the driver's seat, he tells Allyson of his plan to bring Michael and Laurie together again, then drives off, partially running over Hawkins in the process.

Just up the road from Laurie's gate, Allyson tricks Sartain into stopping the car by claiming that Michael spoke to her. He pulls over onto the side and demands to know what Michael said. But before she can make up anything, she hears the sound of Michael's deep breathing. Looking down, she sees that the mask is no longer on the seat, and looks up to see Michael looking at her through its eye-holes. Instead of killing her, he turns his attention to Sartain, kicking the grating separating the front and back and smashing him repeatedly against the steering wheel. Having

spotted the car from where they're sitting, the two officers standing guard outside Laurie's home try to contact Hawkins' car. Up the road, Michael, having gotten out, pulls Sartain out of the front seat and along the ground. He notices when Allyson gets out and runs off into the woods, but decides to deal with Sartain instead. As the other cops approach, Michael stomps Sartain's head in, which Allyson sees from the edge of the woods. The other cops pull up and try to contact Hawkins again. But when they still get no response, they get out to investigate, and find

Sartain's corpse on the other side of the car. Unbeknownst to them, Michael has now gotten around to where they parked their car. At Laurie's house, she turns out the upstairs lights, while Allyson makes her way through the woods. Downstairs, Ray sees the police car pull up on a CCTV monitor and chirp its siren. Grabbing his gun, he goes outside to meet with the officers, asking if there's any word on Allyson. Getting no response, he walks up to the driver's side and looks in, but only sees what looks like a jack-o-lantern glowing in the dark. Knocking

on the window, he opens the door and is horrified when he sees the grisly display the officers' bodies have been mangled into. Backing away, he's grabbed from behind by Michael, who strangles him (apparently, the gate to Laurie's property was open this whole time, for some reason). Upstairs, Laurie hears this and looks out the window, then heads downstairs, wielding her shotgun. She yells for Ray, whom Michael has just finished off, and when she

reaches the front door, she sees Michael standing out in the yard. She pushes the door to and locks it, then puts the iron bar in place. She yells for Karen, tells her that Michael has arrived when she comes downstairs, and yells for her to get in the basement. Worried about Ray, Karen hesitates but then goes into the kitchen, opens the panel below the island leading down into the basement, and heads down there.

Laurie leans up against the side of the front door, her finger on her gun's trigger. But when she peeks through one of the windows, she sees no sign of Michael. Just when she stops to breathe, he smashes both hands through the windows, grabs her head, and brutally slams it against the door. Turning around in his grip, she finds herself in a powerful choke-hold, and is even lifted off the floor. Karen, hearing the struggle from down in the basement, yells for her mother, as Laurie manages to grab her shotgun and maneuver it to where it's pointing through the one

window. Michael grabs the barrel and, as Laurie fumbles around with it, she pulls the trigger, blowing off his pinkie and ring finger on his left hand. He lets her go and she promptly joins Karen down in the basement, closing up the panel and switching on the exterior spotlights. The two of them hold hands, comforting each other, as they hear Michael remove the bar from the door and rip it open. Laurie grabs and cocks another shotgun, and they both listen as they hear Michael roaming around upstairs, searching for them. Seeing his shadow pass over a crack in the

floorboards above them, Laurie fires at one spot. They hear some banging around up there, but then, it gets eerily quiet. Feeling that she has to go up there and finish Michael herself, Laurie opens the entrance and creeps up there, closing it behind her. Looking every which way, with her gun at the ready, she first looks in the living room, specifically inside a closet. Pulling out a small flashlight, she approaches the door, then flings it open with her rifle barrel, only to

find it empty, save for some coats. She begins searching room by room, sealing each one off with an automatic sliding door when she finds it empty. Outside, Allyson blunders into Laurie's shooting range, and is freaked out by the sight of all the mannequins, letting out a frightened scream.

Seeing some blood on the handrail, Laurie realizes that Michael went upstairs and cautiously walks up there. She starts checking the rooms, starting with the bedroom. Finding no sign of him in there, she seals it off, and goes into the room full of spare mannequins. She sees a blood trail on the floor leading to a closet, with one of its sliding doors slightly ajar and with blood on it. She flings it open with her gun's barrel, only to find Ray's corpse stuffed up in there. Horrified, she scans the room again, and flings open the other door, but finds the closet empty otherwise.

She then turns and sees blood on some of the mannequins and cautiously approaches them. Suddenly, Michael lunges out from a mannequin off to the left, grabs the shotgun, and manages to pin Laurie up against the wall by her neck with it. Grabbing his face, she shoves him off and pulls out a knife, slicing at him. Dodging her, he grabs her wrist, and the two of them struggle, when he uses his strength to yank her hand down and stab the knife into her. He grabs her by the neck, only for her to grab and bite into the fingers he still has on his left

hand. Recoiling from that, he grabs her by the face and flings her out the window. She tumbles over the balcony, falls across the roof, and lands on the ground below. He looks over the balcony at her, while at the same time, Allyson reaches and enters the house. She calls for her mother, which Michael hears, momentarily distracting him. He looks back down at the yard below, and sees that Laurie is no longer lying there. Down in the kitchen, Karen opens the panel leading down into the basement and gets Allyson to

join her down there. Michael comes downstairs, as Karen closes up the entrance. She and Allyson hold hands down there, as Michael searches the first floor, then grabs a poker from the fireplace. He enters the kitchen and, focusing on the island, grabs and begins pushing and banging against it. Knowing that he's going to find them, Karen reluctantly grabs a gun from the rack and points it up at the entrance. It takes a little bit, but Michael manages to tear the island loose and turn it over, uncovering the panel. Karen,

still pointing her gun up at the entrance, and waiting for him to step into view, appears to lose her nerve. She yells, "Mom! Help us! I can't do it! I'm sorry, I can't do it!" That's when Michael shows himself, and Karen points the gun at him, dropping the facade of helplessness and says, "Gotcha."

She shoots, clipping Michael through his jaw, and causing him to collapse to the floor. Laurie appears in a dark room behind him, says, "Happy Halloween, Michael," and then comes down on him with a butcher knife. Despite such a serious injury, he swings around and whacks her against the wall, then hits her with the poker. He looms in for another attack, when she grabs a frying pan and bashes him in the face, sending him tumbling down the stairs into the basement. Laurie screams for Allyson to run upstairs, and after she does, it's Karen's turn. But just

as she's about to reach the top of the stairs, Michael grabs her foot and pulls her down. Laurie grabs her and pulls her back up, her and Allyson struggling to free her from his grasp. Spotting the knife that Laurie used to stab him, Allyson grabs it and stabs at Michael, forcing him to let go. Karen kicks him in the face, sending him falling back down, and as he then climbs back up, Karen pulls some switches that extend bars across the opening, trapping him down there. Laurie quickly flips some switches that expel gas into various parts of the house, as Karen tells

Allyson, "It's not a cage, baby. It's a trap." Laurie grabs a flare from a cabinet, then stands over the sealed off opening and, as Michael stares up at her, lights it. Saying, "Goodbye, Michael," she tosses it through the bars and past him, into the basement. It quickly ignites the gas and he just stands there, looking up at them, as the basement combusts below him. The gas ignites all throughout the house as well, setting it afire, and symbolically destroying the model

of the Myers house in the bedroom. The three women escape the house and head to the road, where Allyson flags down a passing truck. The movie ends with the three of them sitting in the back and being taken to safety, as the house burns down to the ground, seemingly taking Michael with it.

One of the most exciting announcements was not only the news that John Carpenter would be involved with this film, at least in some capacity, but that he, along with his son, Cody, and Daniel Davies, would be doing the music. And it paid off, as this score is most definitely one of the film's biggest strengths, if not its biggest. Naturally, you get the iconic Halloween theme, and you hear it in different variations throughout the score. The first version, which plays during the opening credits, sounds the most like the original one, only with a much stronger beat behind it and a more energetic feel, which manages to drive home that feeling that the original Michael Myers is back and means business. A soft, mournful version plays after Michael kills Aaron and Dana and gets his mask from their car and, naturally, you hear the theme during his door-to-door killing spree, starting out as less bombastic than the main one, played on a simple piano, but with an eerie, high-pitched sound behind it. Following his first murder, the main theme drops out and is replaced by a single, sustained note and a ticking sound, and when it comes back up, it's now much more digital and harsh in the way it sounds. You also hear the theme briefly when Hawkins runs Michael down, but one of my favorite variations is at the end, when Laurie, Karen, and Allyson escape the burning house. While the main notes of the theme play, behind it is a melody that has a real feeling of finality to it, that Laurie has finally conquered her demon and is being taken to safety with her daughter and granddaughter. This piece, along with the apparent finality of the ending itself, makes it to where you could forget about Halloween Kills and Ends and leave the story off here. And the version that plays over the ending credits is just badass, with an incredible driving, electronic beat and a long build-up to a reprise of the version we heard during the opening credits, which then transitions into one that sounds like it has the backing of an awesome electric guitar, and leads into an amazing reprise of the main theme all over again, followed by more electric guitar goodness. This alone shows that, while Carpenter may have lost his passion for filmmaking in his later years, he can still rock that keyboard and synthesizer like nobody's business, as can Cody and Davies.

They also recreate some other themes from the original score, most notably The Shape Stalks, which you hear in scenes like when he attacks Vicky, leaves the house after Laurie shoots his reflection in the mirror, and murders Oscar, and it's much harsher, pounding, and electronic than it's ever been. They also make use of a modified version of that familiar sting from the original, like when Michael looks in that one woman's window before killing her, when Laurie sees his reflection, and when she disappears after he throws her over the balcony. As far as original music goes, the one that sticks out in my mind is when Allyson finds Oscar impaled and sees Michael for the first time. It's this amazing piece with a high-pitched, electronic pinging backed by a low-pitched, loud, menacing drone and a distant, metallic reverberation that gets across how Allyson realizes that her grandmother was right about Michael. Similarly, the music that plays when Michael attacks Dana in the gas station restroom, and proceeds to brutally kill both her and Aaron, is extremely threatening, with that ticking in the background accompanying loud, menacing drones and an intense beat, getting across how brutal and unstoppable he is. It's a sharp contrast to what we got not too long before this: a low-key, eerie piece for when Aaron and Dana are at the graveyard, recounting how Michael murdered Judith when he was six. And while Laurie does have a theme herself, which you hear when Aaron and Dave arrive at her home, it's a very melancholic piano theme that gets across how sad and tragic her life has been since what happened to her. Finally, like I mentioned, I like that they made an actual song out of that tune Laurie sang to herself in the original, which both Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis herself had a hand in writing. Called Close to Me, it's performed by Heavy Young Heathens in the style of a country love song and is heard playing on the radio when Lumpy and his dad arrive at the bus crash scene, as well as at the end of the credits, where it becomes muffled by the sound of Michael's breathing.

Halloween 2018 may have provided the franchise with a much needed shot in the arm, but I don't think it's the instant classic that so many immediately called it at the time. That's not to say that it has nothing to recommend it, because it certainly does. It has mostly good actors giving good performances, it's very well-shot and directed, nicely captures the look and feel of the holiday in the Midwest, Michael Myers himself is awesome, there are plenty of good kills, as well as a number of exciting chase sequences and setpieces, and the music score is freaking amazing. However, as nice as it is to see Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode again, I feel that her portrayal here feels really overdone; there are some issues in the screenwriting, among them a connection between Laurie and Michael, despite their not being siblings in this continuity, an attempt to make Michael feel more like an actual serial killer, which I've never liked, and instances where it comes off as too heavy-handed in its intentions; there are a few too many blatant callbacks to the original Halloween; some of the characters are not only annoying and pointless but, in the case of Dr. Sartain, are poorly-handled; 99% of the attempts at humor don't work for me at all; and the movie feels a lot like a redo of Halloween H20. In the end, I would still rank this above movies like Halloween 5, Resurrection, and the Rob Zombie movies, as well as possibly The Curse of Michael Myers and H20 (while I think that movie did some elements of this basic story better, I think I find this to be more entertaining overall), but each of the first four movies in the franchise vastly outdoes it.