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Happy Halloween


It’s been forty years since John Carpenter’s Halloween popularized a new genre of horror film: the slasher movie. The story of a psychotic killer terrorizing teenagers in a suburban neighbourhood on Halloween night inspired numerous movies that followed, formulas and clichés that would come to be staples of horror, and immortalized the foreboding Michael Myers as probably the best villain of the popular slasher franchises. But being the first didn’t save Halloween from falling into the traps, patterns, and lunacies of every slasher series. While the first couple sequels may be admirable for their experimentation if nothing else (Myers and any other connective tissue is completely absent from the third movie for example), none that followed were in any way good, including the two films of Rob Zombie’s ill-fated reboot.
This new Halloween though, released in time for the fortieth anniversary of the original, did something very smart in stripping all but the first movie from its internal canon. It’s directed by the genre-crossing David Gordon Green, co-written with his frequent collaborator Danny McBride, and sticks to the tenets that’s defined the sub-genre, while also digging deeper into the character and trauma of its heroine, the indomitable Laurie Strode.
Jamie Lee Curtis reprises this role as an ageing Laurie, who due to the trauma of that night in 1978, has been living her life in fear, paranoia, and preparation for the return of her nemesis. Isolated in a secure cabin outside of Haddonfield, Illinois, she’s distant from her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and teenage granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). Meanwhile, Michael Myers (Nick Castle) has spent the past forty years in a sanatorium, but when the bus transporting him to a new facility crashes, he escapes, and is once more on a murderous prowl.
The character insight into Laurie Strode is probably this movies’ most defining attribute, as it genuinely attempts to address what living with trauma is like and how it affects a victims’ relationships with others, including their loved ones. Laurie wasn’t terribly impressive in the first movie, but here Curtis is really putting her all into playing a character who’s simultaneously vulnerable yet has a lot of fight in her; a woman who wants vindication, and more importantly revenge, but also regrets how her obsession damaged her family. It’s not a full character study, and in fact the movie could have explored it more, but it is a welcome contrast and relief against similar movies whose heroines too often have either little agency or too much hardened grit.
Greer and Matichak are both good as the next two generations of the Strode family, the latter particularly being close to a lot of the action. All three are essential to the film and its’ important theme, and compliment each other nicely. I also really respect that this movie went to the effort of casting Nick Castle as Michael Myers, the original actor who played him in ‘78 film, rather than just hire any other lumbering middle-aged man to play the enigmatic part. And Michael is still scary. The name he’s sometimes referred to, The Shape, is very applicable here, as he moves unnaturally from scene to scene, house to house. The film really knows how to shoot him too to emphasize this. We get one great tracking shot of him emerging on Halloween night to a veritable buffet of murder victims on the streets and in houses, and another that does the opposite, staying fixed on one spot as he carries through a killing. What makes Michael more terrifying than his rivals is his subtlety: his vacant pale mask, dark jumpsuit, and small kitchen knife may be simple, but they’re also inconspicuous compared to other slasher villains who draw attention to themselves. He blends into shadows incredibly well, demonstrated by a haunting sequence punctuated by motion-sensor lights, where he lingers in the background of the frame still and silent. His entire manner is unnerving and inhuman, and Green entirely understands how frightening that is.
But for as well directed as it is, it’s still a slasher flick, and the middle portion of the film is very conventional. It follows a lot of the same plot trajectory and pacing beats as the original Halloween, including a couple very similar deaths. Indeed, most of the kills aren’t creative, and it relies more often on jump scares and fake outs than genuine suspense a lot of time. It’s never dull, but it is often predictable and plodding. The characters outside of the Strode family are very flat, mostly stocks, and at one point Haluk Bilginer’s Doctor Sartain is straight up referred to as “the new Loomis”. The writing at times could use some touching up as well, particularly with regards to some exposition on Karens’ part about her childhood and establishing the status quo of the Strode relationships in general.
The movie does get interesting again for its last act, when it starts trying out a few new plot points and dynamics. The confrontation between Michael and Laurie that the movie has been building up to doesn’t disappoint, I love how it plays with their relationship; and with more than a few nods to the original in suspense and cinematography, it makes for a tense and worthy climax.
What 2018’s Halloween lacks in the originality and terror of the 1978 film, it makes up for in its focus on Laurie and Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance, its successful revitalization of the horror of Michael Myers, its intoxicating Halloween atmosphere (aided by a reprisal of John Carpenter’s iconic score), and its great finale. If you’re looking to be spooked by every shadow on a night like tonight, it’s a good movie to deliver the shivers.

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