Halloween Kills Pits Michael Myers Against Society

Halloween Kills is the fourth Halloween 2, and like every other Halloween 2, it is a disappointment. Blumhouse’s 2018 sequel/reboot of the famed slasher franchise tried to simplify things by shedding all of the mythology of the series save the 1978 original (and did so with the involvement of John Carpenter himself for the first time in almost three decades) -resulting in a relatively even, bare bones approach that generally worked. It ended in a satisfying way too, with Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, together with daughter and granddaughter, subduing Michael Myers and trapping him in a burning house. A closure to a lifelong trauma, and a fitting end for that shape.

But it never ends of course, Michael Myers will always find a way back in spite of how badly beaten he is. But if 2018’s Halloween maintained a certain grounded sensibility on par with the original film, it’s done away with pretty quickly and with frequency in Halloween Kills, which follows up that film to the minute -taking place entirely over that same Halloween night in 2018 (surely it’s November 1st by movies’ end).

As the Strodes are taken to hospital and emergency crews unwittingly save Michael by dealing with the fire, we see an awkward memorial take place at a bar in town for the survivors of that original massacre in 1978. Anthony Michael Hall plays Tommy, the kid Laurie was babysitting, but each of the others are cast with the same actors from the original movie, regardless of how young they were or how long it’s been since they performed. Additionally, the original films’ sheriff reappears and Michael himself on the few occasions he’s unmasked, is once again played by his inaugural performer Nick Castle. This film is very concerned with nods and references to the first Halloween, even more-so than its’ predecessor. In fact, it is wholly indebted to that film, bringing back these old characters proves so. And it really shows the hand of director David Gordon Green and writers Danny McBride and Scott Teems.

The Halloween franchise has had its’ share of very low points but it never quite went the way of counterparts Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13^th into being full-on self-parody. Michael Myers never went to space, he never broke the fourth wall for a killing spree, and he was never involved in a silly crossover. Because Halloween was arguably the genesis of the slasher horror genre, it and Michael have been afforded a degree of status and respect that these others haven’t enjoyed. Halloween Kills though demonstrates that this has had a limiting effect, that the series is restrained in its’ ability to try new things and embark on interesting directions with how it represents Michael. And so instead the film can only double down on ideas laid by that first movie -particularly with regards to Michael as an embodiment of pure evil, which in spite of a more realist approach set by the 2018 film, appears to be taken as literal fact. Everyone builds him up that way and the filmmakers here strive to make some definitive statement out of it.

The way in which Michael is cast as some kind of supernatural personification of the worst impulses of the people of Haddonfield is puzzling to say the least, perhaps the most puzzling of the many explanations given over the years for what his purpose is, when he’s much scarier without one. The film ties his kills and his persistence to the towns’ fury. As soon as they learn that he is back, a vigilante mob is formed to hunt him down. And of course the mob is unruly and violent, terrorizing a mentally ill man they mistake for Michael. It very much feels like Green insinuating these people are the “real monsters”, or at the very least as bad as Michael, chanting “evil dies tonight” in a manner not unlike that chilling “Jews will not replace us.” It would almost vindicate Michael. A Halloween movie though is not the place for such complex discussions of morality as it relates to mob justice -this is not a piece capable of being a twenty-first century equivalent to Fritz Lang’s M, especially given the brutality of Michael must be substantially more pronounced. And so it is a commentary without any direction: the mob is bad, but their target Michael also is bad and should probably die. Asserting that they in some way fuel him, and their anger itself for Michael’s murders is the problem, just make the ethics even more messy. It also feels a touch disrespectful and macabre to bring back those who managed to survive Michael the first time as children, have endured decades of trauma because of it, only to then be gruesomely murdered by him in their old age -like making a JurassicPark sequel that gleefully feeds the kids from the first movie to the dinosaurs.

Jamie Lee Curtis is shockingly absent for a lot of this, Laurie being indisposed as she heals from her injuries sustained in the previous encounter. Mostly she stands to espouse the severity of Michael’s evil, to judge the people around her, and to reminisce with and comfort Will Patton’s Deputy Hawkins, also in recovery. Judy Greer and Andi Matichak, both so significant to the last film, are likewise reduced in lieu of a greater focus on the people of Haddonfield themselves, and Michael. Indeed, this truly is Michael’s film, he appears for longer stretches with more kills -some among the most graphic the series has ever done. They’re a bit crueler too, including children and the elderly; and also a weird stereotypical gay couple. And for this film it wasn’t only Michael who was brought back from the dead, as in keeping with its’ obsession with the original, it flashes back to the immediate aftermath of Halloween 1978 to come up with its’ own independent resolution to that story, and features Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis in what appears to be a mix of carefully edited archive footage and special effects. It’s not enough to be as uncomfortable as those Star Wars films that have reconstituted dead actors, but it is a bit uncanny nonetheless.

Where the film should be uncanny though it isn’t. Halloween Kills has a more brutish edge to it and aspirations to say something more meaningful than other films in this franchise (it doesn’t), but it ultimately falls short of bringing anything new to the table. What’s more, it suffers the same problem as A Quiet Place Part II in not being its’ own movie -entirely reliant on the previous one and ending suddenly in the middle of a third act to be carried over into an additional film. But unlike A Quiet Place Part II, I’m not craving anything more at that point. After a brief jolt of life in 2018, it seems the Halloween series has recovered its’ mediocrity.

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