Howdy. Welcome to The Reel World with Devin: a series of posts that are movie reviews written by Devin. Today he talks about the new horror flick "Halloween Kills" directed by David Gordon Green. Also please be aware that there are SPOILERS. I even put it in bold.
I recently went to the movie theater with some of my friends to watch the new Halloween movie. As a fan of the other Halloween movies and of horror movies in general, I was pretty excited to see this one. But to be honest, I think they shoulda named it “Halloween Blows”
The 2018 Halloween I enjoyed a lot! Danny McBride and David Gordon Green did a great job for a movie that really didn’t need to be made, so I thought this one would be fine as well. Also as a fan of McBride and Green I was even more excited after recently watching through both Eastbound and Down and Vice Principals. But I left the theater perplexed and kinda mad that I spent money to watch it. My friends I saw it with felt the same way. I wonder how the lady on her phone that I threw a couple ice cubes at felt about it though…
I’m gonna do my best not to do a complete play by play of this movie. I’m going to stick to the big part that I didn’t like.
Before picking up right where the previous film left off, it starts with a flashback to Haddonfield in 1979, on the night the original film took place. They do this a few times to add context for the characters you probably didn’t think you’d have to remember again. I won’t get too into all that. They mainly focus on Tommy Doyle, who was a child that Laurie babysat in the first movie. This time portrayed by Anthony Michael Hall rather than the handsome Paul Rudd who played him in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. If we got Paul Rudd I would probably be less irritated. Tommy is such a freakin numpty in this movie. They focus too much on him, honestly and I think the movie suffers from it. He rallies the town around trying to kill Michael Myers, which I’ll admit is a good thing with good intention. Starting at a bar, and going around the whole town. Eventually making his way to the hospital. Each time he does this, someone in the group involved will say “EVIL DIES TONIGHT!” Not joking. Literally every scene where shits hitting the fan, someone or some people shout with great excitement and determination “Evil dies tonight!” They said it so many times that I was cackling in the theater and my friends told me to chill, even though they were laughing too.
Alright I promise I’m getting there. If you saw Halloween 2018 you’d know that Michael Myers was on a bus during a prison transport. The bus crashes and all the prisoners escape. Up until now nothings really said about the other prisoners. Now it’s revealed that at least one of them has been wandering around since the accident. When Tommy makes it to the hospital as he’s trying to rally the town (remember, evil dies tonight), everyone is freaking out, looking for loved ones, trying to get admitted to the ER, stuff like that. Enter the escapee, who I looked up and his name is Lance. Whatever got him locked up in the first place doesn’t matter in this situation. Poor Lance did nothing wrong. He was looking for help. It’s actually kinda sad. All these riled up Haddonfield-eans turn their focus to Lance thinking he’s Michael without his mask. Who do you think is leading this charge? You guessed it. Tommy. With boisterous chants of “evil dies tonight” half of the damn town is chasing this poor insane man around a hospital ready to tear him limb from limb. Nobody is listening to Laurie (who is currently in the hospital due to what happened in the previous film) telling everyone that it wasn’t Michael. In fact people, including the doctors are trampling over one another trying to get to Lance. Laurie’s daughter Karen tries to help Lance but it’s too little too late when he jumps out a window and falls several stories to repaint the sidewalk below with his guts. Only then everyone realizes “oh well golly gee it really isn’t him huh?”
But yeah fuck Tommy and I’m glad Michael kills the shit out of him and many others at the end. I guess they were right. Evil really did die tonight.
With all that being said, there were some scenes I enjoyed. Mainly the kills. I thought the kills in this movie were awesome. Seeing Michael Myers absolutely decimate the unsuspecting citizens of Haddonfield is always a wonderful sight to see. You also get to see Michael McDonald, (who you may know as Stuart from MadTV, not our beloved Doobie Brother), who currently occupies the Myers house with his husband, until of course they are killed. I'm glad he’s still working. There’s some pretty good CGI of Dr. Loomis in the flashback scenes as well. So good that I thought it was leftover unused footage from the first film. Oh yeah I also loved the music. It’s hard to go wrong there when you have John Carpenter and his son Cody on the synths. Also I think it’s pretty cool that they’ve been filming these in Charleston and Wilmington and I wish I could have gone and snuck a peek while they were filming.
So yeah there you have it. My gripes about Halloween Kills. A dopey story loosely woven together by some good old fashioned gore. If you want a rating, I gave this a 2/5 stars on letterboxd. There’s a third installment in production currently and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going to watch it when it comes out. I gotta see how they wrap up this shitshow. Hopefully they won’t make anymore Halloween movies after. Unless Neil Breen wants to take a shot at it. I’d say fuck it let him. He already kinda looks like him and he doesn’t need the mask. Bro can act, write, and direct too.
Hell maybe I’ll rewatch this one, and I’ll give it a second review if I do.
Evil dies tonight!
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