Friday, October 15, 2021

My Review of Halloween Kills (2021)

 


Written by Scott Teems And Danny McBride And David Gordon Green
Directed by David Gordon Green

Tommy: "Evil dies tonight."

It's October. It's that time of year and after a three year break, Michael Myers has returned to terrify us all. However this movie picks up from where the previous one left off and needless to say that a burning house was never going to be enough to slow Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney).

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) as well as Karen (Judy Greer) and Allyson (Andi Matichak) find their night of hell hasn't ended while former victims and survivors Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), Lindsay Wallace  (Kyle Richards), Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens), Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) and Lonnie Elam (Ronnie Longstreet) have their ideas on bow to deal with an old enemy back in the spotlight.

Laurie's role in this movie is scaled back in favour of emphasising Michael's former victims and it's a creative choice that ultimately works quite well. I never greatly care for Lonnie in the 1978 movie (did anyone?) but here, there's flashbacks to an encounter with Michael on that night forty years ago and the character has a great rapport with his fellow survivors as well as Allyson and Cameron (Dylan Arnold).

Cameron was a character who wasn't particularly great in the last movie but here he makes up for it, even if he doesn't come out of this alive. There are a lot of deaths in this movie and Cameron's not even the most memorable but I did feel bad for the guy. This movie did a lot to redeem the character from his previous appearance.

Speaking of redemption, this movie was incredible for Judy Greer. I'll admit the first half of the movie does have Karen foolishly try to lie to Laurie about Michael's fate but the second half of the movie, the character truly came into her own. Her confrontations alone with Michael are genuinely sublime but was that final scene really it for her? I'm not entirely sure. I hope not.

A genuine surprise of the movie however was the reveal of Deputy Hawkins (Will Patton) actually being alive. Not only that, but we got a genuinely interesting if somewhat long flashback to that night where a younger Hawkins (Thomas Mann) history with Myers  was explored in depth. It's a sublime moment and Hawkins himself  also had some wonderful scenes with Laurie.

As for the kills, they're gory in parts and there are some inventive ones but they're nowhere near as shocking as some critics have made out. I do think this movie did certainly up the body count and a lot of the returning characters did seem to purely fodder for Michael's rampage. Out of the returning characters, Lonnie and Tommy got the most screen time, though I do think the former was utilised better.

However despite his high amount of kills, Michael also found himself in the position of having mob justice exacted on him. This movie definitely has a lot to say about consequences and although he's successful yet again, Michael does get a small taste of it here.

- A gay couple named Big John (Scott MacArthur) and Little John (Michael McDonald) bought the Myers house and needless to say, did not live to tell the tale. 
- The pumpkin sequence had multiple pumpkins on fire, which looked pretty cool. More interesting was that this movie kept both Michael and Laurie apart from each other. 
- Special shout out to poor Lance Tovoli, who got the saddest death and it wasn't even at Michael's hands. 
- Chronology: Halloween 2018 along with the flashbacks to 1978. We even got a new version of Loomis (Tom Jones Jr) and I did feel bad for poor Pete (Jim Cummings).

Halloween Kills might not be the exact same instant hit as the previous movie but I honestly thought it was far better than expected. I loved the flashbacks, returning characters, the kills and various character moments. Even  Laurie's reduced role didn't hamper this one for me. Cannot wait to see how this wraps up next year.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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