Synopsis
Four years after her last encounter with masked killer Michael Myers, Laurie Strode is living with her granddaughter and trying to finish her memoir. Myers hasn’t been seen since, and Laurie finally decides to liberate herself from rage and fear and embrace life. However, when a young man stands accused of murdering a boy that he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that forces Laurie to confront the evil she can’t control.
Who doesn’t love Halloween? The entire franchise is centred around an asthmatic (that’s some heavy breathing, let’s be honest) mute antagonist in a spray-painted William Shatner mask, wielding a butcher knife, who develops an obsession for killing people, mainly babysitters. The 1978 original directed by horror maestro John Carpenter is the epitome of slasher films.
Everything that followed? Not so much but at least it had consistency and gave Michael Myers an otherworldly, almost supernatural presence. I mean, the man’s been shot, electrocuted, hanged, hit by a truck, shot some more, stabbed, blown up, stabbed and shot some more. Yet he kept coming back. Then we got the Rob Zombie remakes which were just amplified gore fests, but I enjoyed them.
Then in 2018 we got Halloween which retconned all other films and served as a direct sequel to the original, in which Michael Myers has been in solitary confinement since that night and Laurie Strode has been preparing for the inevitable all this time which was his escape.
A Respectful Sequel
I loved Halloween (2018). It had a simple story: the introduction of Laurie’s daughter and granddaughter to raise the stakes and one really pissed off bogeyman who wanted to exact revenge on the girl who got away all those years ago. And so, he broke out of solitary confinement, took arms, and set about a mindless blood-soaked killing spree before coming face to face with Laurie in an intense dual in her boobytrapped home which ends with her sealing Michael Myers within the basement and burning the house down.
Then we had Halloween Kills, which starts off strong and sees Michael (shock horror – spoiler alert) survive being burned alive. The concept for this film was that the whole town banded together in order to ensure that (all together now) “EVIL DIES TONIGHT!” And even at that an entire town couldn’t stop him.
Halloween (FINALLY) Ends
I felt like I had to explain all of that before I began to unload my sheer disappointment and rage at this God-awful finale. After Halloween Kills, I found it hard to imagine how they could actually end it all between these two. How could you base an entire film around nothing more than a fight to the death between Laurie and Michael Myers?
But they tried…good Lord, did they try, and fail miserably.
So firstly, let me say I can appreciate what they were aiming for here in taking the focus off of Myers himself and putting it on this 20 something year old kid named Correy, who was branded the town monster several years prior after accidentally killing (in a laugh out loud scene) a couple’s kid while they’re out at a Halloween party. But an early scene that sees him meeting Laurie after a run in with a group of school kids who tease the both of them by saying “ooooo Michael Myers”… it’s like Halloween Kills never happened. How does this kid get away with making fun of an entity who legit murdered half the town 4 years ago? It’s just stupid, in my opinion.
Then we have this love story between Laurie’s granddaughter Alison and Correy, which is absolute cringe and made me feel like I was watching one of those ‘After’ films on Amazon prime, with Correy playing the “I’m the damaged goods” card and Alison heavily relaying her message of “but I like damaged goods”. That’s not lines of dialogue within the film; I’m just trying to get my point across of how ridiculous this was.
Also, when a film’s entire selling and marketing campaign is based around the final showdown between these two iconic characters and only have that fight scene last no longer than 5 minutes, it’s pretty insulting and I felt it ruined the legacy of Halloween for me as a whole. Michael Myers doesn’t even show up until around the hour mark in and I get it, having spent 4 years in the sewers following the events of Halloween Kills, he’s not going to have the strength he once did but it’s embarrassing to see this character reduced to nothing more than a mentor for this kid. 90% of the kills within the film (whilst creative) aren’t even performed by Michael, which is sad because at the end of the day I paid an admission fee to see Michael Myers slit some throats and what do I get.
Verdict
I don’t even know. Whatever the hell this is.
Written by James Oliver | BanterFlix Contributor