Halloween Kills (2021)

Directed by David Gordon Green [Other horror films: Halloween (2018), Halloween Ends (2022), The Exorcist: Believer (2023)]

Perhaps one of the most-hyped horror films in the last couple of years, I have to say that I wasn’t one of those all that excited for this. I think I was probably correct in that stance, because while parts of Halloween Kills are fun, a lot of it just feels like filler.

The 2018 Halloween was a movie I thought was okay. Sure, I have it rated an 8/10 on here, but if I’m being honest, that’s probably too high. I’ve only seen the 2018 movie once, and I thought it was good, but it’s one of those films that, having seen once, I was in no real desire to see it again anytime soon.

I considered refreshing my memory before getting into Halloween Kills by revisiting the 2018 movie, but I opted out. I doubt that made much of an impact – most of the characters introduced in the 2018 movie came back to me without too much difficulty. Even so, I just don’t know if the story in this film was really all that interesting.

Aimless isn’t really the word I’d use to describe the film, though I suspect some people would. To me, it just felt primarily like filler for the upcoming Halloween Ends. That’s not to say there weren’t some good scenes, because of course there were, but for a movie that’s an hour and 45 minutes, it’s oddly difficult to list what actually happened in the film, because the status quo didn’t change much from the end of the 2018 movie to the end of this one. In fact, I don’t think anything changed, aside from more people in Haddonfield being deceased.

I appreciated the flashbacks they gave that took place in 1978, especially the ones that had Loomis (played by Tom Jones Jr.), as they got a guy who looked pretty much just like him. Those flashbacks, at least the ones focused around the Myers house, were sort of fun, but I can’t say any of the Lonnie stuff interested me.

For performances, I don’t even know what to say. Most of the central cast (Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, and Anthony Michael Hall) were fine, but as for their characters, I feel like a lot of foolish mistakes were made, and those foolish mistakes sometimes made it quite difficult for me to really care about their characters.

Far more noteworthy to me are Kyle Richards, Nancy Stephens, and especially Charles Cyphers, all three of whom are returning characters from the 1978 classic (and seeing Cyphers back really brought a smile to my face). Two other characters were brought back (Lonnie and Tommy), but the original actors, Brent Le Page and Brian Andrews, were replaced by Robert Longstreet and Anthony Michael Hall. Well, I guess three out of five ain’t bad.

Oh, and though these characters weren’t even close to important, I liked Scott MacArthur and Michael McDonald in their roles as a gay couple living in what used to be the Myers house. They were at least somewhat fun.

I don’t mind that they brought back the characters they did – Marion (the nurse that Myers stole a car from) was sort of random, but the fact they brought back three old faces was nice, especially Charles Cyphers as Brackett (and I liked him a lot in this movie). At the same time, I don’t know if any of these characters were really utilized that well, and aside from bringing back familiar faces, I don’t know if it really made a difference whatsoever.

One of my main complaints about the 2018 movie was the gore. I don’t have a problem with gore, of course – H.G. Lewis and Nathan Schiff are, as the kids say, the shit. It’s just that the 2018 movie had a retro thing going for it, and I was hoping they’d focus more on suspense and creepy scenes (as the original Halloween did) as opposed to violence, but of course they didn’t.

This movie is much the same. I love the slaughtering that takes place here, but I also can’t help but wish they had gone for a classier aesthetic. I loved the opening to this film, which maintained a retro aura, but when you go from that to slaughtering a group of firefighters, it sort of loses me. Trying to please both crowds isn’t going to work, because it doesn’t feel genuine, at least not to me.

Look, I had a good time watching Myers go berserk on the firefighters – it was a lot of fun. And there’s a scene toward the end where a similar situation occurs, and I enjoyed that too. A lot of the violence here, such as the fluorescent light in the throat, or the guy who had his head banged against the stairwell until he was likely paralyzed (not that it mattered for long), was fun. The violence looked great, but I still personally would have preferred a different approach.

There’s a large portion of the film that deals with the horrors of a mob mentality. It’s like Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers on steroids, because instead of a group of drunk guys with shotguns in trucks (which made pretty good sense to me), you have pretty much the whole town bloodthirsty, and chasing down people who may or may not be Myers because of a couple of speeches. I’m not saying those scenes in the hospital didn’t have their moments, but the whole situation personally felt a little ridiculous.

Also, I’ve got to mention a small scene that bothered me. Toward the finale of the film, three individuals are under the impression that Myers went back to his old house, and go there after him. Despite being in contact with other characters who expressed interest in hunting Myers down, they didn’t tell anyone they were going to the house. I can’t say just how stupid I thought that set-up was – why wouldn’t they just call or text other people? They really thought three people – two of whom were quite young – could take on Myers after he destroyed the Haddonfield fire department? It was so fucking stupid, and it didn’t make a lick of sense to me.

It might sound as though I had a bad time with Halloween Kills, but that’s not accurate. I was entertained throughout, despite feeling that much of the film just felt like filler. I didn’t love a lot of it, but it was an entertaining time. Maybe once I watch this again, I can re-evaluate some of it, but for now, I’ll just say the film is somewhere pretty close to average.

7/10