Those who thought that Rob Zombie was the worst thing to happen to Halloween, think again. David Gordon Green is the new boogeyman, out to terrorise fans of the original film with his atrocious approach to all things Michael Myers. I thought that his Halloween (2018) was pretty bad, but this follow up is an absolute travesty: the tone is all wrong, the dialogue is laughable, and the acting sucks. Sure, it features plenty of gory kills - and god knows, I love my splatter - but Halloween has never been about the gore. It's about atmosphere, palpable suspense, sheer terror, with believable characters you can care about. And Halloween Kills has none of that.
Following a flashback to the aftermath of events in Carpenter's original classic (complete with CGI-enhanced Donald Pleasence lookalike), the film picks up immediately after Green's previous film, Laurie Strode and family driving away from the burning house in which Michael is trapped, presumably gone forever. Except that Michael never dies, and when a firefighter crew turns up to tackle the blaze, the killer emerges from the burning building to slaughter the lot of them.
From there-on in, the film consists of a series of graphic murders at the hands of the 'boogeyman', resulting in the townsfolk of Haddonfield declaring enough is enough, and forming a mob to track down Michael and put an end to his grisly shenanigans once and for all. Don't they ever learn? Writer/director Green, once again assisted by Danny McBride, fills his script with characters who act and talk like idiots, and frequently places them in perilous situations from which they could easily run away, but never do. There are numerous touches of comedy throughout, none of which has any place in a Halloween movie. There's nothing funny about Michael!
Jamie Lee Curtis is given nothing to do but pontificate from a hospital bed about the nature of evil. She's not alone: several characters expound long, boring and completely unnecessary theories about why Michael kills, when all we need to know is that he is pure, unbridled evil. It's been said before, and doesn't need expanding upon.
There are so many awful scenes in the film that it's a tough call to pick the worst...
The gay couple (who call themselves Big John and Little John) checking their house for an intruder is a serious contender, especially when the second bloke (Big or Little... I can't remember) spots Michael and just stands there waiting to be killed.
Or could the lousiest scene be the attack on the car in the park, in which Michael kills one of his victims by kicking the car door, causing the person to shoot themselves in the head (it actually pains me to type that!)?
Or does the film hit its nadir when Tommy Doyle (an embarrassingly bad performance from Anthony Michael Hall) rallies the masses in the hospital into finding and killing Michael? The crowd, chanting the slogan 'Evil dies tonight' ad nauseum, spots one of Michael's fellow escaped lunatics (who just so happens to wander into the building at the wrong time) and assume he is the killer. They chase him and trap him in a corridor. Terrified, the loony smashes a window and falls to his death on the concrete below. It's a terrible scene that adds nothing to the film except for the messy sight of a smashed body on the ground.
In another ill-advised move, Green tries to placate long-time Halloween fans with nods to previous movies, the most obvious being the inclusion of the deadly masks from Halloween 3. It's not a clever touch: it's just a reminder that even the much-maligned (unfairly so) Season of the Witch is a far better film than the one we are currently watching.
The movie's ending - another possible choice for most ludicrous moment - sees Tommy and his chanting followers finally cornering Michael and bludgeoning and stabbing him, then turning their back on him, only for Michael to stand back up and get in a few more kills before the closing credits. It's bad, not only for the way that the people allow themselves to be slaughtered so easily, but for the fact that it heralds another sequel: Halloween Ends, coming October 2022 (how I hope that the film lives up to its title).
1/10 - I don't hand out the lowest rating lightly, but the way this film trashes the legacy of the original movie, it deserves it.
Following a flashback to the aftermath of events in Carpenter's original classic (complete with CGI-enhanced Donald Pleasence lookalike), the film picks up immediately after Green's previous film, Laurie Strode and family driving away from the burning house in which Michael is trapped, presumably gone forever. Except that Michael never dies, and when a firefighter crew turns up to tackle the blaze, the killer emerges from the burning building to slaughter the lot of them.
From there-on in, the film consists of a series of graphic murders at the hands of the 'boogeyman', resulting in the townsfolk of Haddonfield declaring enough is enough, and forming a mob to track down Michael and put an end to his grisly shenanigans once and for all. Don't they ever learn? Writer/director Green, once again assisted by Danny McBride, fills his script with characters who act and talk like idiots, and frequently places them in perilous situations from which they could easily run away, but never do. There are numerous touches of comedy throughout, none of which has any place in a Halloween movie. There's nothing funny about Michael!
Jamie Lee Curtis is given nothing to do but pontificate from a hospital bed about the nature of evil. She's not alone: several characters expound long, boring and completely unnecessary theories about why Michael kills, when all we need to know is that he is pure, unbridled evil. It's been said before, and doesn't need expanding upon.
There are so many awful scenes in the film that it's a tough call to pick the worst...
The gay couple (who call themselves Big John and Little John) checking their house for an intruder is a serious contender, especially when the second bloke (Big or Little... I can't remember) spots Michael and just stands there waiting to be killed.
Or could the lousiest scene be the attack on the car in the park, in which Michael kills one of his victims by kicking the car door, causing the person to shoot themselves in the head (it actually pains me to type that!)?
Or does the film hit its nadir when Tommy Doyle (an embarrassingly bad performance from Anthony Michael Hall) rallies the masses in the hospital into finding and killing Michael? The crowd, chanting the slogan 'Evil dies tonight' ad nauseum, spots one of Michael's fellow escaped lunatics (who just so happens to wander into the building at the wrong time) and assume he is the killer. They chase him and trap him in a corridor. Terrified, the loony smashes a window and falls to his death on the concrete below. It's a terrible scene that adds nothing to the film except for the messy sight of a smashed body on the ground.
In another ill-advised move, Green tries to placate long-time Halloween fans with nods to previous movies, the most obvious being the inclusion of the deadly masks from Halloween 3. It's not a clever touch: it's just a reminder that even the much-maligned (unfairly so) Season of the Witch is a far better film than the one we are currently watching.
The movie's ending - another possible choice for most ludicrous moment - sees Tommy and his chanting followers finally cornering Michael and bludgeoning and stabbing him, then turning their back on him, only for Michael to stand back up and get in a few more kills before the closing credits. It's bad, not only for the way that the people allow themselves to be slaughtered so easily, but for the fact that it heralds another sequel: Halloween Ends, coming October 2022 (how I hope that the film lives up to its title).
1/10 - I don't hand out the lowest rating lightly, but the way this film trashes the legacy of the original movie, it deserves it.