REVIEW: Halloween

Directed by David Gordon Greene
2018 Horror Thriller
1 hour 46 minutes
From Universal

Starring
Jamie Lee Curtis
Judy Greer
Andi Matichak
Will Patton
James Jude Courtney
Nick Castle
Haluk Bilginer
Jefferson Hall
Rhian Rees
Toby Huss
He's baaack!

Despite all the sequels in the 40 years since the 1978 original from director John Carpenter, this one picks up right after the original, ignoring what happened in those other sequels.  Interestingly, this one isn't Halloween II or III or IV or V or VI, but simply Halloween, just as the original was.

Yes, Michael Myers is back, having escaped from captivity, and  more murderous than ever.  I started counting the bodies but had to give up somewhere along the way.

Obviously he ends up back in the Illinois neighborhood where he slashed his way through the darkness of Halloween night.  But this is all you're getting from me.  No spoiler alerts necessary.  It would just be so wrong.

Jamie Lee Curtis has been beating the drums publicizing this movie and she has called it really, really scary.  Frankly, that's why I went.  I never saw any of those sequels because I thought, right or wrong, that they'd be cheesy.  But she lured me into this one.  It starts with that creepy theme music.  For me, yes, it certainly had moments of fright... it's not so much the murders but the jumping out or the opening of a door and there he is.  I squirmed a bit in a couple of scenes but, with no disrespect to JLC, I did not find it really, really scary.  Others might.

Something I've said in past postings bears repeating here.  I love scary movies.  If a movie can genuinely frighten me, if I can believe it, I will sing its praises.  This film, and perhaps the entire series, is believable in its fashion.  It is certainly not akin to those teenage-girls-in-a-cabin-in-the-words where they are hacked to death night after night until we're down to one.  Even they don't particularly scare me... rather, they just annoy me no end.

I believe this film should be praised for its good writing, pacing and believability although I thought Curtis' Laurie Strode prepared herself and her home as though she were a Navy Seal.  When one considers Laurie had no notion that Michael Myers was ever going to get out of prison, it seemed a little over the top.  Nonetheless, it all worked so well that I tended to disregard it.

Curtis had another take.  In an interview she spoke of the trauma that Laurie has suffered and how glad she is that that has been explored in the film.  We all have trauma, the actress says.  We never make movies about what happens after the violence.  When people have trauma, they're frozen in a moment and are emotionally trapped where they were when the trauma occurred.

Halloween is tightly directed by David Gordon Greene and he also cowrote it with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley.  The only other Greene films I have seen are 2004's Undertow, which I loved, and 2006's Pineapple Express which I did not.

Original director John Carpenter was on the set providing inspiration, it seems, and is credited with writing the music, not just the eerie theme but other music which is so good.  He and Curtis are also two of the several executive producers. 

Standing in for Illinois is Charleston, South Carolina, where all exterior scenes were filmed.

I expect that fans of the franchise and horror films in general will be pleased.  I went to a 10:30 a.m. showing so it was easy to shake it off as I walked out into the daylight.  I did not check my backseat nor did I ask a neighbor to accompany me inside my empty house.  I came straight to the computer and typed this out.  I think I'll be ok.


Next posting:
An actress who won an
Oscar for her first film 
in the 50's