HALLOWEEN KILLS: NO MORE SCARES

 

 

In 1978 the movie HALLOWEEN directed by John Carpenter was released. The film remains one of the most frightening movies ever made. What some fail to recall though is the lack of gore in the film. There was one, maybe two scenes, that had any blood and it was minimal at best. And yet from that movie a series of sequels followed that added more and more gore to each one. The first set of sequels were ignored for Rob Zombie’s two films and then we got a new sequel that tossed aside everything prior. Now it has yielded another sequel HALLOWEEN KILLS. Unfortunately it follows the newer versions more than the original. 

At the end of director David Gordon Green’s HALLOWEEN released in 2018, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) had trapped Laurie’s brother and killer from the series Michael in a safe room under the house and then set the house ablaze. This film picks up not long after that as the three of them are being taken to the hospital as firetrucks are on their way to put out the fire. 

Of course this is a mistake as the first fireman to enter the burning house is killed by Michael. He then proceeds to kill each of the men armed only with axes in the most brutal and bloody fashion possible. Gore hounds were loving the movie by now. 

At a local bar Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), the little boy Laurie was babysitting in the original film, is celebrating the 40^th anniversary of Michael’s imprisonment alongside Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards) the little girl who was also being babysat, Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens) the nurse who was with Dr. Loomis when Michael escaped and Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet) the little boy Loomis scared when he went up to the Strode house in the original film. When word gets out that Michael has escaped, Tommy organizes the bar patrons into a mob bent on finishing this and killing Michael. Cheering “Evil dies tonight!” the mob sets out to stop Michael. 

But of course Michael is not someone to be easily stopped. As he makes his way through town, singed by the fire and his mask a bit dirty, he begins picking off the citizens of Haddonfield one by one. There is no method to his madness, no cause for his murderous rampage. Michael has become little more than a killing machine taking on the entire town for his imprisonment long ago. And the body count he racks up is both impressive and incredibly gory. 

With Laurie in the hospital, medicated and awaiting surgery and Tommy and the mob on the streets could the evil actually end? Come on, there’s too much money being made for that to happen. And as Laurie lays in bed her roommate is Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton) who was also attacked by Michael. Twice. In the opening segment of the film we saw where he had the chance to kill him long ago but didn’t take it. 

So how good is this sequel? It depends. As an average movie goer you might enjoy it that is if the bloodletting doesn’t bother you that much. If you enjoy horror movies you might like it as well since you’ll see almost anything horror related. But if you’re a fan of HALLOWEEN there is a chance you’ll be disappointed. First off, like I said, the original didn’t rely on blood and gore. This movie is overrun with it.

There is also a disturbing bit with the ending of the film that I won’t reveal but for me felt created to do nothing more than make sure another movie was made so more cash could come rolling in. It truly ruined the movie for me. Green, who also helped write the film, takes us on a path that the original didn’t and tosses out everything that was the reason Michael came home. 

Then there is the whole metaphor for the world of politics in the film with the mob supposedly representing Trump followers. For goodness sake can’t we leave wokism out of everything including horror films? 

I love the original HALLOWEEN. This movie? I doubt I’ll watch again.

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