Halloween (2018) review
To get new viewers up to speed: Halloween (2018) is the 11th movie in the franchise, but also the new official sequel to John Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978). Basically director David Gordon Green and writers Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley took a bird’s eye view of the franchise as a whole and realised that it’s mostly been a garbage fire. So they did the smart thing and threw everything in the trash, keeping only the original as the foundation on which to build the new sequel.
So it ignores everything following the first, even throwing away what 1981’s Halloween II introduced as series canon: that series villain Michael Myers is Laurie Strode’s brother, something which always irked Carpenter who had little love for, and say in, the sequel.
The new story is set 40 years after the original and reworks the first film’s ending so that Michael was arrested after his initial rampage where he terrorised the virginal Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her group of friends. So for the past 40 years, he’s been behind bars. Strode, played again by Curtis, is still haunted by her encounter with Myers. Most of her life has been shaped by this experience, so much so that it ruined her marriage and strained the relationship with Karen (Judy Greer), her only daughter. The only person who still has a functional relationship with her is her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak). But as serial killers do, Michael escapes during transit to a new asylum and makes his way back to Haddonfield for some Halloween murdering.
Despite the barebones simplicity of this franchise, the majority of its films have been exercises in missing the point. Carpenter’s vision of Myers has always been one of an unfathomable evil that kills for reasons unknown. Where horror staples like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees had some basic reasoning for being what they are, Myers, at least in the first film, was the genre cypher. Yet, subsequent films (which Carpenter had little to no hand in) were seldom keen to get on board this idea, and tagged on a series of narrative signposts to help explain Myers, starting with the brother-sister angle. So while you didn’t know much about Myers, you did know he wants to kill his sister.
This where the latest film succeeds: it goes back to its basic, stripped down roots. Myers is presented again as this murder-in-motion entity that, for reasons unknown, has his kill switch activated. And the film does a pretty good job in representing Michael’s brutality as almost machine-like. The long tracking shots and minimal edits give the kills an unnerving detached quality, like you’re not so much watching a human as you are a murderous force of nature.
But arguably, the film real strength comes from the treatment of Strode. Slashers have historically treated its heroines in subsequent films as a combination of trying to hide from their past experience and attempting to live a normal life. The real psychological damage of having lived through those kinds of experiences is usually brushed off to get them sequel ready. Strode hasn’t moved away from Haddonfield, changed identities, or is trying to raise a family. She’s more akin to a doomsday prepper, living in a state of perpetual readiness, convinced Michael will one day return. Her house isn’t so much a home as it is a fortress.
Her first encounter with Myers left and irreparable scar on her psyche that left her with a warped worldview and a refusal of victimhood. Yet she remains undoubtedly traumatised and the film isn’t trying to frame her as being stronger for it. While she might refute the status of victim, her obsession with Myers left her divorced and incapable of having a normal relationship with her daughter, who was raised in a climate of perpetual fear and paranoia. It’s clear there’s an undercurrent of generational trauma running through the film and — what is sure to piss off a subset of the internet — a few obvious fingers pointing to #MeToo. Strode being told to “get over it, stop obsessing and move on with your life”, sounds a lot like the dismissive talk often surrounding women’s experiences of abuse and trauma.
Which is why the 3rd act is so satisfying. It’s a moment of pure vindication and you can hear the film shout: “See, mother knows best!” Strode’s obsession, preparation and trauma gets turned into a weapon as grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter face off against Myers, in Strode’s house. It’s a tense, claustrophobic act with some fist pumping moments of slasher role reversal, and arguably the films highlight. It’s a brutal mano a womano encounter that plays with genre conventions in inventive ways.
Fans of the original might feel find the films drawback is mostly in atmosphere. While the last act does a good job of recreating the tension of the first film, for the most part it chooses to forgo Carpenter’s signature slow burn in favour of re-establishing Michael as the genre’s boogeyman.
But ultimately Halloween succeeds because it knows what it needs to be, while simultaneously attempting a little self-imposed deconstruction. It’s more than just a solid re-entry into the slasher genre, it’s an earnest attempt at exploring what you can do with something as, supposedly, tamper proof as a slasher