Halloween Kills

Review

This movie is my least favorite of the recent sequel trilogy and yet I think it still stands up as a good movie. It’s nowhere near as perfect as Halloween (2018) nor does it fit into the niche of ‘wet cat gets given a knife’ like Halloween Ends does but is it a good movie, yea it is.

Halloween Kills is a continuation of the Halloween night that began in Halloween (2018). Michael Myers escapes from Laurie’s house with the help of firefighters and then begins his trek home, back to the Myers house. The town realizes that he had escaped the fire and begins to take up arms against Michael Myers. The town realizes that they’re taking it too far once they lead another Smiths Grove patient to kill himself to get away from the mob. The movie ends with Michael returning to the Myers house before he is lead out of the house by Laurie’s daughter Karen to be beaten by the mob. He ends up fighting back and escaping into the night, leaving behind only his carnage.

I think the biggest issue I had with this film was the effects. Halloween (2018) pulled out all the stops with the practical effects and the cgi in the film wasn’t obvious or cumbersome. In this film, the cgi looks BAD, it almost looks like something that would come out of a film 10 years ago, it kind of reminded me of the gore from My Bloody Valentine (2009) which is fucking disgraceful. I think the only effect I liked in the film was when the Smiths Grove patient kills himself, his body on the ground looked great, it was very gross. All the other effects in this were horrific in it of themselves.

I really liked the story in this film, I think it carries over really well from (2018) and watching them back to back really feels like a seamless story. Despite my love for describing and acting as if Michael Myers is the embodiment of evil, I didn’t particularly like that in this movie it’s implied that he incites evil in others. I don’t really love when movies remove agency from characters and in this case it almost gives everyone an out for their bad behavior, because you can just blame Michael Myers for the incident. However, I think this small town going insane and going on a witch hunt for Michael Myers with no concern about what or who is in their way is super cool. I think its pretty realistic and horrifying to watch.

I was absolutely obsessed with Big John and Little John. Those two were quite literally living the dream and I want to be Big John in 20 years, just eating a charcuterie board while watching a movie and scaring kids on Halloween. They were kind of stupid horror characters but I loved them. I was also obsessed with the fact that Michael posed them together in a romantic way, he literally an ally, ‘he’s not a monster’.

I think this movie kind of went a little crazy with Allyson’s character. In the first movie, they make a point to show that she is not prepared for a Michael Myer’s scenario, in fact her mom emphasizes that Allyson grew up completely differently than she did. So please explain why, Allyson picks up a fucking shotgun in this film as if she has ever held a gun before. She acts like a hardened warrior who’s been preparing her whole life for this rather than a scared girl who is having the worst night of her life like she was last movie and like she still should be. About an hour passed canonically and so this shift in her character is very much insane and not how people works, she should be in shock once she gets to the hospital.

I also really didn’t like how Allyson and her boyfriend made up so quickly, I get that they’re trying to hunt to Michael and there’s more important things going on but why did she go with him? She should still be mad and rightfully so, he cheated on her, tried to gaslight her, and then threw her phone into a bowl of hot cheese. If a man did that to me I would not be hunting down a murderer with him.

The finale of the movie isn’t really a final girl scene because there’s so many people still alive and fighting Michael Myers in the ending. This is definitely the weakest ending in three of the sequels as well. It’s just a bunch of people trying to fight Michael and failing and them he disappears, when you compare this to him being left to burn in Laurie’s house and him being put into a trash compactor it just really becomes apparent how short this ending comes in comparison to the others.

Overall, this movie is still really good, it’s rated better than the original, but the original’s pacing is entirely to blame for that, this is probably the sequel that I’m least likely to rewatch.