Review #170: Halloween (2018)

This review was originally written in 2020, and reposted as part of the Bucket List Challenge in 2022. There may or may not be small differences between the two reviews.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #25: Halloween (2018)

I've watched this movie three times: once when it came out, once two years ago when I watched and reviewed the whole series, and once today. Each time I watch it (particularly, each time with more context than the time before) I like it less and less. I would recommend this movie to anyone who has NOT seen the rest of the series, or anyone who maybe saw a smattering of them but who doesn't really remember any of the details. I think this movie is perfectly fine as its own movie, completely disconnected from any other works, but if you try to view it as part of a whole (especially if you watch it strictly as a sequel to the first film, and purposely ignore all of the others) IT. GETS. BONKERS. I'll explain as I go. Sit tight, this is going to be a long one.

I say it's perfectly fine on its own, and that's true. But as the part of the series it's written as, it's kind of awful in a meta-sense. What I mean is, this movie takes great pains to make it clear that it's meant to be a sequel to the original Halloween from 1976, and nothing else is canon. So no Curse of Thorn, no Jamie or John, and certainly no Silver Shamrock- and most importantly (as I'm sure was a huge part of the decision in the first place) Laurie is not Michael Myers' sister. For the purposes of this movie's story, Michael Myers killed his only sister Judith, spent fifteen years in Smith's Grove Sanitarium, broke out and killed three random teens and a cop, and then was immediately apprehended after Loomis shot him and has spent the following forty years back at Smith's Grove, not saying a word, never escaping, never doing anything of note.

But the problem is that this movie SO DESPERATELY still wants you to have seen all those other films. It wants to have its cake and eat it too- it wants you to remember all of the tension and scares and cultural cache of the Halloween series, but wants you to forget the parts of the continuity that make storytelling hard. (They even throw out terrible dialogue to remind you what is or isn't canon: "Hey, wasn't that her brother that tried to kill her?" "No, that's what some people made up to make themselves feel better.") Their target audience is NOT someone who watched the original movie and then skipped all the rest, even though that's the storyline they're advertising. If you had only ever seen the original and then this one, there are SO many parts of this movie that would have you shaking your head.

First I'll talk about Laurie. I understand that grief and trauma are going to hit different people in different ways. I'm not saying that it's impossible for someone who went through what she did forty years ago to end up like the character in this film. However, I do not think for a second the writers wrote this character as a person who, forty years ago, was attacked by a madman who then immediately got put in jail and has been there ever since. The way she acts in this film is much more like a person whose attempted murderer has repeatedly broken free, who has been attacked on multiple occasions, who has probably had to change her name and address in order to feel remotely safe. When I watched Halloween H20, THAT was the Laurie Strode that I thought felt appropriate to that character; in this movie she has spent her entire life in fear despite the fact that at no point has Michael Myers ever gotten free, at no point has he ever stalked her again, at no point has he ever been a threat. At any given point for the last forty years, she knew exactly where he was, and where he wasn't. He wasn't an elusive, unstoppable killer- they stopped him, he's in jail, he's not going anywhere. Again, it's not IMPOSSIBLE for her to end up like this, but if you'd only ever seen the original film and then you learned this character spent the following forty years in constant fear and vigilance, you'd wonder why. (Now, could the movie have been about the victim mentality and hinted at a likelihood of Laurie's trauma causing her to have become a victim more in her life? Certainly! But no, they make it clear that the effects of her trauma were solely related to Michael Myers. At the very least it's a missed opportunity for a much more realistic story.)

Next up is Michael himself. He kills so easily and effortlessly in this film- remember, in this movie's continuity, Michael has only ever killed five people- his sister (55 years ago), a cop and three teenagers (40 years ago) and nobody else. He's in his 60s now, he's been nowhere near a lethal weapon in four decades, and yet when he gets out of the sanitarium he's pulling teeth with his bare hands, he's sneaking into houses like he'd been doing it his whole life, he's using every opportunity to grab weapons and stab and crush people and even making a show of their stashed bodies. He kills more people in his first two scenes than he killed in the entirety of the first movie, and it's not even played as a big deal. (They once again have a character lampshade this: "He killed five people, by today's standards that's not even that bad" but pointing out a flaw in the story doesn't make it not a flaw.) Again, if you'd never seen any Halloween movie except the original, you'd be asking, "Did someone replace Michael Myers with a terminator or something?" It makes more sense if you've seen all of the movies and you've watched his kill count balloon over the years, but again, this isn't the Michael Myers who's broken out of captivity numerous times. This is an elderly man who has been sitting in a sanitarium for 55 years since he was six (except that one time he got out for a day).

And much more important is the public's perception of Michael Myers. Again- I keep having to repeat this because the movie keeps forgetting- Michael killed five people total (with a fifteen year gap between the first and second) and yet the people in this world act like he goes on a killing spree every few years, just like how the movie audience has seen him go on a killing spree every few years. From the (utterly idiotic and cringeworthy) opening scene where those journalists taunt him with his mask, to the doctor talking about his "dormant periods" and "active periods" in regards to murder, this movie just can't waste an opportunity to rake in that cultural cache of the mythos surrounding Michael Myers, even though they also make it very clear that he's done nothing except sit silently in the sanitarium. (This could very easily be remedied- just throw in a couple lines of dialogue about escapes in the past, possibly even allude to other murders that have taken place, and boom, you have all of the clout that the movie wants but with no responsibility to the other films. But instead, they stress several times that he's only committed five murders, and has been imprisoned for forty years since.)

Like, the doctor has some ridiculous dialogue while driving to Laurie's house where he says that Michael has "dormant and active states- he will kill again" and "pursuing Laurie is what's been keeping him alive all these years"- despite the fact that by this movie's own events neither of those statements could have any in-universe basis. Dr. Sartain has never witnessed an "active state" because he's never been out of prison in forty years, and he has never done anything resembling "pursuing Laurie" because, again, this is the first time he's been in a position to pursue her after the first time they met (where he only pursued her because she just happened to be nearby). Scenes like that one make me wonder if this movie was originally planned to include other movies in its continuity, and they changed it very late in production? That's the only thing I can think of (beyond abject laziness on the writers) that would explain lines like this. Unless this movie was meant to be a parody of itself? If so, the second unit director missed the memo.

If this movie had some lines of dialogue explaining that Michael HAS escaped in the past it would make Laurie's constant vigilance WAY more understandable. If Michael had killed more people while wearing his signature mask it would make more sense for those podcasters to show up and insist that he has some sort of psychic connection to it- because as it is, there's no reason to assume Myers has any more of a psychic connection with the mask as he does with his boiler suit or boots, because he spent the same amount of time wearing those! (Imagine if, when Ted Bundy was still alive, people showed up at the prison with the fake cast he used to wear, and screamed at him to admit that he could "feel the cast's presence". That's how stupid this scene felt to me.) But again, this movie wants you to remember that Michael's been wearing that mask for like ten movies, even if it wants the benefit of ignoring the canon of nine of those movies.

And the ending sucks. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. After spending 103 minutes telling me how Laurie Strode has spent the last forty years on pins and needles expecting Michael to escape despite him sitting peacefully in captivity, when she finally gets him in her trap she just shrugs and says, "Yeah, he's probably dead, no need to make sure." Even if they hadn't already announced two more movies when this one released, anyone who had seen even one Halloween movie would know with 100% certainty that Michael was going to survive. And that's fine when the protagonists are average Joes, but again SO MUCH TIME is spent stressing how prepared and determined Laurie is.

It really bothers me that so many facets of the film were handled so sloppily, because I really think some aspects are great. Jamie Lee Curtis' acting was so good, the moment at the end where Karen tricks Michael with the rifle was SO badass, and the doctor's role in Michael's escape was a great twist and took me by complete surprise (even if I have issues with his reasoning, as I said before). I liked the movie at first and liked it less with each rewatch, and I hate how entitled it feels and considering all of its clout and confidence I wish it was written to be the final movie in the series. But obviously it wasn't, because the director wants to have all the cakes and to eat them too.

Overall Rating: 7/10 Sexy Guacamole Ways

Favorite Character: Julian, obviously, who stole the show