Halloween-2018

Halloween-2018

Director-David Gordon Green

Starring-Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer

Scott’s Review #823

Reviewed October 23, 2018

Grade: B+

Let’s be honest- nobody will ever be able to either top or recreate the iconic 1978 masterpiece Halloween- so any real attempt is a moot point.

Throughout the subsequent decades, many sequels or remakes have emerged and have largely disappointed or turned the franchise into a joke.

With the latest incarnation of Halloween (2018), director David Gordon Green gets it right by creating a follow-up to the original, skipping all the other films. Scoring Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie is a major win along with seemingly dozens of neat references to the original gem.

Set forty years to the day (Halloween Eve and Halloween, naturally!), the audience is first given a summary of killer Michael Meyer’s (Nick Castle) time spent in Smith Grove Sanitarium once captured following the 1978 Haddonfield killing spree.

Two journalists visit Meyers in captivity and attempt to make him speak after forty years of silence by mentioning the name Laurie Strode and showing him his notorious Halloween mask.

Conveniently, he is scheduled to be transferred to a maximum-security prison the following day. We just know that Meyers will escape.

Meanwhile, Laurie has been living with post-traumatic stress disorder since her attack and lives in a constant state of paranoia.

With two failed marriages and a daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), who is traumatized by her mother’s anxiety, Laurie’s life has not been easy. As an aside, I just love how Laurie dons the same hairstyle she had at age seventeen.

While she awaits the inevitable return of Michael, her secluded house is peppered with traps and guns allowing her to be at the ready at any moment. Despite her problems, Laurie is very close with her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak).

When the inevitable happens and Michael escapes by presumably causing a bus accident off-screen, the action truly begins. The coincidence of this happening on Halloween night is to be expected and embraced.

Audiences who see the film certainly are not new to the genre. The target audience is the crowd who either grew up with the original or generations who followed and were introduced to the original.

Therefore, the film is wise to not try and reinvent the wheel- giving fans what they expect. To this point, the opening graphics (the eerie orange writing and the glowing jack-o-lantern) are intact as well as the “introducing” credit for its heroin star- in this case, Matichak.

There are several certainties with a horror film like Halloween. We know there will be “kills”, we know there will be an inevitable showdown between Laurie and Michael Myers to conclude the film. The fun is in the trip we take to get there. Who will be offed and how? A butcher-knife? other Halloween delights?

Since there are arguably three female leads and three generations of Strode’s, will the film make one of them feel Michael’s deadly wrath?

Halloween works, and a large reason for this is countless nods to its past. Many scenes pay homage to attention-paying fans resulting in riches and nostalgic memories.

Allyson’s boyfriend’s father’s name is Lonnie- undoubtedly the kid who Dr. Loomis scared away from the Meyers house forty years ago.  Then there is a neighbor woman wearing curlers and slicing a sandwich with a butcher knife, who Michael steals the knife from.

Finally, as Allyson sits in the back of her class and glances out the window she sees not Michael, but Laurie standing across the street staring at her. These gems are in large part thanks to clever writing and study.

There are a couple of negatives to mention. I am not crazy about the casting of Judy Greer as Jamie Lee Curtis’s daughter. The actresses look nothing alike nor does Curtis seem old enough to be Greer’s mother.

Furthermore, attempts to add some comic relief moments, two bumbling police officer’s talking about brownies, Allyson’s goofy father, and the salty tongue of the kid one of the baby-sitters sits for does not work.

How great would it have been to include P.J. Soles, Nancy Loomis, or even Kyle Richards in cameos? Since Curtis and Castle returned I wanted more familiar faces.

In wise form Gordon Green leaves the window wide open for a potential sequel, so be sure to stay for the end credits. My wish would be for this to parlay to the aftereffects of the killings on the same night, which Halloween II (1981) did so successfully.

If the box office returns are strong enough and with Curtis on board for another installment, the possibilities are endless.

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