Halloween Kills review: this tonal mess has a serious ‘kills’ problem


The entertainment quotient of a horror movie is not entirely dependent on a high death toll. While many horror movies leave behind enough corpses to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, there are also many movies without a single death that still cause weeks of sleepless nights filled with nightmares. Piles of corpses in a movie guarantee nothing, other than additional butchery and clean-up. Halloween deaths not only does it have “kills” in the title, but it has the most on-screen kills Hallowe’en till the date. That still doesn’t make him a worthy heir to Michael Myers’ legacy.

The original from 1978 Hallowe’en It is rightly considered one of the scariest movies in American horror history, as well as one of the earliest horror movies. It’s a tense cat and mouse stalking game between a babysitter, the bogeyman, and their doctor. Just the mere suggestion of the film’s stark score and its isolated piano notes are enough to make horror fans stop what they’re doing and carefully check that no one is watching them from behind a hedge. But even with such a dark aura shining around the movie, Hallowe’enThe death count is five people. The roots of Michael Myers’ reign are not a numbers game.

Seeing bodies fall to the ground has a clear appeal for some horror fans. It’s not always about blood, sometimes the sheer number of lives lost is at the core of the film’s tragedy. Carrie It wouldn’t have been so shocking if it hadn’t wiped everyone out at the prom. Similarly, the large volume of deaths in the aftermath of The purge it only emphasizes the disgusting dehumanization of traditions in the alternate America of the franchise. In these cases, the deaths in the movies cumulatively contribute to the monstrosity of the antagonists and deepen the general horror.

A bloody woman wielding a knife faces a looming form in Halloween Kills

Photo: Universal Studios

But when horror fans laugh at death and destruction in a movie, they rarely celebrate that kind of death toll. Some people love on-screen cathartic revenge and revel in what they see as earned punishment for horror characters. Others love schlock and appreciate the art of a good killer effect. Laughing at death and celebrating movies that see humor in its inherent absurdity can disarm the natural fear of its unknowns. On a psychological level, looking directly at death and terror and then dismissing them with a joke is a sure way to feel empowered and less anxious about mortality. It’s the equivalent of watching the Grim Reaper trip over his own robe.

But that’s one of the main downfalls of Halloween deaths: Director David Gordon Green tries to do it both ways. He wants the audience to mourn certain deaths, while scolding them for not crying over others. Let the show’s signature killer, Michael Myers, run through the town of Haddonfield, indiscriminately identifying certain residents for hilarious deaths and others for tragic deaths. Whether it’s nameless, faceless canvases for Michael’s slaughter, or characters the film has invested emotionally in seems to have little bearing on whether their deaths are treated seriously.

Halloween deaths starts moments after 2018 Hallowe’en ends, then goes back to 1978, and John Carpenter’s franchise launch movie Halloween night. 2018 Hallowe’en went back to canon for that movie, ignoring all the other sequels and reboots that followed. The flashback shows what the police were doing during the search for the murderer Michael Myers. At Myers’ abandoned home, a young officer named Hawkins (Thomas Mann) has an encounter with Michael that haunts him for the next 40 years. This showdown doesn’t change anything that fans of the franchise know about Michael, but it does provide an additional framework for Hawkins’ attachment to Myers and his concern for revenge against the masked killer.

Meanwhile, in the present, Michael has survived the 1978 house fire. Hallowe’en survivor Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), and is thriving. He quickly kills all the lifeguards on the scene, then leaves to find more bodies to stack. Laurie is taken to the hospital for treatment, with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and her teenage granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). Worried that Laurie will die from her injuries, Karen orders Allyson to stay with her, but true to the teenage rebellion, Allyson wants to go outside and kill Michael herself.

An uptight-looking woman holds up the Michael Myers mask at Halloween Kills

Photo: Universal Studios

Conveniently for Allyson, possessions are also being formed to go hunting Michael. Survivors of his 1978 murder spree join in over drinks on an open mic night when news breaks of a series of violent killings. The survivors, along with a bar full of easily frantic locals, split into armed groups that swept through the city, seeking to kill the resurgent boogie man.

Green and his co-writers, Danny McBride and Scott Teems, spend a great deal of Halloween deaths observing this growing gang, with varied valuation. At times they seem to think the mob is constructive, while at other times the movie clearly argues against any mob that is unwilling to listen to the voice of reason. The presentation of this morally indeterminate but violent crowd confuses the franchise’s previously pristine line between good and evil.

While there is much to be said about humanity as the true monsters of the earth, that has never been the message of the Hallowe’en Movie (s. Michael Myers is supposed to be an uncut evil machine, and all viewers want is to see his victims fight back. This mob is not about pure and satisfying retaliatory justice. While there is nothing wrong with it. In the moral complexity of horror movies, Green and company go further with their confusing message, using the mob to hold up a mirror before a bloodthirsty audience and condemn them for indulging in the kind of cinematic violence. Halloween deaths provides.

Intentionally humorous horror movies that also pool in the blood tend to downplay the humanity of the victims. There is no true emotional tragedy in the entire bay of Spring Breakers chewed to death in Piranha 3D. No one is asking viewers to contemplate the rich family life of the infected crowd beheaded by a helicopter in 28 weeks later. As cruel as it may sound, the swarms of victims in most corpse-filled horror movies are consciously prevented from turning into full characters, so the hounds in the audience can enjoy the cathartic release of watching heads roll. Halloween deaths instead, he gives the victims names and faces, turning them into neighbors or friends of the protagonists. Then he still takes them down in an exaggerated way, signaling to the audience that this is all meant to be fun, while making sure it isn’t.

Beyond the sloppy judgments directed against the audience, there is an equally sloppy performance by Michael Myers. The villain who started the franchise when he was 6, grew up to be an imminent figure living in the mysterious valley of serial killers. Unlike the later and more humanized version of the character, Carpenter’s version, and now David Gordon Green’s, looks like a man, but does not speak or walk as such. It does not get excited. Study humans as if they were from another world. He doesn’t even show his own face. The tension between humanity and the monster boils under his jumpsuit and William Shatner’s mask.

Laurie catches her breath in the back of a truck in Halloween Kills

Photo: Universal Pictures

But that tension is often lost in Halloween deaths. Some of Michael’s deaths are inexplicably interpreted for laughter, and others are interpreted with great drama, with little reason to explain why one life is made to feel more valuable than the other. Worst of all, Michael has no coherence either as a masked person or as an inhuman force. Sometimes he plays with bodies, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he makes fun of the victims, sometimes he doesn’t. While previous Hallowe’enHe is portrayed as cold, methodical and unreactive, Halloween deaths shows him as incoherently playful. If Michael Myers is supposed to be the one constant factor in the entire franchise, these tonal missteps distract from his murderous character and style.

Halloween deaths it has its merits, which include some good laughs and some clever kills. But those momentary bursts of entertainment can’t bear the weight of Michael Myers’ legendary legacy. This is the monster that helped jump-start the entire slasher subgenre, and audiences who love those movies have high expectations when it comes to their beloved bad boys. Fans of Michael Myers can have fun seeing him on the big screen again, but those who really know him will likely be disappointed with his wavering portrayal. Bloodthirsty hounds might perhaps be pleased by the inventive killings scattered everywhere, but they are probably put off by the obvious morality and atonal losses of some characters. Halloween deaths He never fixes on a tone, a morality, or his killer, and while he lives up to his aggressive title, he still feels neglected and empty.

Halloween deaths debuts in theaters and at Peacock on October 15.


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