HALLOWEEN KILLS (2021)

HALLOWEEN KILLS (2021)

Tagline: The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode isn't over

(Horror, Slasher, There Goes the Neighborhood) [R]

I was always told that I couldn't... I couldn't talk about Michael. I can never acknowledge the tragedy. It was as If my mother's biggest fear was that my grandmother was right and the Boogeyman is real.

In this one, Laurie is badly injured in the ordeal from an encounter with Michael earlier that night and ends up in the hospital being comforted by her daughter Karen and Officer Hawkins. Michael Myers survives a "burn cage" set up by Laurie Strode and continues his reign of terror. It doesn’t take long before the citizens of Haddonfield decide it’s time to end Michael’s massacre, but fear begins to create unfettered paranoia. Can the mob overcome and finally take down Michael once and for all? 

First off, after the last installment which I thought was a solid horror film that I gave a 5 out of 7. Having said that it had the same problem this one does. Outside of Officer Hawkins and Allyson in this one, nearly everyone is an idiot making horrible decisions for 85 minutes. I mean, it’s bad. I honestly thought this thing was a total mess and having a giant mob after the killer kind of just took the fear factor out of this. When you are going to make a Halloween film isolation is huge. In my head, most slashers are driven by the isolation of characters or very few people believing there is actually a problem. 

There is a sequence towards the end of this film that is just bonkers to me and honestly doesn’t have a HALLOWEEN series feel at all. You would think after 1931’s FRANKENSTEIN, you should know that if you are a mob you don’t surround the seemingly invincible killer with baseball bats and sticks. You drive them into the nearest structure, force them to the top of the building and burn the building down, order in a drone strike, bomb the place to smithereens, take all the remains, and incinerate them. Easy. Nope, none of that happens here. 

Acting wise this thing is loaded with solid talents. When it comes to scream queens it is extremely difficult to beat Jamie Lee Curtis (PROM NIGHT) even these days. She is given a really weird line in this that felt really out of place and frankly stupid for the character, but writers and directors suck sometimes. Judy Greer (ANT-MAN) plays Karen in this and I thought she did okay in the role but again was victimized by bad writing. It should also be noted that it is “possible” that JURASSIC WORLD is part of the HALLOWEEN universe and happened before HALLOWEEN 2018. I can imagine Laurie had a second daughter when this was made that the script doesn’t mention because they are estranged. That would have been Claire (played by Bryce Dallas Howard in JURASSIC WORLD), then Karen in that film would be the Karen in this one both played by Judy Greer. I could imagine the trauma of the JURASSIC PARK incident driving Karen to move back to Haddonfield thinking everything was okay etc. I don’t know. Maybe all of that is stretch. Andi Matichak (THE BOONIES) is good in this. I really didn’t have any issues with her performance here. Will Patton for me was the coolest character as Officer Hawkins. I really liked the interaction between him and Laurie Strode. Patton is most famous for ARMAGEDDON. It was cool to see Kyle Richards in this who was one of 5 cast members returning from the original HALLOWEEN in 1978. She wasn’t mind-blowing, but it was cool to have some of the original cast members back. Anthony Michael Hall (THE BREAKFAST CLUB) is good in this as Tommy, but man his character doesn’t understand the situation. 

The score here is awesome, the soundtrack was iffy, but I wasn’t a fan of the pacing. I actually thought a huge chunk of the second act was boring and the final act was just really wonky. I didn’t get the HALLOWEEN feel from this film like I did with HALLOWEEN 2018. 

The moral of this movie is fear and paranoia are terrible masters. 

Having said all that, the best I can do is give this a 3 out of 7. I thought it was largely a failure, but it was better than just being “barely watchable”. Clearly, if you are doing a HALLOWEEN-HORROR-O-THON you have to include this movie if you have the other 2 newer films involved but yeesh. It’s the worst of the “H40” timeline. As a note, this “H40” timeline has a bunch of fan labels like “Old Man Myers”, “John Carpenter” timeline, etc., so just a heads up on that. 

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