Halloween Kills — Movie Review
by KJ Proulx
I have a very strong love/hate relationship with the Halloween franchise. I think the original Halloween from 1978 is a very solid slasher flick, but it also feels very dated today. After the endless number of mostly poor sequels and even a remake by Rob Zombie with another sequel (which I very much disliked), I slowly started not caring about the franchise as a whole. Then they decided to release a direct sequel to the original film back in 2018, ignoring all of the films that came after and they surprisingly struck gold in my opinion. 2018’s Halloween isn’t a great film by any means, but it brought back the feel of the original and I may even say that I prefer it to the original. For that reason alone, I was intrigued as to where they would take this series next. Halloween Kills is now playing in theatres and here’s why I believe it’s pretty much just as good as 2018’s Halloween (for different reasons).
Picking up immediately after the events of the previous film, Laurie Strode (played once again by Jamie Lee Curtis) is being rushed to the hospital. Spending the majority of the film in the hospital, the film focuses on a number of side plots to further this story while she is laid up. More than half of this film is devoted to a storyline that involves the survivors of the original 1978 film and that was easily my favourite portion of the film, even though most of their dialogue was very clunky and overwritten. Many performers from the previous film also make a return and have bigger roles to play here, but it really came down to the simplicity of this movie that won me over.
There are very few locations here. Aside from the hospital, a few scenes on the streets, the police precinct, and some homes, this is a very confined movie. Halloween Kills exists simply to further the murder count of Michael Myers so that when Halloween Ends comes out next year, the finale of the Myers character will feel earned. Due to this though, there are many instances where it felt like the writers didn’t have anything for characters to say. The word “Evil” is said far too many times throughout this film (referring to Michael) to the point where I actually began to find it annoying, rather than be in terror like these characters were. The repetitiveness of the dialogue in this film actually hurt my enjoyment of an otherwise great entry in my opinion.
When it comes down to it, everyone just wants to see Michael Myers deliver on clever kills. If you’re going into these films hoping for something more meaningful, I think that’s a mistake right off the bat. Looking at this film from that lens, it’s a terrific Halloween film. The issue is that the issues with this film are very apparent. Again though, it’s hard to pick this film apart when it’s very clearly just trying to be one thing and it does exactly that.
In the end, Jamie Lee Curtis is solid once again as Laurie Strode (even though she doesn’t have much to do here) and all of the supporting cast is doing their best. I especially liked Anthony Michael Hall as grown-up Tommy from the original film, but again, some of his dialogue is atrocious. It really came down to the screenplay for me here. The same lines are muttered almost constantly and it made for an irritating experience in that respect. If you can get past the repetitiveness as I did, Halloween Kills is a solid sequel and if the ending of this film says anything about next year’s Halloween Ends, I”m very excited to see how this all comes to an end.
Rating: 3.5/5
Check out the trailer below:
