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Halloween Kills


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I know it’s been brought up elsewhere, but rather than digging into a mega thread I decided to start a separate one.
 

My kids are little and my wife hates horror, so I watched this in 10-20 minute snippets. I enjoyed it a lot more than the last movie. I know one complaint was that people didn’t care about anyone who was killed, but I thought this movie did a better job than the last one in that regard. It was cool seeing how the trauma has impacted a town for decades, and the human reaction that is missing from most slasher films. 
 

Which, really, the slasher genre is filled with generic characters that nobody cares about. It’s rare to have a slasher film with any memorable characters other than the final girl. There are exceptions, but they’re the exceptions that prove the rule. But I can’t even tell you what stereotypes were killed in the last one. 

I also loved that it mirrored Halloween 2 with the hospital setting.

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SPOILERS...

 

I loved the way this film changed the narrative by showing Michael Myers doesn't give a damn about Laurie Strode. She spent the last 40 years building traps, learning how to use all types of firearms, secluding herself in a fortress and destroying her family in the process. All while Michael hasn't given her one thought because when he does escape, all he is thinking about is going back home. Laurie and Karen keep babbling on about "he's coming here" [to the hospital where she is] but we see differently. The cop in the bed next to her practically told her, b**ch please, you're not that important. 

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Some stuff I liked:

-What I wrote in my previous post about Laurie not being central to Michael. She and Karen believed he escaped to come back and get her. But even after he did confront her again in H2018, he completely forgot about her once she was taken to the hospital and he escaped the fire trap. It seems she is more obsessed with him than he is of her. 

-The film showing that the whole town was suffering from a group PTSD from the events of 40 years ago. Again, it wasn't just all about the Strodes. Many other people's lives were changed that night. It's about time someone else besides Laurie got involved. Cory Feldman has said his idea for a Friday the 13th sequel would be for Jason's survivors to unite and somehow attempt to purge their trauma together. I always thought that was an interesting concept and HK went that route. By the way, Brackett waited all this time to get Michael back for killing his daughter and this is what he gets?

-Minor background characters (played by the same actors in both films) in H2018 were pushed to the front of HK. We see the doctor and nurse couple leaving their house in H2018 as Michael begins his killing spree. There they are now joining the posse in HK after seeing the news that he was in their neighborhood and killed people they knew. The cemetery caretaker who showed the reporters Judith's grave in H2018 (and saw Michael watching them from afar still in his inmate attire) is the same lady playing with the drone who is attacked in this one. I like when sequels pay attention to details like this. It's very Star Wars-esque (such as Femi Taylor reprising her role 14 years later as Jabba's dancer in the ROTJ SE when they could've gotten anyone to play that role.)

Stuff I didn't like:

-Anthony Michael Hall's portrayal of Tommy. It probably has to do more with the way it was written. 

-Young Lonnie Elam's character in the 1978 flashbacks didn't align with the original film. He was a totally different kid.

-People being stupid. I get that it's a slasher film trope. But does it have to keep happening so obviously?

-Excessive gore (especially considering the original is famous for suspense over blood). Michael was played more like Jason. The Michael from the original film would've used the firefighters helping him to get out, killed those two, then slipped out without anyone else knowing he had been there at all. Instead he went full on Terminator once he got out of the house. He stabs Phil (the man who had been playing with the drone) with every knife in the kitchen. We didn't need to see a full extended shot of the inmate splattered on the concrete. Watching him fall and hearing the sound was enough.   

 

 

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I liked the way it flipped expectations like Michael’s obsession, and I liked seeing the trauma for the entire town. The only thing that really stood out to me that I hated was the talk about Michael being invincible. It reminded me too much of Loomis talking to the preacher in Halloween 4.  There were a few other moments that you could tell they were referencing other movies, and they definitely gave an “eff you” to the crappy Rob Zombie movies, which wasn’t necessary.

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I thought the whole reason they decided to retcon back to just the original movie was to make Myers grounded and not have him be supernaturally invincible like he was in the later sequels. But then they go back to it. I just wasn’t impressed.

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The problem is they went from hinting that he’s got some super power to spelling it out. That’s where the original series went off the tracks. But I’ve had a head canon of Halloween, Halloween 2, and Halloween H20.

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I don't mind Michael being portrayed as a supernatural being who can't be killed, but I think it could have been handled better.  

SPOILERS...

Like how Michael was seemingly overpowered by the mob of people at the end.  And then he just suddenly gets up and effortlessly kills all of them?  It was too over the top and all happened too fast.  It actually made me think of the Padme resurrection scene in AOTC.  

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Yep. I actually don’t mind it if they portray him as being superhuman. I wouldn’t have disliked Laurie thinking it, either. But it was too on the nose for me with her monologue over the beating / insta-resurrection. 
 

I would have liked the whole thing more if they had turned their backs on him and when they looked back he was gone. That fits Michael better than the scene that existed.

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1 hour ago, Fozzie said:

The problem is they went from hinting that he’s got some super power to spelling it out. That’s where the original series went off the tracks. But I’ve had a head canon of Halloween, Halloween 2, and Halloween H20.

This is the true Halloween timeline. He was just supposedly big and evil enough in his heart he had fortitude in the original. In 2 he was powered by evil, but not a superman. When he returned in 4 he was full on unkillable.

I always liked Michael better than Jason, but Jason came back as unkillable in 86's Jason Lives, Halloween 4 was 88. I can't help but think they took a cue from Jason. Freddy of course came back to un-life first in 85... though I supposed he was always a phantom of sorts and dead to begin with.

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I think it would have been cool to have those older films acknowledged somehow as fictional in this new continuity.  For example, it could have been revealed that they were stories written by someone in that survivors group.  That way, while not exactly cannon, those films would still have a place.  Fiction within fiction.

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I would say that the original movies (1 & 2) have Michael as superhuman, but not necessarily supernatural. It was really 4 & 5 that turned him supernatural. And this one seemed to go the supernatural route.  Which reminds me, I also disliked the firefighter massacre scene.

But overall, I still am pretty positive about the movie. 

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5 hours ago, Quetzalcoatl said:

I think it would have been cool to have those older films acknowledged somehow as fictional in this new continuity.  For example, it could have been revealed that they were stories written by someone in that survivors group.  That way, while not exactly cannon, those films would still have a place.  Fiction within fiction.

They sort of low key did this in the last one. The granddaughter jokes about how people “made up stories about Michael and Laurie being brother and sister.”

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I watched Kills a second time today and enjoyed it more. The second half didn't bother me as much. I think the criticism of the characters being dumb is sort of the point David Gordon Green was making about mobs. They're not thinking rationally. Karen makes this point in the hospital scenes with her daughter. Brackett says about Myers "Now his making us monsters." after they chase that other poor mental patient to his death. 

I liked that Laurie was sidelined in this movie. She's a grandma who got stabbed in the stomach. Makes sense that she would be out of commission for this film. It was refreshing seeing the other characters from the original Halloween and their stories of what happened that night. Tommy and Lonnie were my favorites by far. To be honest I needed this break from Laurie. We will definitely get her in full Sarah Connor mode in Halloween Ends next year. 

Finally the recreation of the Myers house and Loomis were excellent. So good to hear it was prosthetic makeup. It didn't look cgi to me. I thought maybe deep fake. Did anyone else catch that Myers attacked the cop with rope. Harkens back to the original Halloween where Brackett says he stole knives, a Halloween mask and some rope? The rope was the only thing we didn't see him use until this films flashback. Although he might have used it on Bob when his dead body comes swinging though the closet door but still it was cool to see him use it more prominently in the new movie.

 

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I hated Laurie being sidelined it-- it's just too obvious to me that the injured her on purpose just to get her out of the way until the next movie. That's poor planning. It's like when people argued that Superman killed Zod in Man of Steel was justifiable because Zod had him pinned down. Or that Obi-Wan's task of hunting down Grevious was super important. You can't use in-story logic to defend poor storytelling. They didn't have enough material for Laurie in the middle of their story so they engineered a way to keep her out of the loop for a bit the same way General Grevious was invented to gived Obi-Wan something to do in ROTS until it was time ti fight Anakin.

I actually re-watched the 2018 Halloween and H20 last night and loved/hated so many things about both of them hahaha.

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I like H20 better. I prefer this version of Laurie to the 2018 one. She's more of a victim at the beginning who learns to confront her demon and I like the brother/sister angle better. Plus we get that great Janet Leigh cameo! 2018 Laurie is a badass from the get go which is not that interesting.

The 2018 film still doesn't work for me. There are some cool scenes with Michael Myers stalking and killing but  I'm really not digging the podcasters, Dr. Sartain, all the call backs to the sequels and Karen and her husband. I liked Karen much more in Halloween Kills. 

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19 hours ago, Quetzalcoatl said:

But H2O wins, right?  

I felt like it didn't quite hold up for two reasons-- one it is pretty cheap looking. I mean, most 90s horror films did not have a huge budget and it came post-Scream which changed everything. It looks like a TV movie at times.

Second, Michael himself is AWFUL. The body wasn't right, he wasn't imposing. He seemed like he was 15 years old. And the mask is one of the worst in the serious. Between the goofy eyebrows and the, as far as I am concerned, UNFORGIVABLE decision to have his eyes visible all the time pretty much removes all scare quality.

That said, if this plot/script was made by the team that made the new ones, and had that level of look/feel/vibe, it would be awesome and one of the best in the series.

3 hours ago, Iceman said:

I like H20 better. I prefer this version of Laurie to the 2018 one. She's more of a victim at the beginning who learns to confront her demon and I like the brother/sister angle better. Plus we get that great Janet Leigh cameo! 2018 Laurie is a badass from the get go which is not that interesting.

The 2018 film still doesn't work for me. There are some cool scenes with Michael Myers stalking and killing but  I'm really not digging the podcasters, Dr. Sartain, all the call backs to the sequels and Karen and her husband. I liked Karen much more in Halloween Kills. 

But YES, to all of this.

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As much as I like H20, I agree completely about the mask.  My favorite Michael mask is the one he wears in Halloween 4, 5, and 6.  I've heard it argued many times by fans that that is the most terrible mask because it looks kinda stretched is lacking in facial features like cheekbones etc., but this for me is what made it scary.  It kinda had a surreal quality to it.   

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On 11/5/2021 at 2:03 PM, Iceman said:

I watched Kills a second time today and enjoyed it more. The second half didn't bother me as much. I think the criticism of the characters being dumb is sort of the point David Gordon Green was making about mobs. They're not thinking rationally. Karen makes this point in the hospital scenes with her daughter. Brackett says about Myers "Now his making us monsters." after they chase that other poor mental patient to his death. 

I liked that Laurie was sidelined in this movie. She's a grandma who got stabbed in the stomach. Makes sense that she would be out of commission for this film. It was refreshing seeing the other characters from the original Halloween and their stories of what happened that night. Tommy and Lonnie were my favorites by far. To be honest I needed this break from Laurie. We will definitely get her in full Sarah Connor mode in Halloween Ends next year. 

Finally the recreation of the Myers house and Loomis were excellent. So good to hear it was prosthetic makeup. It didn't look cgi to me. I thought maybe deep fake. Did anyone else catch that Myers attacked the cop with rope. Harkens back to the original Halloween where Brackett says he stole knives, a Halloween mask and some rope? The rope was the only thing we didn't see him use until this films flashback. Although he might have used it on Bob when his dead body comes swinging though the closet door but still it was cool to see him use it more prominently in the new movie.

 

Just wanted to point out that my criticism of characters acting stupid for no real reason wasn't in reference to the mob. I actually thought that part of the movie worked. It showed how the mob mentality can and does happen. People get all riled up and act in ways they normally wouldn't under those circumstances. And I've heard the film getting bashed because the mob went after a guy that did not look like Michael Myers. These people were frightened, some had lost loved ones, and none of them had seen Michael Myers before so they really wouldn't know what he looks or acts like. So them going after that other escapee was believable. 

My criticism of the dumb character trope was directed at the people that were not involved in the mob scenes. The couple living in the Myers house actually say that they know someone is inside the house and that it's an adult. They see blood on their doorway. Do they call the police? Nah, let's grab some knives and check it out. I can forgive this one. But then Lonnie Elam and the two kids figure out Michael is at the Myers house. So of course Lonnie does the standard "stay here while I go inside" routine. The kids then go into the house after hearing a gunshot. This trope is made worse by the fact that this isn't a slasher movie taking place in 1978. It's 2021 but none of them use their cell phones to alert anyone of where they are or what they are doing even though they know the town has been banding together all night after what happened to the Strodes. So the mob is raging at the hospital while Lonnie goes after the real killer with just himself and two kids.

 

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On 11/7/2021 at 2:36 PM, Quetzalcoatl said:

As much as I like H20, I agree completely about the mask.  My favorite Michael mask is the one he wears in Halloween 4, 5, and 6.  I've heard it argued many times by fans that that is the most terrible mask because it looks kinda stretched is lacking in facial features like cheekbones etc., but this for me is what made it scary.  It kinda had a surreal quality to it.   

 

Halloween 4.jpg

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