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A Review of “Halloween Kills (2021)”

 


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Halloween is such a weird franchise with its constant reboots and different timelines, weird 3rd anthology movie and Busta Rhymes. Halloween (2018) was a surprisingly decent sequel/reboot and I was definitely interested in a sequel. So does this sequel live up to the 2018 version or is this another failed sequel?

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Firstly, it does live up to the title as Michael Myers kills A LOT of people. The kills are also quite enjoyable to watch and it is a blast to see him take down multiple individuals. Actually, Every scene featuring Michael Myers is a highlight including him stalking his prey is fun to watch. There is also a flashbacks sequence that occurs in this film that involves using a filter to make it seem like the original 1978 movie. They also used makeup instead of CGI to bring back Dr Loomis and it looks phenomenal. The scene also fixes a plot hole from the 2018 version so that was appreciated. Surprisingly, Halloween Kills explores some social commentary about mob mentality. It shows how the fear of Michael can turn people evil as well.

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However, the social commentary is dampened by how stupid every character is in this movie. So many characters in this movie make the stupidest decisions ever made. So many characters for some reason love splitting up instead of sticking together. The movie also shows that it is clear people can buy guns yet we will see a bunch of people try to fight Myers with baseball bats and hockey sticks. There is also one scene where a couple hears that someone is in their house but for some reason don’t go outside and call the cops. One massive annoyance in this movie is that people for some reason, don’t just gang up on Myers and instead come at him one at a time like complete morons. Furthermore, these people don’t seem to ever try GOING FOR THE HEAD. It also baffles me that none of the characters realises where Myers is planning to go when it was extremely obvious.

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The story is also a complete let-down. In Halloween Kills there are two parallel plot lines, one with Myers and one with the mobs. While the mob social commentary is interesting, the plotline doesn’t have any bearing on Myer’s plot. It instead feels like it is taking a lot of screen time from what the audience wants. Additionally, Halloween Kills seems to change how Myer’s operates compared to the previous canon films. In Halloween (2018) there was a motive that Myers is returning to finish Laurie but Halloween Kills decides to just toss that motive straight out of the window. Michael Myers also felt like a psychotic killer in the previous canon films but in Halloween Kills he must have supernatural powers because he is surviving way too many unbelievable injuries with ease and magically teleporting. He also seems to know martial arts now or something because he is doing some “IP Man” style kills when fighting multiple individuals.

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One of the big disappointments is how they handled the iconic Halloween character, Laurie Strode. Throughout the film, Laurie is just in a hospital talking and monologuing. Her scenes are so irrelevant that you could remove her character and the story will still be the same. So if Laurie is not the protagonist then who is? Well, the movie splits the screen time between Laurie’s daughter Karen (Judy Greer), granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall) the child who survived in 1978, a straight couple and a gay couple. The problem is that there is not really a clear protagonist and they just split the screen time between a bunch of less interesting characters. None of them has enough screen time to develop their characters and none of them is even that likeable either.

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Overall, Halloween Kills is unfortunately a very bad sequel. It does provide the fun slashing kills that a fair amount of fans would want and enjoy. However, it is difficult to fully enjoy this film when there is a high amount of stupidity in it. This franchise was rebooted to remove itself from the ridiculous supernatural nature but seems to be making the same mistakes. Halloween Kills was a middle instalment that doesn’t build up to anything for the final instalment. The inevitable conflict between Michael Myers and Laurie for Halloween Ends just feels less meaningful now. Hopefully, Halloween Ends somehow does better.
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