Halloween Kills (18)

Laurie Strode, her daughter Karen and granddaughter Allyson flee a burning house with Michael Myers trapped in the basement. Alas, the hulking predator escapes a fiery demise thanks to a kindly fireman and continues his relentless pursuit of the Strode clan. Faced with their worst nightmare, Laurie, Karen and Allyson join a baying mob of other survivors to hunt down and slay Michael.

LondonNet Film Review
Halloween Kills (18)

Civil unrest in the tragedy-scarred Illinois town of Haddonfield sparks violent scenes reminiscent of the January 2021 insurrection in Washington DC, in the second chapter of director David Gordon Green’s trilogy reboot of the Halloween franchise. An angry mob chants “Evil dies tonight!” and defies pleas for calm from local law enforcement to hunt down Michael Myers, the hulking bogeyman who has stalked residents’ dreams for 40 years…

“It’s Halloween, everyone’s entitled to one good scare,” growls Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers), former sheriff of Haddonfield and now a security officer at Memorial Hospital, who lost his daughter Annie to the serial killer in 1978. Alas, that promise of blood-curdling thrills doesn’t apply to us because Halloween Kills neither shocks nor surprises as Gordon Green reduces the population of Haddonfield (“a simple town where nothing exciting happens”) by close to 30 residents in 105 minutes.

Almost all principal characters from the 2018 iteration of Halloween end this gleefully gory middle instalment at the same point in their narrative journey as they begin the film. No meaningful personal growth, just repeated proclamations that Myers must die. In Haddonfield, of all places, it is laughable that informed townsfolk, including survivors of the 1978 slasher (largely portrayed by the same actors), believe that a handgun, knife or wooden bat is sufficient protection from a masked menace who has survived 10 big-screen bloodbaths until this point. Moreover, their habit of lingering by glass-panelled doors and windows with a superhuman psychopath on the loose elicits no sympathy when Myers invariably strikes.

Continuing directly after the first film, three generations of Strode women – Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) – flee Laurie’s burning house with Michael trapped in the basement. They head to Memorial Hospital for emergency surgery on a stab wound to Laurie’s abdomen. Meanwhile, brave firemen inadvertently free Michael from the inferno and the monster continues his relentless pursuit of the Strodes.

Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), one of the kids that Laurie babysat in 1978, whips up residents into a frenzied mob flanked by good friend Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards) and Dr Loomis’ retired former assistant, Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens). “Michael Myers has haunted this town for 40 years,” barks Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson, brandishing a shotgun. “Tonight, we hunt him down!”

Halloween Kills should be retitled Halloween Flatlines. The body count is ridiculously high as scriptwriters Green, Scott Teems and Danny McBride half-heartedly pass the scream queen baton between Laurie, Karen and Allyson. Regrettably, it’s all smoke and mirrors to tread blood until the trilogy’s concluding chapter. Let us pray that Halloween Ends, released in October 2022, is a declaration of solemn, irreversible intent.

– Kim Hu