Yes, I realise I’m a little late to the party with this one given that at the time of writing David Gordon Green’s Halloween has been in cinemas just over a week, and to the tune of the highest box office takings in franchise history no less. But if we’re speaking in terms of who’s showing up a little late, there are plenty who’d say the Halloween series is well overdue a return to screens. With Rob Zombie’s reboot and its sequel now the best part of a decade behind us, and almost unanimously dismissed by critics and fans as a mistake, the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter’s groundbreaking slasher presented an irresistible opportunity to set Michael Myers back on his reign of terror. While the choice of Green as director may have raised some eyebrows given his inexperience with horror (aside from his having long been attached to the Suspiria remake before vacating the director’s chair for Luca Guadagnino), otherwise Halloween 2018 would appear to be doing everything right. Jason Blum, the single most influential horror producer of the 21st century, is on board, and – reportedly at the persuasion of co-producer and former Shock Till You Drop editor Ryan Turek – they brought back the three most significant figures from the 1978 original: Jamie Lee Curtis reprising the role of Laurie Strode, Nick Castle back behind the mask as ‘The Shape,’ and John Carpenter himself once again providing the score, whilst both he and Curtis take executive producer credits. (Aside from the two of them, Blum, Turek and long-time series stalwart Malek Akkad, there are no less than ten more credited producers on the film.) Surely all this was enough to bring Halloween back to its former glory, then?
Well, here’s where I might lose some of you… honestly, I’m not sure the Halloween series ever was anything that glorious. Yes, Carpenter’s original is a classic, a film that had a big impact on me, and an insurmountable influence on the past four decades of the horror genre; but even so, I really don’t think that Halloween as a franchise ever amounted to much. Honestly, I’ve never cared much for any of the sequels beyond the notorious series side-step Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Clearly I’m not the only person to feel that way, as Halloween 2018 is of course the third time the franchise has tried to rip it all up and start again, after 1998’s Halloween H20 and the aforementioned 2007 Rob Zombie reboot. In theory, Halloween 2018 would seem to be taking a pretty bold approach, disregarding literally everything that came after the original – including 1981’s Halloween II, and its infamous revelation that Michael and Laurie were siblings (which Carpenter has long since admitted he regrets) – and picking up with a now geriatric Michael and Laurie starting their fight to the death all over again.
Of course, given that, for better or worse, we’ve already had 10 Halloween movies, and Carpenter’s film has inspired literally countless imitators, you might be forgiven for going into Halloween 2018 wondering whether it’s all been done already. I’m not sure whether that’s the case or not, but of this much I’m sure: if there’s still some life left in Halloween, this film doesn’t find it. Not at all. As much as I recall H20, Resurrection and the Rob Zombie entries leaving me infuriated, at least I came out of those films feeling something. This time around, I’m stunned by the total lack of feeling. As much as it might aim to be reverential of the original, and balance this out with some grounded family-based drama, it all adds up to a whole lot of nothing.
You pretty much know the essentials already. We’re in an alternate timeline in which none of the Halloween sequels happened, and forty years have passed since that fateful Halloween night when escaped mental patient Michael Myers murdered Laurie Strode’s best friends and almost took her life too. In the decades since, Michael has been incarcerated in the Smith’s Grove institute, and since the death of Loomis his care has been in the hands of Dr Sartain (Haluk Bilginer). But in a clear case of history repeating itself, Michael is poised to be transferred to a new facility once again, and anyone who knows the killer’s history knows he’s bound to escape and return to his old hunting ground. However, this time around Laurie Strode is ready and waiting for him. Severely traumatised by the events of Halloween night 1978, she’s spent the last four decades going full T2 Sarah Connor, studying home security, survival, marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat. She also made a fierce point of instilling these skills in her daughter Karen (Judy Greer), and it left such a mark that the two are largely estranged all these years later, meaning that Laurie also has a strained, distant relationship with her granddaughter Alyson (Andi Matichak). But hey, maybe a night of being stalked by a kill-crazy madman in a battered old William Shatner mask might be just what this dysfunctional family unit needs to heal old wounds.
It’s clear that all the key players came in with the best intentions, and there’s certainly the makings of a great film in here somewhere. The script from Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley gives us the most complex version of Laurie that Curtis has ever gotten to play; and, credit where it’s due, her PTSD is handled a hell of a lot more effectively than Scout Taylor Compton’s in the 2009 Halloween II, not that there was ever much question of that. It’s also nice knowing that, for the first time since 1978, Nick Castle is the Shape once again (although the 71 year old shares credit with the younger James Jude Courtney, who presumably takes the more physically demanding moments); and of course it’s great to hear Carpenter’s original themes given a breath of fresh air in collaboration with his son Cody and Daniel Davies, both of whom worked on Carpenter’s recent albums. In addition, comparative newcomer Andi Matichak was a good find for Alyson, conveying a lot of that classic final girl strength which would serve her well in more pivotal roles; yet here she can’t help feeling like a bit of a fifth wheel, a surrogate Laurie, somewhat gratuitous given we have the actual Laurie right there.
This, really, is the crux of the problem: with the exception of Matichak, and Jibrail Nantambu as an unbelievably cute and funny little kid being babysat for, none of the new characters are remotely interesting. The whole thread that gets things in motion, British podcasters trying to score interviews with both Michael and Laurie, is tedious as all hell. Michael’s new doctor, and his role in proceedings, is boring and obvious. There are a slew of would-be comedic asides – cops on stakeout comparing lunches, a boy on a hunt complaining about missing dance class, pretty much all the high school sequences – that totally miss the mark, and leave you wondering how the hell they made the final cut; particularly when so many of the more significant scenes between Curtis and Judy Greer are so badly edited, clearly trimmed down for fear of challenging the audience’s attention span. Greer herself, though a good actress, seems really out of sorts for the most part, and we really never get a strong mother-daughter vibe (even considering their estrangement) between her and Curtis.
Above and beyond all this, though, Halloween 2018 is just boring to look at. While I’ve enjoyed some of David Gordon Green’s films in the past, his work has always been a bit nondescript visually, and this is no exception. They may be aiming for a relatively gritty and grounded feel – almost akin to the Zombie entries, but not quite so grim or sleazy – but it just feels bland and lifeless. The kills, too, can’t avoid a sense of tedium, even if they are surprisingly gruesome, particularly considering this entry aimed to be closest to the almost entirely bloodless original. That having been said, as visually dull as Halloween 2018 may be at the best of times, that’s preferable to the groan-inducing moments when it directly recreates a number of iconic shots from its predecessor.
Given that it’s making a killing (ha! get it?) at the box office, it looks likely that Halloween 2018 may once again revive the series, and there seem to be a lot of murmurs around the social media campfire that the likes of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street may soon enough follow suit. As a lifelong fan of those franchises, I’m certainly not against any of that happening, but I really hope that this film is not held up as some sort of creative benchmark for a new wave of slashers. Its heart may be in the right place, but its aim is so far off the mark it’s untrue.
Halloween is in cinemas now, from Universal.