Good day horror fans.
I am Torstein from Cinema Terror and this review was supposed to drop on Halloween as
that felt appropriate, but due to struggling with a soar throat over the last week, I have
not been able to finish it before now.
On the positive side, it did give me a chance to rewatch it again in cinema yesterday, after
having my first watch on the amazing annual Ramaskrik Horror Film Festival in October.
While I generally keep my reviews of new movies as spoiler free as possible, I am going to
loose my restrains up a bit for this one as I would assume everyone in the world has now
seen this film.
It will only be minor spoilers, so I don't believe that I will ruin the movie for you
if you haven't seen it, but if you haven't seen the film and are not interested in knowing
anything about it before experiencing it for yourself, then you might want to skip this
video and go see the movie first.
And just to be clear, I do believe that this is worth seeing on the big screen, so if my
opinion is your deciding factor for some reason, then yes, go see the film.
Anyways, that was a long intro, let's get into the horror event of 2018 with Halloween
uh 2018.
This is the second time Laurie Strode and Michael Myers are reunited as the franchise
has taken a similar turn and eliminated the sequels to the originals one time before twenty
years ago on Halloween H20.
I will try not to compare those two films that much, although they are very similar.
The story here takes place right after the horrific events that Laurie Strode and her
friends experienced fourty years ago on the night of Halloween.
The serial killer Michael Myers has spent these fourty years being locked up in a Sanitarium.
At the same time, Laurie has lived those same years being afraid and determined to be ready
for what she believes is the inescapable - the return of Michael Myers.
And I'm not talking about the original fourth movie of this franchise.
Only a few days before Halloween, Michael is being transferred to a maximum security
prison.
And as you could espect, something goes wrong with the transfer and he is let loose and
on his way back to Haddonfield to finish what he started fourty years ago...
Halloween 2018 is an enjoyable time spent in the theaters, but also an uneven film as
it has some awesome stuff in it, but sadly also some negative parts that keeps it from
being a great.
The best part of the film is that it is amazing to see Michael Myers on the big screen again
after such a long time and he is presented greatly here.
His mask is finally great again and that's surprisingly an aspect that several of the
original sequels did not get right.
He is the right size, menacing and he does get a portion in the middle of the film where
he gets to just walk around a neighborhood and slaughter off whoever he feels deserves
to become a victim, for no rhyme or reason.
It's also fun to see Jamie Lee Curtis return as Laurie Strode.
I am sure I don't need to explain the love that the horror community has for her and
to see her bring the character to life once again is just as big to me as it was to see
Michael go on a killing spree again.
I do like how complex her character is in this.
Yeah, she is strong in some regards, but also volunerable in other.
I must say though, I was more happy with how her character turned out in H20 though, but
Jamie Lee Curtis has some moments in this new one that are more emotionally on point,
so I can easily see fans prefering this version.
And it's not like they are all that different to be honest as this version is of course
twenty years older than the previous Laurie in H20.
Regardless of which Laurie you might end up prefering, I doubt there will be any disagreement
about Curtis delivering an excellent performance in this film.
A mistake of this film however is the lack of screen time she actually gets.
The film is filled with supporting characters that do not add to the film at all and just
robs us away from more scenes with Jamie Lee Curtis.
The worst character of them all is a totally useless character that gets to add an unnecessary
twist that annoyed the hell out of me.
I did not care for Judy Greer as Laurie's daughter Karen either.
While there was plenty of stuff to explore with her and Laurie, I just didn't care for
her or feel like I got to know much about her at all.
While Andi Matichak's character Allyson, Laurie's granddaughter and convenient teenager that
the studios can use to bring in the teen audience, feels more worthless to the overall story,
I did like Matichak's performance so that did make me more forgiving for her having
too much screen time as all the high school stuff with her and her friends adds little
except teen bodies that Michael gets to cut and slice open.
There are more supporting characters that I haven't even mentioned, but they were all
without value.
I would have much more prefered it if they had cut most of them out, focused more on
the Strode family and merged Karen and Allyson into one character, so they would have the
time to build on the broken relationship between Laurie and one of them, instead of trying
to do it with both.
There's a fantastic movie to be found within all of this is they just kept their focus
more on Laurie Strode within the movie as they have done in the great promotion work
for the film.
Now when it comes to the plot of this film, I can't say I was all that impressed.
While I loved Curtis as Laurie, there are still some illogical choices done by her and
many of the other characters.
I was surprised that it would have so many of the cliche horror topes of the slasher
film, instead of trying to be better, if you will.
And for big parts of the film, it feels like just another generic Halloween sequel.
Even if it slashed away all of the sequels after the original, it sure liked to make
references to them and even if this stuff is considered to be fan service, I as a fan
aren't all that impressed or entertained by stuff like that.
The final showdown between Laurie and Michael were cool though, but the ending felt a bit
too open.
It felt like the film was already ready for a sequel, while again, comparing to H20 this
didn't deliver anything close to the climax of that one.
I also had problems with the tone of the film.
It honestly felt kind of tonedeaf as it goes from humour to suspense to straight up brutality
and it doesn't flow that well and come together.
Especially the comedic scenes fell flat to me.
There is one specific scene with two police officers that was cringeworthy bad for me
and took away from any tension or suspense that otherwise would have been more welcoming
in those parts.
To be honest it kind of shows that David Gordon Green hasn't directed a horror film before
this and if you are looking for a Halloween film where you might become afraid or scared
of Michael Myers, then I don't believe this film will be satisfying for you.
The film is well shot though.
It looks great and there are some well crafted individual scenes that I have no doubt will
make up for an enjoyable experience for the average moviegoer.
The music is excellent and bringing back John Carpenter to score it did more than just work
as fan service, as the new stuff he created for this film is excellent and one of my favorite
parts of this new film.
Much of the technical aspect of it will probably make many moviegoers ignore the flaws of the
film and if it did that for you, then that's fine.
Not spotting or caring about flaws and just being able to sit and have an enjoyable time
is never a bad thing in my book.
Halloween 2018 has already become a huge success in the States and I am sure that it will perform
the same when it gets released in the rest of the world, which has probably happened
before this video is finished.
It is the horror event of 2018 and I both love that it exist and that it is being received
as well as it has been so far.
The fan in me found plenty of things that brought the experience down for me personally,
but I have no doubt that this will be a fun experience for the majority of horror fans
out there, so I do recommend that you go see it on the big screen.
All my gripes aside, it was enjoyable to sit and watch Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode
and Michael Myers back on a murder spree on the big screen.
While it is very uneven, I do believe that Halloween is an entertaining film that will
serve its audience and as such I am giving it a score of 3 out of 5.
This turned out to be quite the long review.
It's fun to be able to talk about a new entry into a franchise that we horror fans hold
dear to our hearts, so there will always be a lot to say about them and I could honestly
have expanded this review even more and talked more in detail on what I liked or disliked
about it.
Hopefully it ended with a length that you as a viewer are happy with.
Speaking of you, have you been able to see this film yet?
If so, what did you think of it?
And do you think that the success of Halloween will open the doors for a new handful of horror
remakes?
It's still to early to tell for me, but which film do you prefer.
This new one or Halloween H20?
Feel free to go wild in the comment section below with all your thoughts and opinions.
Thank you for checking out my review of this film, especially since there are so many,
many more out there by now.
Hope you enjoyed it and that you keep checking back for more horror movie reviews here on
Cinema Terror.
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