Halloween *** (2018, Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Haluk Bilginer, Will Patton) – Movie Review

Co-writer/ director David Gordon Green’s 2018 Halloween reboot is good, intense, suspenseful and scary, a solid horror thriller, but no knockout. It has no new story to tell – how could it? – but it retells the old story with some style and imagination. In fact, the film is not a Halloween reboot or a remake, but a continuation of the story in Halloween (1978), yet it is still the same old story.

It is excellent to have Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie Strode, now a crazy granny getting her gun ready for Michael Myers’s reappearance on Halloween, 40 years on from John Carpenter’s original Halloween. It is also good to have John Carpenter back as producer and in the music section of the movie, contributing to the score that really propels the film along at its many mini climaxes. The idea from the ads that ‘you will freak the hell out’ is ridiculous, but there are quite a few highly effective shocks and scares and jumps built in along the slasher flick ride, along with a nicely established and sustained eerie atmosphere.

Judy Greer and Andi Matichak are not nearly as effective as Laurie’s daughter Karen and granddaughter Allyson, making remarkably little impact, but then their roles are underwritten, and in Greer’s case unsympathetic, defying this good actress. And Matichak is in the uninteresting part of the movie. However, Haluk Bilginer is solid in the Loomis substitute character of crazy old Dr Sartain and Will Patton scores as Officer Hawkins.

The focus is on the haunted Laurie Strode and her new confrontation with masked Michael Myers, whose clutches she just escaped on Halloween night four decades ago, but there is teen movie stuff too with the granddaughter Allyson going to the Halloween school dance party with her boyfriend and his buddy. This is way less good, the weakest section of the movie, a strand we don’t need at all.

There could be even more focus on Laurie Strode. When she is battling her past trauma, warning her family or gearing up for actual battle, the movie is alight, on fire. The bits that Curtis is not in are not nearly as good.

There could be even more focus on Michael Myers. When he is breaking out of his incarceration, murderously picking up his mask and knife, and then rampaging, the movie is alight, on fire. The bits that Michael is not in are not nearly as good. It really is strange that we only get the aftermath of the crucial bus crash when Michael escapes, not the build up to the crash and the crash itself. A key suspense/ horror scene is chucked away, though it does make for a great aftermath sequence, one of the best in the film.

If the script seems messy, unresolved and unfocused, sometimes all over the place, probably to do with the editing down of the movie from its first cut of 135 minutes to 106 minutes, leaving strands of the plot stranded and hanging, the score, direction and cinematography, as well as the 1978 retro titles, produce a stylish, polished, confident movie. David Gordon Green has done a decent job, though, even so, the original Halloween does not need to worry about the competition.

The mix of Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers proves irresistible. It cost $10,000,000 and took a stunning $76,221,000 on its opening weekend in the US. Needless to say, the door is open for Halloween 2.

[Spoiler alert] The end credits finish on the sound of breathing.

Halloween is 18 certificate gory and violent, but nothing too terrible or gruesome. It is rated R for horror violence and bloody images, strong language, brief drug use and nudity.

Curtis has played Laurie Strode in five films: Halloween (1978), Halloween II (1981), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), Halloween: Resurrection (2002) and this film. Family friend Jake Gyllenhaal convinced Jamie Lee Curtis to reprise her role of Laurie Strode.

Nick Castle at 70 is the oldest actor to play Michael Myers, credited as The Shape, as in 1978. Curtis, Castle and P J Soles as the teacher are the only cast members to return from Halloween (1978).

The first cut of the film was 135 minutes, and director David Gordon Green says that both the ‘fat’ of the film and entire scenes were cut out for pacing and length.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

It’s behind you: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak in Halloween.