Review of Halloween (2018) by Taylord99 — 02 Nov 2018

Halloween is directed by David Gordon Green and is the direct sequel to the original Halloween film of the same name by John Carpenter. This movie ignores all the sequels and tries to right the wrongs that they have done to the franchise.

The plot centers around Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who has become a bit of a hermit-survivalist after being traumatized by the events of Halloween set 40 years prior to this film. She fortified her home and trains herself seemingly every day to prepare for Michael Myers’ inevitable return.

However, this has made her estranged from her family as Laurie Strode’s daughter, Karen (Judie Greer) wants little to do with her mother considering how she raised her as a child and how her behavior seems to be overly compulsive and obsessive about Michael Myers.

However, Laurie Strode soon learns that she needs to reunite with her daughter and granddaughter because she fears for their safety due to Michael Myer’s escape from the mental institution via a bus crash.

Overall, the writing for this movie is decent. The plot is overall well thought out and it is awesome to see Laurie Strode and Michael Myers go face to face on the big screen again. The dialogue, for the most part, is serviceable and has some great character exchanges, but I feel that the humor was a bit overdone in some points.

For example, in the film, there are some scenes that are clearly meant to be taken seriously, yet jokes are thrown in kind of randomly. Some of them made me laugh, but others left me a bit puzzled as to why they would put comic relief in certain moments.

As for the character writing, the standout characters are of course, Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. The rest of the characters are serviceable, but they’re nothing special. The best parts of the movie, for me, were when Laurie Strode and/or Michael Myers were on screen.

Overall, though, the writing is serviceable. Not bad, but nothing special. What the movie really gets right is the entertainment value. When Michael goes on his killing spree, I was enthralled. The kills are done well and very brutally.

In fact, I would say that Michael Myers is more intimidating here than he was in the original film. This film makes it extremely clear how much of a strong, brutal and unfeeling man Michael Myers really is.

There are a lot more blunt and messy kills in this movie than there are in the original. The kills in the original Halloween were at times a bit silly looking, but in this film, the kills have a serious sense of weight and brutality to them that the original just didn’t have.

The musical score is also done well. It kind of sounds like a modernized version of John Carpenter’s score from 1978. After all, he composed this score as well. It adheres to the classic score while adding a slight modernish edge to it and I thought it worked very well.

As for the cinematography, it was well done too. The movie does look good and is lit very well and there are plenty of long takes and long shots. There are plenty of people who say this movie doesn’t have an atmosphere, but to be honest, I disagree.

I think this movie has plenty of atmosphere and is very creepy at times. Although the film has a rocky first act, it hits its stride in the final two acts and is a non-stop, tense thrill ride from there on out.

The final confrontation between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode is awesome, with a kind of a role reversal, as the hunter becomes the hunted. Although I do have complaints with this movie, overall, I really enjoyed Halloween.