Review of Halloween Kills (2021) by Perk8J — 16 Oct 2021

An escaped mental patient stalking a babysitter is scary because it was somewhat grounded with reality. That was the basic premise in Halloween (1978), yet it was still effective at scaring audiences. In Halloween Kills, Michael Myers returns more as a Terminator than a stalker.

It’s a reminder at how ridiculous the original premise has become. Director David Gordon Green offers nothing fresh to the Michael Myers mythos relying solely on redundant easter eggs and flashbacks.

The opening flashback sequence does feature the most suspenseful moments in the film. It appears this sequence is shot in 35mm giving a pretty authentic recapture of the 1978 original. Why wasn’t the whole film shot like this? However, the creepiest bit in Kills are the new owners of the Myers house.

Oddly, they’ve kept the Judith’s vanity table in the same corner Myers murdered her in the original. Through out Kills archive footage from both the 1978 and 2018 films occur as recap for the audience.

Anyone who has seen the original doesn’t need to go through these again. There are plenty of rehashed easter eggs from the 2018 film like background trick or treaters sporting Silver Shamrock masks.

Personally, Steve Miner’s H20 featured better ones such as Janet Leigh's cameo appearance and her 1957 Ford she drove in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). At least Miner established clever use of meta-textual linking between both the Halloween and Scream franchises.

Speaking of H20 I thought it better perceived Laurie Strode’s emotional aftermath of the 1978 film. In Green’s Halloween (2018) and Kills he stretches Strode’s turmoil too far. The connection between Strode and Myers makes no sense now that the sibling angle is gone.

The dynamics between the two is akin to Sarah Conner versus The Terminator. It’s a far cry from the premise of the original movie. This rebooted story-arc should’ve never spanned as a trilogy because let’s face it— Michael Myers just isn’t scary anymore.

Todays horrors such as human trafficking or the Taliban outweigh anything another needless Halloween sequel will try to achieve. Kills plays like a pointless filler between the 2018 film and the build up for Ends.

It’s already been hinted by Strode that both herself and Myers [might] meet their fate at sunset the day after Halloween. Overall, the Halloween franchise really should’ve ended with H20, which was the perfect conclusion to the Myers and Strode feud.